50 Genuinely Surprising Historical Facts

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22-06-2025

Until the 18th century, it was common practice to put animals on trial. What were their crimes, you ask? Rodents and other pests were often tried for damaging crops, while pigs were often tried for the murder of children (with at least one executed by hanging).
Bestiality was another crime that animals were tried for (despite certainly not being a willing participant).
The guillotine was used as a method of execution in France until Sept. 10, 1977. The last person executed this way was Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian immigrant convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend.
France outlawed capital punishment in 1981, officially ending the usage of the guillotine.
The world's oldest known joke dates back to 1900 BCE in Sumer and it was...a fart joke.
Here it is: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." I'm thinking the punch line was lost in translation?(The image above is an example of Sumerian writing from the time period of the fart joke and was recorded for posterity, but it's slightly more sophisticated — it's about medical practices.)
The Tollund Man — a naturally mummified corpse of a man from the 5th century CE — was found in a bog in Denmark in 1950. His facial features were so well preserved that he was mistaken for a recent murder victim.
A common ingredient in medicine until the 20th century was — yuck! — human remains. The remains were most commonly ground up into a fine powder that could be made into pills or stirred into drinks. It was believed that ingesting a certain part of the deceased's body would help to cure illnesses in that part of the body. For example, crushed skull powder was believed to cure headaches.
Mexican General Santa Anna had an elaborate state funeral for his amputated leg.
The general (and Mexican president) had to have his leg amputated after being hit with cannon fire during a battle against the French in the Pastry War of 1838–1839. Later, he ordered a lavish military-style ceremony (including cannon fire and poems), and buried it with honors. That isn't the end of his leg's, uh, leg-end. After Santa Anna fled the country following his failed administration, people dug up his leg and dragged it through the streets until nothing was left.
Saddam Hussein was given the key to the city of Detroit in 1980.
Backstory: After Hussein rose to power in the late '70s, Rev. Jacob Yasso of Chaldean Sacred Heart sent Hussein congratulations, and in return, Hussein donated $250,000 to the church. (Chaldeans are a Catholic group in the mainly Muslim Iraq.) Years later, the reverend visited Iraq and, with the mayor of Detroit's blessing, presented him with a key to the city.
Billionaire Jeff Bezos is today's richest person with a net worth of $100+ billion, but, according to modern estimates, historical figures like Augustus Caesar and Mansa Musa (ruler of West Africa's Mali Empire in the 14th century) were likely trillionaires by today's standards.
The first known vending machine was invented by Hero of Alexandria in ancient Egypt to dispense holy water.
It worked a lot like modern vending machines — you inserted a coin, pushed down a lever, and got your soda...I mean holy water!
Ketchup was originally sold as a medicine in the 19th century.
In the 1830s, ketchup was sold as a medicine that could cure indigestion, diarrhea, and even jaundice. While the medicinal claims were later debunked, the condiment caught on. Man, I wish I lived in a time when a bunch of ketchup on fries was considered health food!
Ancient Romans used urine as a cleaning agent for laundry.
They didn't have soap back then, so they had to improvise. And, it turns out, stagnant urine was full of ammonia, which we still use to clean today.
Beethoven continued to compose music even after becoming completely deaf at age 40 (16 years before his death).
Despite being deaf, he still managed to compose one of his most famous symphonies — "Symphony No. 9," aka The Ninth. It goes without saying that it is pretty damn impressive!
In 1931, psychologist Winthrop Kellogg and his wife Luella decided to raise their infant son, Donald, alongside a baby chimpanzee named Gua to see whether Gua could learn human behaviors and maybe even develop language. At first, Gua walked, understood commands, and even solved problems faster. But then something unexpected happened. Instead of Gua becoming more human, Donald started grunting like a chimp and copying Gua's behavior. Alarmed, the Kelloggs ended the experiment after just nine months.
(Note: The above image is not of Donald and Gua, but some other kid/chimp combo from the '50s. What was going on back then, LOL?)
The Aztec capital Tenochtitlan (where Mexico City now stands) was larger and more sophisticated than many European cities when the Spanish arrived in 1519.
With an estimated population of 200,000–300,000 inhabitants, Tenochtitlan was significantly larger than London (which only had 50,000–70,000 people), and Paris (about 200,000). Tenochtitlan's infrastructure was better, too, with advanced aqueducts, causeways, floating agricultural fields, and even efficient waste management systems.The Spaniards' siege and the aftermath all but destroyed the great city that was.
In 1518, a "dancing plague" in Strasbourg caused people to dance uncontrollably for days.
