Eight History Facts I Learned This Month That Were So Fun, Weird, And Interesting I Literally Had To Share
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As you (my adoring fans) probably already know, I am a little fiend when it comes to history knowledge (and all the juicy gossip and feuds one learns about when one cracks open a history book). Lucky for all of us, I've found a constructive outlet for all my newfound knowledge: this glorious post series, where I get to share my messy, fun, and totally random collection of history facts with all of you. So, without further ado, here are eight history facts I've recently learned that I feel the need to share with you in this beautiful month of April:
1.The real-life Rhaenyra Targaryen: England's first female ruler, Empress Matilda, predates its first official queen (Mary I) by some 400 years, but she never got the title of capital-Q Queen.
2.The American Civil War started and ended at the same man's house — kind of.
3.Those Orcas attacking boats in the Strait of Gibraltar are hardly the first 'killer whales' of their ilk. In History of the Wars, the historian Procopius wrote about a whale called Porphyrios, who spent over 50 yearsharassing "Byzantium and the towns about it" and terrorizing seafarers.
Michel VIARD / Getty Images, Pictures From History / Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
According to Procopius, Porphyrios "sank many boats and terrified the passengers of many others," — "not continuously, however, but disappearing sometimes for a rather long interval." So basically, this whale would swim to Byzantium, terrorize the locals, sink some ships, and go about its business for a few years... then circle back for another round.
4.An accidental discovery uncovered our earliest-ever reference to a "red herring" from a book of Jester's jokes discovered in Scotland in 2023.
National Library of Scotland / Via digital.nls.uk, Print Collector / Getty Images
Dr. James Wade, a professor at Cambridge, was conducting research when he discovered this little line in a manuscript: "By me, Richard Heege, because I was at that feast and did not have a drink." He said the line produced a "moment of epiphany" for him, and pointed out the line's humor: "It’s rare for medieval scribes to share that much of their character."
Unfortunately, as Dr. Wade mentions, "most medieval poetry, song and storytelling has been lost;" surviving records tend to skew more high-brow. "This is something else," says Dr. Wade; "It’s mad and offensive, but just as valuable.”
The manuscript recounts a minstrel's notes-to-self for reference during a live performance; basically, notes for a medieval stand-up set. According to the University of Cambridge, the three texts included in the manuscript comprise a "burlesque romance entitled The Hunting of the Hare," a poem about peasants that is "reminiscent of Monty Python;" a mock sermon in prose that refers to the audience humorously as "cursed creatures" and encourages them to get wasted; and "The Battle of Brackonwet, an alliterative nonsense verse" that involves Robin Hood, jousting bears, and partying pigs.
The red herring moment is found in the mock sermon, in which the minstrel was making fun of the aristocracy. He tells a story of three kings, who eat so gluttonously that "24 oxen burst out of their bellies sword fighting." In fighting, the oxen chop each other up to pieces until they're reduced to three "red herrings" — AKA, the kings.
To us, this is the earliest red herring reference; but to people at the time, the concept of a red herring was already old hat. According to Dr. Wade, "The minstrel must have known people would get this red herring reference. Kings are reduced to mere distractions. What are kings good for? Gluttony. And what is the result of gluttony? Absurd pageantry creating distractions, ‘red herrings’.” Pretty cool.
5.Abraham Lincoln may have had a dream predicting his own assassination three days before it happened.
6.In the Second Battle of Panipat, the last Hindu emperor of India, Hemu, was on the brink of defeating the Mughal Empire when a chance arrow pierced his eye. Thinking he was dead, his army "panicked, and dispersed."
If there are any dramatic, interesting, or just plain cool facts from history that you think I would love, please, please, please drop them in the comments! I always like learning more historical info, and I'm sure other people do, too.
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