10 Amazing Historical Facts That'll Make You View Your History Textbook In A New Light
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I'm a huge history buff, and I'm learning new fun facts all the time. I mean, all the time. I find that history is the best place to learn interesting facts...and also where you find the best gossip. Without further ado, here are 10 facts I've learned that I absolutely had to share.
1.Apparently, sharks are older than Polaris, aka the North Star, which is about 70 million years old. Sharks, on the other hand, go back to about 450 million years ago (although animals that we would look at and think "that's a shark" only evolved about 380 million years ago. Youthful!).
This article enlightened me to the fact that sharks are also older than dinosaurs, the oldest of which are from about 252 million years ago, and trees, which are 360 million years old. Wild.
2.For centuries, Lake Nemi in rural Italy has been subject to rumors that it is home to the bones of an infamous ancient shipwreck. Although the rumors were investigated and even backed up by the fact that fishermen kept reeling in timber, they were always assumed to be unlikely or exaggerated, especially considering that Nemi is a freshwater lake far from any larger body of water and unlikely to have been the home of any ships. But that assumption was proven false in 1928, when archaeologists under Benito Mussolini actually recovered the almost 2,000-year-old ships. Who did they belong to, you ask? None other than the Roman emperor Caligula.
Caligula had the ships built in the lake as party barges, on which he would host wild parties and orgies, which were, unfortunately, definitely awful to attend (see part 36 of Caligula's chapter of The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, linked here, but also know that you should take Suetonius's writing with a grain of salt). Also unfortunate is that the boats were destroyed in World War II.
3. I was alerted by this tweet to the fact that the earliest-known museum dates to 530 BC and was founded by a Neo-Babylonian princess, Ennigaldi-Nanna. Ennigaldi was an influential priestess and princess, and her museum held artifacts from across the past 1,500 years of Mesopotamian history.
it's hard to truly feel how profoundly old civilization really is but a fact that leaves me breathless is princess ennigaldi-nanna of the neo-babylonian empire was an archeologist who founded a musuem 2500 years ago and most of the artifacts in it were 1500 years older than that
— alice maz (@alicemazzy) October 21, 2023
4.In 897, Pope Stephen VI ordered that the body of the last pope, Pope Formosus, be exhumed and his corpse put on trial in what became known as the Cadaver Synod. Formosus was Stephen's "hated enemy," and when his body was exhumed, it was dressed in his full pontifical vestments and stood trial for perjury and for being pope illegally, among other things.
Historian John W. O'Malley writes (a little bit humorously) that "Formosus replied to the charges as best he could through the mouth of a deacon standing beside his rotting corpse. His defense was, not surprisingly, judged inadequate, and he was convicted." Poor Formosus.
Don't worry, though: Stephen was soon thrown into jail himself, and then strangled to death. It was not a good time to be pope.
5.In the late 17th century, the Qing dynasty issued edicts to entirely ban human settlement in swathes of coastal areas of eastern China. This became known as the Great Clearance (an absolutely wild name), and its purpose was to lessen the power of Ming dynasty loyalists in Taiwan.
Xin'an County, an affected area, became a desolate, almost entirely unpopulated wasteland. Today, it's one of the most densely populated places in the world: Hong Kong.
6.You might know Hedy Lamarr from movies she starred in during the Hollywood Golden Age, but she invented something that's part of your life every day: Wi-Fi. According to the Smithsonian, she revolutionized radio technology helping the Allies in World War II: The Smithsonian says that Hedy did this by "[theorizing] that varying radio frequencies at irregular intervals would prevent interception or jamming of transmissions." She's responsible for the technology behind almost all the wireless communication we use today, including, yes, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. Incredible.
7.The (potential) reason the US doesn't use the metric system is because of pirates. In the late 1700s, the young USA considered adopting the metric system, because we didn't actually have a standard unit of measurement yet!
Thomas Jefferson, having learned about it in France, wanted the US to use metric; and after he wrote to France, they sent a scientist named Joseph Dombey off to help us get started.
Unfortunately, his ship was blown off course and intercepted by Caribbean pirates; he died in captivity (sad), and the US never did get their metric system (sadder. Just kidding).
You guys know about my fondness for Napoleon. "Yes, Julia!" you're doubtlessly saying. "Tell us more obscure Napoleon facts!" Okay, fine! I acquiesce!
8.In 1807, after the war between France and Russia had been ended, Napoleon's chief of staff ordered a celebratory rabbit hunt. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you are a rabbit), these were not wild rabbits, but domestic. When the cages of the thousand-odd rabbits were opened, instead of running, the rabbits apparently swarmed Napoleon and his party, forcing him to retreat to his carriage. Iconic.
9.Vikings are the reason we have cats...kind of. At least, they're a big reason that they're so widespread. Apparently, Vikings would take cats aboard ships, presumably as rodent control; the DNA of an Egyptian cat was even found to be the same as that of a Viking cat found in Germany. In the Prose Edda, it's told that the goddess Freyja's chariot is pulled by two cats, and she has a special connection with the animal. Vikings famously got around, and presumably spread cats everywhere they went!
...I had to put in this picture I found.
10.And, finally... The oldest Egyptian pyramid, the Djoser pyramid, is about 4,700 years old. It was built for King Djoser, who ruled for 19 years, but was built by architect Imhotep. The Djoser pyramid, a step pyramid, looks a little different than the pyramids at Giza; the Egyptians hadn't quite figured out the smooth sides yet. Without Imhotep, the first steps (haha) toward the iconic pyramids we know today might never have been taken.
If there's any dramatic/interesting/cool stuff from history that you think I would love, please, please, please drop stories in the comments! I love to learn about this stuff, and I'm sure other people do, too.
