15 Ridiculous Historical Facts That The World Has Completely Forgotten

So you think your history classes covered just about everything? Not even close.....

The Greatest Traitor

“Benedict Arnold was a great war hero before turning traitor. Without Arnold there is no USA. His actions before becoming a traitor won many battles and his action of becoming a traitor galvanized the will of the Revolutionists, whose patience for the war was quickly dying. Arnold is buried in England, where he died. He had major beef with the continental congress though. They kept telling him how to run his armies and where to attack, kept providing less and less supplies, and ignored his advice. They sent him north into Canada during fall with little supplies. Almost half his men (500/1100) deserted or died before reaching Quebec. By the time he reached Quebec, it was winter and he had no way of taking the city. He was wounded during the siege and retreated, while British soldiers heckled him the whole way. He was promoted then, but was not happy.”

Not The Actual First

“People seem to forget that George Washington was not the first president, he was the first President of the United States of America and the current constitution. The first president of the United States after the Declaration of Independence was Samuel Huntington).

Basically, after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Continental Congress was like “Uhh, what do we do now?” and so they created the Articles of Confederation which governed the colonies during the Revolutionary War. The person that led the Continental Congress was called the “President of the Continental Congress” in which they served as the leader of this congress.

Once the war was over, the Continental Congress was like “Ok guys, we need more power over the colonies for good reason,” so they threw out the Articles of Confederation and started new with the current Constitution. Being a history buff growing up, I was always confused about the period between 1776 when the DoI was signed…and 1789 when George Washington became president. I mean yeah, there was a war but it’s not like the war lasted from 1776 to 1789. The Articles of Confederation are an interesting topic to study if you truly wanna learn about American History and more specifically the Revolutionary War.”

Just Like Oregon Trail

“In 1422, Henry V and England had essentially won the 100 Years War over the crown of France. During his reign, over three separate invasions, Henry had smashed every French army he came across, and finally the King of France relented. Henry was named the successor to the French crown. The French King was Charles VI, who was completely insane. No one expected him to live much longer, and he didn’t. Unfortunately, neither did Henry. Henry died of dysentery (yes, seriously) six weeks before Charles, leaving his underaged son Henry VI as King, and providing the nobles of France time to regather their strength and reverse nearly all the gains that Henry V had made in his lifetime.”

Unlikely Friends

“Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were actually close friends.

During the Revolutionary Era, two of the most important figures were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. They were very different but shared a passion for the ideals of a Revolution and played an important role during the war and afterward, serving in Washington’s cabinet, securing foreign alliances, setting up key structures and policies, and leading their regions into the Union.

But in 1800, Jefferson ran against Adams in his re-election bid for president. The resulting race was brutal and dirty, with both sides making accusations that were hurtful and wildly untrue, such as Adams claiming Jefferson would sell the nation’s daughters into prostitution and Jefferson publishing that Adams was actually dead. Jefferson eventually won, but the election was so bitter that the once-strong friendship between America’s two greatest Revolutionaries was over.

Twelve years later, Adams sent Jefferson a New Years greeting which was taken quite warmly. Their friendship resumed, with the two of them discussing their differing viewpoints, their various decisions, and greater world events. These letters are probably the most under-rated discourse in all of American history. Adams’ last mention of His comrade was July 4, 1826 on his deathbed, mentioning that Jefferson still survives. He had no idea that Jefferson had died on a few hours earlier.”

Interesting Tactics

The only Japanese attack on a United States mainland base came from a sub that entered the mouth of the Columbia River, between Oregon and Washington. Their night-time purpose was to shell Fort Stevens, but the position wasn’t clear. Instead of firing back and revealing their location, the US let the sub harmlessly attack the mostly empty area around the spit. The only causality was a baseball dugout.

The Japanese also used firebomb balloons, some of which went as far as the Midwest. They started several wildfires, all of which were quickly taken care of. However, after the war, a family was killed by an unexploded bomb east of Bly, Oregon. The only civilian casualty on the mainland.

The US experimented with “bat bombs” that would release thousands of bats with attached incendiary device. The hope wadls that they would roost on structures before detonating; errant bats set to assorted base structures and the project was abandoned

One Tough S.O.B.

