Give me a mind-blowing history fact

195,783 Views | 1096 Replies | Last: 16 min ago by YZ250
BQ_90
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You're the winner so fsr
Stive
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What the heck did someone say on here to earn a ban?!?
BQ_90
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Stive said:

What the heck did someone say on here to earn a ban?!?


It's the crazy poster that spams everything with ufo posts
p_bubel
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Steve Buscemi was a New York City firefighter from 1980 to 1984, with Engine Company No. 55, in the Little Italy section of New York. The day after the September 11 attacks in New York, he returned to his old firehouse to volunteer; he worked twelve-hour shifts for a week, and dug through rubble looking for missing firefighters.
Aggie_Journalist
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McInnis said:

The lower Mississippi ran out of its banks and killed over 500 people. Flood waters over 30 ft in depth were measured and millions of people were displaced. It was a major factor in the flight of many black farmers to the cities. Herbert Hoover who was mentioned earlier in this thread for his relief effort in the early days of the Soviet Union was Sect.of Commerce at the time and also led the flood relief effort.


Led Zeppelin's "When the levee breaks" is the reworking of a 1929 song about this flood by African-American performer Memphis Minnie.

Thanks and gig'em
Tanker123
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The US and UK lost a combined total of 16,000 bombers in WWII.
Rongagin71
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I don't think it is mind blowing to say Hungarian Goulash contains LOTS of paprika, but the history of how that came to be does have some surprises.

https://www.kitchenproject.com/history/Goulash/

Edit to add that as a kid, I referred to any plate of mixed unknowns as "goosh" -
think I know where that came from now.
nortex97
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Hugh Grant was in a movie about his life/story in 1989.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_Charlie_(miniseries)
Who?mikejones!
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In 1916, Cumberland played Georgia tech in college football. Problem was, Cumberland had disbanded its football team and canceled all their games.

However, the previous baseball season, Cumberland , in effort to attract more fans, secretly hired semi professional baseball players. They beat Georgia tech by 20 or so runs. Georgia techs baseball coach, John Heisman (yes, thay heisman) was also their football coach.

When Cumberland tried to cancel the football game, Heisman refused and Georgia tech threatened to sue Cumberland for 3000 dollars. Cumberland, not having the spare money, decided to play the game.

Cumberland stood up a football team from the student body.

Quote:

Other problems were more practical: The team's football uniforms and training equipment had been sold. There was also the issue of where to conduct practices, since Allen was keen to hide his plan from school officials.

The rag-tag team never obtained equipment but solved the uniform problem the night it left for Atlanta by breaking into nearby Castle Heights High School and stealing its uniforms.



Georgia tech went on to win 222-0. It should have been 223 but, on the last extra point attempt, Cumberland devised a novel block attempt. They decided to "climb the ladder" by placing one player on all fours while another jumped off the player's back. That player just missed the kick with his hands, but blocked it with his face, leaving him with a broken nose.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-10-07-sp-51444-story.html

Other fun facts

From 1916 to 1918, Heisman's teams lost only once and outscored opponents 1,378-69, for an average score of 55-3.

The 1918 season contained Heisman's real offensive push, when Tech ran up scores of 118-0, 123-0 and 128-0.
p_bubel
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nortex97 said:

Hugh Grant was in a movie about his life/story in 1989.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_Charlie_(miniseries)
Heh. That's cool
Cen-Tex
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In 1830, there were 3,775 black (including mixed-race) slaveholders in the South who owned a total of 12,760 slaves, which was a small percentage of a total of over two million slaves then held in the South. 80% of the black slaveholders were located in Louisiana, South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.
CanyonAg77
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I have little doubt that blacks owned slaves. But when I see those numbers, I always wonder how many of those are really family members.

If you are a free black, would buying your wife or children be a way to get them out of slavery, while keeping them in a safe status?

For instance, if a free black bought his children, would it be safer, legally, to hold them as slaves, or could you free them? Would a free black child be safe to live in the South, or would they be protected better by being "a slave"?
Cen-Tex
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CanyonAg77 said:

I have little doubt that blacks owned slaves. But when I see those numbers, I always wonder how many of those are really family members.

If you are a free black, would buying your wife or children be a way to get them out of slavery, while keeping them in a safe status?

For instance, if a free black bought his children, would it be safer, legally, to hold them as slaves, or could you free them? Would a free black child be safe to live in the South, or would they be protected better by being "a slave"?
I recall that if an indentured black man met the time requirement of his contract, he was considered free. However, the children of his wife weren't. If he became a slave owner, he could manumit (free) his slaves.
Sapper Redux
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Cen-Tex said:

CanyonAg77 said:

I have little doubt that blacks owned slaves. But when I see those numbers, I always wonder how many of those are really family members.

If you are a free black, would buying your wife or children be a way to get them out of slavery, while keeping them in a safe status?

For instance, if a free black bought his children, would it be safer, legally, to hold them as slaves, or could you free them? Would a free black child be safe to live in the South, or would they be protected better by being "a slave"?
I recall that if an indentured black man met the time requirement of his contract, he was considered free. However, the children of his wife weren't. If he became a slave owner, he could manumit (free) his slaves.


That actually depends when and where you're talking about. In SC and MS, along with many other slave states, manumission after 1820 or so required an act of the legislature.
McInnis
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CanyonAg77 said:

DatTallArchitect said:

CT'97 said:

In 1490, prior to Columbus coming to the America's, the third largest city in the world was near modern day Saint Louis and stretched over 6 square miles. The population would have fluctuated but would have dwarfed Paris at the time which was only about 150,000 people.
Do you have an article you can share on this?