It started when a woman named Frau Troffea began dancing uncontrollably. Within days, dozens of others joined her, and the phenomenon grew to involve hundreds of people. The "dancers" seemed unable to stop, with some collapsing or even dying from exhaustion, strokes, or heart attacks.Why did they do this, you ask? Some conjecture it was a case of mass hysteria, while another theory suggests that the dancers may have ingested bread contaminated with ergot, a toxic fungus. Ergot contains chemicals similar to LSD...so, yeah.
The shortest war in history, between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896, lasted only 38 minutes.
The war was fought over who should succeed the recently deceased pro-British Sultan. A Prince — Khālid bin Barghash — refused to let the British install another pro-British ruler and occupied the Sultan's palace. But when the Royal Navy fired on the palace, sending it up in flames and killing 500 of Khālid's men, that was pretty much all she wrote.
Chopsticks predate the fork by some 4,500 years.
The first forks were used by the ruling class in the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire around 1,000 A.D. They were frowned upon in Europe, though, for the next several hundred years because they were thought to be a tool of the devil.
John Scott Harrison is the only person to watch both his father and son become president of the United States.
For his part, John Scott Harrison was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio from 1853 to 1857. Not exactly president, but not bad!
People were so afraid of being buried alive in the 18th and 19th century that inventors patented safety coffins that would give the "dead" the ability to alert those above ground if they were still alive.
Speaking of being buried alive, military genius Alexander the Great may have been.
The historical record of his death is filled with unusual details, including that his body didn't decompose at all in the six days following his supposed death (a fact many attributed to his divinity). Today, doctors believe it is possible he'd become paralyzed due to a neurological disorder called Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and was mistaken as dead as a result.
Famously, in 79 CE, Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried the city of Pompeii in volcanic ash. What you might not know, though, is that the ash preserved a lot of everyday items. Below is a loaf of bread baked the morning of the eruption, so almost 2,000 years ago!
The bread — which you can tell looked pretty damn tasty out of the oven — was found during the excavations in Pompeii.
Marie Curie is the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences (physics and chemistry).
The pioneer in radiology was the first woman, the first double winner, and only in two sciences!
The world's first recorded police force was established in ancient Egypt around 3000 BCE.
Back then, Egypt was split into 42 jurisdictions, and the pharaoh would appoint an official for each one whose job was to ensure justice and security. Each official had a chief of police he worked with whose title was sab heri seker, or, when translated to English, 'chief of the hitters." Sounds like police work hasn't changed much over the years!
In the 19th century, dentures were often made using the teeth of deceased soldiers.
A famous example? Looters, uh, looted the teeth of the thousands of dead soldiers at the Battle of Waterloo and sold them for top dollar. Real teeth were in such demand, in fact, that many poor people sold their teeth right out of their mouths.
Speaking of dentures, here is a photo of what's likely the most famous dentures ever...the ones belonging to George Washington, circa 1789–1799. It's commonly believed his dentures were made of wood, but these weren't — they were made of lead, human teeth, cow teeth, and elephant ivory.
The dentures are on display in the museum located at Mount Vernon, Washington's former home and plantation, located in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Humans, by the way, have been cleaning their teeth for thousands of years. For example, Egyptians invented toothpaste over 5,000 years ago using things like powdered ox hooves, eggshells, pumice, and water.
Their formula was a little different than Colgate's — it included powdered ashes from oxen hooves, myrrh, egg shells, pumice, and water.
Last one on teeth, I promise! Below is a teeth cleaning kit from 350 or so years ago in England — including a toothbrush, dental powder, and tongue scraper — and it looks pretty similar to what we use today.
Before the Revolutionary War, the American colonies would vote by voice, often at places like carnivals where they may or may not have been drunk by the time voting happened.
To vote, you just called out your choice. As you can imagine, this voting method was very susceptible to corruption!(I couldn't find an image of pre-Revolutionary War voting, but I thought the one above was interesting — it's a polling booth in 1840s NY!)
Death masks — made out of a wax or plaster cast put on a dead person's face — have long been part of human history. Below is the death mask of notorious Depression-era gangster John Dillinger, who died in a shootout with FBI agents on July 22, 1934 (note the bullet hole captured under his right eye):
The original London Bridge is now located in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
Entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch bought the bridge in 1968, dismantled it, and then shipped it piece by piece to the US and reconstructed it as a tourist attraction.
The first computer programmer was Ada Lovelace in the 19th century.