“When Teddy Roosevelt was running for president with the newly created “Bull Moose” party, he was once shot while giving a speech. The bullet, however, was greatly slowed by Roosevelt’s speech transcript, which he kept in his breast pocket. After being shot, Roosevelt famously declared: “It takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose”, and proceeded to speak for another hour before being taken to a hospital.

It is believed that the Roosevelt would have been killed if not for the placement (and thickness) of the speech transcript.”

Old Hickory

Andrew Jackson was almost assassinated, but the would be assassin’s pistol misfired, and then his back-up pistol misfired. Then Jackson almost beat him to death with his hickory cane, and people had to literally pull him off of his would be assassin.

However, he was shot multiple times in his life. Including once during a duel over his wife’s honor with a man named Charles Dickinson. He let Dickinson shoot first despite it being well known that Dickinson was a crack shot. He shot Jackson in the chest, and then Jackson shot and killed him in return. Afterwards, he was rumored to have said, “The devil himself couldn’t have kept me from killing that son of a bitch.”

The bullet was never removed. In fact, he was shot so many times, and bullets never removed, that people joked that he rattled like a sack of marbles.”

A Short Engagement

“Napoleon was engaged to the daughter of a French silk merchant before he met and married Josephine. Her name was Desiree. Desiree’s sister married Napoleon’s brother, so she was still around him a lot, and he arranged for her marry one of his generals, Bernadotte. Bernadotte ended up being adopted by the Swedish royal family to be their heir, because the house of Vasa was about to die out. They’re still ruling Sweden, so Desiree’s descendants are still ruling Sweden today, meanwhile the Bonaparte family is gone.”

Did Nazi This Coming

Americans used to salute the american flag like Nazis, which was known as the Bellamy Salute. As Nazism rose to power the american government changed the salute because pro-Nazi groups were cropping photos to make american nationalists look like Hitler supporters.

Or This, Either

“After World War II, the U.S. government gave pardons and sanctuary to Nazi doctors and scientists. Some of these individuals had committed horrendous war crimes through human testing and experimentation during the Holocaust. In exchange for their knowledge and cooperation, the U.S. government whitewashed many of their backgrounds and hired them into the various government programs, one of which was the emerging space program. So basically, Nazis helped put Americans on the moon.”

Cane’t Believe This One

“Senator Charles Sumner gave a speech called “crimes against Kansas” in which he completely denounced slavery and “slave power”, even calling the south a “pimp for slavery”. He was specifically confronting Andrew Buttler and Stephen A Douglas, the framers of the Kansas Nebraska act. Congressman Preston Brooks (Buttler’s cousin) took great offense to this. 2 days after the speech Preston approached Sumner in the senate chamber and just started fucking beating him with a cane. He forced Sumner under a desk that was bolted to the ground, and probably would’ve killed him if Sumner didn’t somehow manage to rip the desk from the ground”

Whoops

“In 1962, the U.S detonated a nuclear warhead high over the pacific ocean for testing purposes, called Starfish Prime. It was a successful 1.4 megaton explosion, but left behind major effects.

It created a huge EMP pulse, that knocked out a lot of electronics hundreds of kilometers away, Hawaii being heavily affected, and some planes even had electrical surges. The EMP was expected, but it stretched MUCH farther than expected. The EMP also knocked 6 satellites out of the sky, which at the time was about 1/3 of the satellites in the atmosphere (There were more satellite failures around the time of the explosion, but it’s unsure if they were affected by Starfish Prime or not). And the radiation from the blast stayed in the atmosphere due to Earth’s magnetic field, causing there to be a huge artificial radiation belt in our atmosphere.

It’s one of the lesser known fuck ups of U.S. history, but a very interesting one at that.”

Scandalous

“In the 16th century, Edward de Vere, a courtier in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, accidentally broke wind, after which he was so embarrassed he left England without warning and didn’t return for seven years. When he finally did, Elizabeth greeted him by saying: “My Lord, I had forgotten the fart.”

Hysterical

“Vibrators were invented by doctors in the late 1800s to treat women with Hysteria. Hysteria was basically just sexual frustration, and doctors used to just get women off constantly to “treat it.” It eventually git tiresome to manually get so many women off, hence the vibrator.

(At this time, men didn’t believe women experienced sexual pleasure; this is probably where the confusion started)”