The Most Bizarre Facts From History - AskReddit

michael jackson had pretended to be a statue of himself for over an hour to scare these guys waiting in his lobby what's the most bizarre historical fact you know albert einstein was offered the presidency of israel on november 17 1952 following the death of israel's first president haim wiseman he declined saying he lacked the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people to do the job when franklin d roosevelt died in office the manhattan project atomic bomb was so secret that his vice president didn't even know about it and upon taking oath truman had to be briefed on the existence of the bomb so this is actually something major we have to learn for a level history the fact that roosevelt only trusted people who created the bomb with the information that it existed emphasized how powerful the bomb was however if you want a bizarre fact then when the americans created their most powerful explosion castle bravo the russians literally laughed and told them they can do better and created something over three times as powerful zarbomba biggest fu in history ancient minoan said plumbing heated floors and running water 3000 years before the romans figured it out they funneled hot air from fires through an opening under the floor the culture had enough wealthy people with slaves and passed down knowledge to have engineers specifically to make houses more comfortable we always think of technology as a linear progression but it seems much more accurate to think of periods of advanced wealthy societies followed by dark ages or recessions of technology and wealth the civilizations of the mediterranean bronze age collapsed not to be replaced until the classical greeks and romans a thousand years later and the roman civilization was followed by the european middle ages with a return of stability and prosperity coming another thousand years later during the apollo 8 flight astronaut commander frank borman came down with a stomach bug and ended up vomiting and pooping himself at the same time there was barf and diarrhea floating around the space capsule and the other astronauts had to put on gas masks to block the stench while they cleaned it up in a similar vein on a space mission i can't remember which one before vacuum toilets were invented a crew member took a poop and didn't bag it up resulting in a fat log floating about the cabin on the mission transcript you can see that there was a discussion about who did it and no one ever owned up [Music] the roman ruler nero would make people sit around listening to him badly play the harp for so long that some of the men faked his death to get out of it nero got a lot of revisionist slander after he died maybe he was bad at music but really hard to know because most people hated him for all the other stuff he did he was basically trying to live a rock star life of drinking parties and music which was unbecoming of the emperor vikings went as far as modern-day morocco to fight as mercenaries harold haroda traveled the rivers of russia to join the varangian guard he raided the length and breadth of the mediterranean before returning to the north and make himself king of two nations by right of blood in battle then he invaded england and became the second of three kings to die in that land in that year his life was basically a metal album only without the slow and quite bits george washington spent roughly 15 of his money on liquor everyone drank at least hard cider anything alcoholic because water wasn't always good knowing nothing about sewage germs etc water was often contaminated then drinking alcohol might ruin your liver and kill you by the age of 30. drinking contaminated water will kill you by the time you're seven to eight years old drinking alcohol was safer the man who survived both of the atomic bomb attacks on japan tsutomu yamaguchi was on a business trip in hiroshima on august 6 1945 when the first bomb was dropped being no more than two miles away from ground zero he suffered multiple injuries but survived he eventually managed to leave the city by train to return to his home in nagasaki on august 9 yamaguchi showed up to work and was telling his bosses about his ordeal in hiroshima when the second bomb was dropped although he was a similar distance away from the second blast as he was from the first yamaguchi miraculously survived again martin luther hallucinated demons in the bathroom all the time there is a quite famous legend about him throwing a bottle of ink against the devil when the emperor declared luther an outlaw after refusing to withdraw his beliefs he was kidnapped by his admirer the prince elector of saxony and brought in to hide out on the wartburg there he translated the bible from greek into german and while he sat there doing this monotonous work he allegedly saw the devil mocking him so luther throw the next thing he could grasp and throw it against the devil causing him to disappear i lived in the town next to the wartburg and when i was a kid i often would search for the ink spot that remained on the wall in his room unfortunately the wall itself is quite spotted when x-rays were first discovered in the 1800s people found that if you held an x-ray tube up to your eye you'd see something akin to fireworks