No, she wasn't programming on a MacBook Air — it was the 1800s — but she became a colleague of Charles Babbage, who had designed a calculating machine and was working on an even more sophisticated one. In working with Babbage and fellow mathematician Luigi Menabrea, Lovelace discovered that these machines could carry out complex sequences of mathematical operations. The example she wrote to demonstrate her idea is regarded as the first ever computer program.
The Great Wall of China is not a single continuous wall but a series of interconnected fortifications.
Also, it was built (and rebuilt) over a long period of time, so the sections are often different based on the engineering and military practices of each time.
Napoleon Bonaparte was once attacked by a herd of rabbits during a hunting trip.
The story came from the memoirs of French general Baron Thiébault, who said that while on a hunting trip, a herd of rabbits swarmed Napoleon, seemingly mistaking him for a source of food. He was forced to retreat to his carriage to escape the "bunny onslaught."
Pablo Picasso's full name has 20 words.
Here's the name he was baptized with: Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispín Crispiniano María de los Remedios de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso.Do you think when his mom was mad at him she called him by his full name?
The first human flight was achieved by the Montgolfier brothers in a hot air balloon in 1783.
Talk about brave! The brothers flew 3,000 feet above Paris for a distance of about 5.6 miles. After 25 minutes, the balloon landed safely outside the city.
And, of course, Orville and Wilbur Wright invented, built, and flew the first successful airplane in 1903. But did you know it still exists and is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.?
Speaking of cool things you can still see — these are the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets on the night he was assassinated, April 14, 1865. You can see them at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
Lincoln had two pairs of glasses and a lens polisher, a pocketknife, a watch fob, a handkerchief, a wallet (containing a five-dollar Confederate note), and newspaper clippings, many of which touted his successes.
The longest-reigning monarch in history was Louis XIV of France, who ruled for 72 years and 110 days.
How did he manage this? He ascended to the throne at just 4 years of age, and ruled competently enough to avoid any coup attempts.
The Eiffel Tower was initially intended to be dismantled after 20 years.
The reason? It was only built as a temporary structure for the 1889 World's Fair (and was only permitted for use until 1909). The tower survived for different reasons than you're likely imagining. It wasn't because it had become a landmark, but because (at least initially) of its value as a radiotelegraph station.
Ancient Greek athletes competed in the nude to honor Zeus and display the human form.
Interestingly, they also did it to allow for ease of movement (this was long before spandex, LOL), and to not give the upper class an advantage by rolling in wearing fancy sporting clothes. Want one more fun fact? Gymnastics is derived from the Greek work "gymnos," meaning naked.
The oldest known written laws, the Code of Ur-Nammu, date back to around 2100 BCE.
It was written by a Sumerian king and covered, among other things, protection of property, family law (to divorce, a man was required to pay a kind of spousal support), and punishment for false allegations.
The Statue of Liberty was originally intended to represent an Egyptian peasant woman.
The statue's designer, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, originally envisioned building a colossal monument featuring a robe-clad Egyptian woman to celebrate the inauguration of the Suez Canal in Egypt. But when the Egyptians passed on the idea, Bartholdi pivoted to pitch it for the centennial celebration of the US/French alliance.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa has been slowly straightening over the past few decades due to engineering efforts.
Since 1990 — when it was feared the tower was on the verge of collapse — an international team has worked to reverse the lean. Since then, the tower has been straightened by nearly two inches. It doesn't sound like much, but it's made a huge difference!
Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952 but declined.
Unsurprisingly, Einstein wanted to continue his career in science, especially considering his political experience was practically zilch.
In June of 1520, England's Henry VIII and France's Francis I threw a joint 18-day party that cost $19 million by today's standards.
It was so expensive because the two leaders kept trying to outdo each other. Each feast served 50 different dishes of the time's finest and rarest foods, including swans and dolphins.
Queen Elizabeth I owned over 2,000 pairs of gloves.
It wasn't because she was obsessed with gloves, though. Most of her collection was given to her as diplomatic or political gifts.
Chain letters have their origins in ancient times — even Ancient Egypt's Book of the Dead included a section that promised "great benefit...in heaven and earth" to anyone who copies a specific image.
Approximately 750,000 men died in the Civil War, which was more than 2.5% of America's population at the time.
In Boston on January 15, 1919, a massive storage tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses broke and sent a 15-foot tall flood of the sticky stuff flowing through town, killing 21 people.
The 11 dead mentioned in the headline was later raised to 21.
Lastly, in the year 1800, the world population totaled 1 billion. Today — 225 years later — the world's population is more than eight times larger (8.2 billion).