this is a result of the x-rays hitting the molecules in your eye then exciting the electrons to a higher energy level when the electrons fell back to their base state energy would be released in the form of heat and visible light the light being emitted was what people saw they had no idea that radiation was harmful thus x-ray tubes became commonplace at parties of rich people it was once common to sell your pita tanners they used it to soften hides to make clothing they started off with used camel urine but eventually the workers started to use their own which is suspected to have started in france one dude's pee worked especially well and it was because he had syphilis which used to be treated with mercury eventually after the connection was made with mercury it was used on its own to treat the hats and the workers often developed mercury poisoning as a result of working with it symptoms of mercury poisoning include tremors hallucinations paranoia and psychosis and that's where lewis carroll's mad hatter came from [Music] ancient greek tragedian escalus ca 450 bce received a prophecy that he would die by something falling on his head he spent the rest of his life outside in open fields where a passing bird dropped a turtle on his head and killed him the most isolated tree in the world was in the sahara desert it was hundreds of miles from any other tree its roots extended hundreds of feet down to water in the 1970s it was hit and destroyed by a drunk driver imagine being the guy that hit the tree with your car one of the deadliest earliest explosion was the wang gong chong explosion in 1626 reportedly killing around 20 000 people the nature of the explosion is still unclear to this day as it is estimated to have released energy equivalent to about 10 to 20 kiloton of tnt similar to that of the hiroshima bombing the palace in the forbidden city was under renovation at the time and over 2 000 workers were shaken off the roof falling to their deaths tian chi emperor himself was having breakfast in quanking palace when the explosion happened and after the initial quake all the palace servants panicked with fear so the emperor started running to the hall of union followed only by a single guard who remained calm but the guard was later killed by a falling tile tian chi emperor's only remaining heir the seven-month-old crown prince joo sejong died from the shock in the year 892 sigurd the mighty of orkney was feeling pretty proud of himself after killing his foe maul brigged so proud in fact that he cut off brigged's head and strapped it to his horse's saddle unfortunately for sigurd he sat in such a way that caused briggs teeth to rub against his legs and create an open wound the wound became infected and sigurd eventually died as a result emperor norton the self-proclaimed emperor of the united states who lived in san francisco around the time of the gold rush he lost all of his money buying rice and became homeless there he started making his own currency and declared himself emperor of the united states and later added protector of mexico to his title everyone went with it literally he was once arrested and was later released with an apology due to the immense public backlash the mad lad even royally pardoned the officer responsible he got special seating at restaurants and even a statue despite being known as insane he was actually really progressive for his time he methodically protested anti-immigrant rallies wanted a bridge connecting san francisco and oakland and kept daily tabs on law enforcement and public infrastructure in the 90s following the fall of the soviet union they were low on cash therefore pepsi accepted 17 submarines a frigate cruiser and destroyer as payment for their products giving pepsi company one of the largest navies in the world at the time the youngest person to ever give birth was a five-year-old girl her name is lena marcella medina de gerato and she is still alive today her son died in his 40s so she actually outlived the child she gave birth to to make matters worse her father is suspected to have fathered the child that was a confusing and creepy sentence to write the italian national football team once ate at one of the most expensive restaurants in yokohama during the 2002 world cup and jokingly told the waiter that the food was okay after hearing that the owner of the restaurant tried to kill himself not knowing that the italians have told a journalist in front of the restaurant their real opinion about the food it was one of the best things they have ever eaten surgery with 300 mortality rate while amputating the patient's leg at the hip listen accidentally sliced through the fingers of one of his assistants that would have been bad enough but it proved disastrous when the patient's stump turned gangrenous the saw must have been contaminated because the assistant became ill and infected too the procedure was being observed by an elderly doctor in a dress coat with long tails in the confusion listen cut through the man's coat he wasn't cut but because blood was spurting around the old gentleman didn't know that feeling the tug and seeing himself covered in blood the man collapsed on the floor had a heart attack and died within a few days both the patient and the assistant died michael jackson once had several business associates come to visit him for a meeting while waiting in his lobby they sat down near a life-size wax figure of him after an hour or so of waiting the statue jumped at them freaking them out michael jackson had pretended to be a statue of himself for over an hour to scare these guys waiting in his lobby stalin received a standing ovation that lasted 11 minutes because the attendees were terrified of being executed if they were found to be the first to stop clapping the applause went on six seven eight minutes they were done for their goose was cooked they couldn't stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks at the rear of the hall which was crowded they could of course cheat a bit clap less frequently less vigorously not so eagerly nine minutes 10. insanity to the last man with make-believe enthusiasm on their faces looking at each other with feigned hope the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers at last after 11 minutes of non-stop clapping the director of a paper factory finally decided enough was enough he stopped clapping and sat down a miracle to a man everyone else stopped dead and sat down solzhenitsyn says that same night the director of the paper factory was arrested and sent to prison for 10 years authorities came up with some official reason for his sentence but during his interrogation he was told don't ever be the first to stop applauding in the middle ages wealthy people would go to extremes to have a pale complexion being tan was associated with working outside thus being poor to stay lovely and pale women would eat clay interleach is sucking their blood wear makeup made of lead or whale blobber some of the stuff people would do to be considered pretty back then is absolutely insane al scarface capone is the reason milk jugs have expiration dates printed on them one of his family members drank spoiled milk and got very sick prompting capone to use his seemingly infinite influence to convince milk companies in the chicago area to start putting expiration dates on the bottles of milk the rest of the united states and the world eventually followed suit that's where they claim it comes from anyway a survivor of the titanic managed to survive five hours in the freezing water only to meet his demise later in life by drowning in a shallow pond the longest lasting survivor in the water lasted around two hours the reason he was there for so long was because he didn't want to mess up his hair so he stepped into the water slowly as the bow went down also might be why he survived so long a dry head the owner of macy's department store and his wife were on the ship he was offered a seat due to his age but refused to go while there were women and children still remaining on the ship he urged his wife to board but she refused saying we have lived together for many years where you go i go in the movie they are pictured as the old couple cuddling in bed as the ship sinks in real life they were last seen on the deck near lifeboat number eight holding each other it was one of the first ships with an onboard pool it featured two sea water pools as well as a turkish bath while many people know of the grand staircase many people don't know there was a second smaller grand staircase stopped by a smaller glass dome further back on the ship the third class passengers numbered around 700 only had access to two bathrooms also most passengers shared a bathroom even first class only the two promenade suites in first class had private bathrooms while many people know the reason for such a large loss of life is the lack of lifeboats it's also the case that many lifeboats launched with less than 50 capacity this is thought to be a combination of many early lifeboats being launched when many people still thought it was a drill as well as an inexperienced crew attempting to handle a frightened mass of people once it was confirmed that the ship was going under in the movie the captain of the titanic captain edward smith is shown meeting his doom aboard the ship on the bridge in real life no one knows how the captain died some report him on the bridge some say he was seen in his cabin others say he was in the cafe on board the best story is the one that says he swam up to a lifeboat with a child in his arms after pulling the child on board the lifeboat the people turned to pull him up only to find him gone presumably slipping beneath the sea all that is known for sure is that he went down with the ship that fateful night he was set to retire after the voyage was finished many bodies were recovered in the weeks following the sinking but due to the weather and decomposition many people could not be identified two of the more popular i suppose that's the right word unidentified souls was a young boy around age 11 with bright blonde hair and a middle-aged man with diamonds studded into the lining of his jacket thanks for listening to radio tts hit the subscribe button and activate the notification bell for more interesting videos click the right box for the confessions playlist let us know in the comments what you think about these stories

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Id: IMAAZEPxWEg

Length: 15min 49sec (949 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 26 2020