I don't recall if that city was covered in the book below, but if you want to see what America was like before European diseases arrived....

https://a.co/d/2uOhLSD



Quote:

A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492.
Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus' landing had crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago; existed mainly in small nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas were, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last 30 years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.
In a book that startles and persuades, Mann reveals how a new generation of researchers equipped with novel scientific techniques came to previously unheard-of conclusions. Among them:

  • In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe.
  • Certain cities - such as Tenochtitln, the Aztec capital - were far greater in population than any contemporary European city. Furthermore, Tenochtitln, unlike any capital in Europe at that time, had running water, beautiful botanical gardens, and immaculately clean streets.
  • The earliest cities in the Western Hemisphere were thriving before the Egyptians built the great pyramids.
  • Pre-Columbian Indians in Mexico developed corn by a breeding process so sophisticated that the journal Science recently described it as "man's first, and perhaps the greatest, feat of genetic engineering".
  • Amazonian Indians learned how to farm the rain forest without destroying it - a process scientists are studying today in the hope of regaining this lost knowledge.
  • Native Americans transformed their land so completely that Europeans arrived in a hemisphere already massively "landscaped" by human beings.

Mann sheds clarifying light on the methods used to arrive at these new visions of the pre-Columbian Americas and how they have affected our understanding of our history and our thinking about the environment. His book is an exciting and learned account of scientific inquiry and revelation.

This post amazed me and made me think that I want to find this book. Well after reading this, the very next time I went to the public library I saw it sticking out on a shelf staring at me, so I checked it out. I'm only in Chapter 2, but this is a fascinating book.

I knew that native Indian populations were pretty well devasted by diseases that Europeans brought, but not to the extent. That even started before the Pilgrims established their settlement at Plymouth. A few years before the Pilgrims, some Massachusetts Indians captured sailors from a French fishing boat and held them in captivity, They contracted a viral form of hepatitis that spread along the New England coast with a fatality rate of over 90%. The coast had been heavily (for that time) populated by fishing villages which had been abandoned by 1620.

And another interesting fact. The Indian named Tisquantum (called Squanto by the English) that helped the Pilgrims survive their first winter had spent several years in England prior to the Pilgrims arrival. He had been captured by a captain in John Smith's (of Pocahantas fame) expedition and taken to England where he was kept as a curiosity by a rich man before finding his way back to North America. When he returned to New England he was amazed by the depopulation that had occurred. The Pilgrims were incredibly lucky to have his help getting through that first winter. They arrived just before winter set in with no livestock, too late to plant, and ignorant of the ways of fishing there. The first food they found was what they stole from an Indian burial site. The old legend is that the Indians taught the Pilgrims how to fertilize corn with dead fish, but there's evidence that Tisquantum may have learned that trick while living in Europe.

Would anyone be interested in a separate thread about life in Americas pre-Columbus?
Jabin
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Quote:

Would anyone be interested in a separate thread about life in Americas pre-Columbus?
Yes.

I've seen estimates from anthropologists and archaeologists that the pre-European population of North America may have been 150 million or even more. Many folks though simply refuse to believe that.
Sapper Redux
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Those kinds of estimates have nothing behind them. The devastation was tremendous, but 150 million is not realistic given what we have.
Sapper Redux
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Tisquantum is a fascinating character along with Opechancanough, the Powhatan werowance following Powhatan himself who led the 1622 attack on Jamestown and may likely have been taken to Spain as a child and baptized as Don Luis.
McInnis
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Jabin said:

Quote:

Would anyone be interested in a separate thread about life in Americas pre-Columbus?
Yes.

I've seen estimates from anthropologists and archaeologists that the pre-European population of North America may have been 150 million or even more. Many folks though simply refuse to believe that.


Then I'm going to start such a new thread. Unless someone else wants to get it going sooner I'm going to get further into the book first so I'll have a bit more to contribute.
Green2Maroon
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The 150 million estimate seems like a pretty high number. We have something like 450 million people on this continent today.
Jabin
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Green2Maroon said:

The 150 million estimate seems like a pretty high number. We have something like 450 million people on this continent today.
And?
Green2Maroon
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It is possible but I have a hard time believing the technology of the time could support that.
Jabin
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We will never know the population for certain, but I am not sure that technology is that big of a limiting factor in keeping the population low. Ancient bronze age cities had huge populations. We have just gotten so used to the advantages of technology that we assume would be impossible to maintain large populations without it.
CanyonAg77
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Green2Maroon said:

The 150 million estimate seems like a pretty high number. We have something like 450 million people on this continent today.

I think the 150m number is for all the Americas, North, Central, South, and Caribbean. Population of the Americas today is over 1 billlion.

I think the book 1491 argues for around 100 million, while other estimates seem to be anywhere from 10 to 110 million.

Some estimates put it around 60-70 million, which is certainly possible.
Sapper Redux
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Jabin said:

We will never know the population for certain, but I am not sure that technology is that big of a limiting factor in keeping the population low. Ancient bronze age cities had huge populations. We have just gotten so used to the advantages of technology that we assume would be impossible to maintain large populations without it.


Except it is impossible. Agricultural technology and techniques of that era could not support that kind of population, and the structures and communities described by the Spanish don't begin to support those kinds of numbers. Nothing found in the archeological record would suggest that, either.
Jabin
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Well, I may have been wrong on the 150 million number, as Canyon points out it looks like the high estimates are ~110 million.
agrams
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as part of a White House vulnerability study, delta force conducted an exercise in October of 1990 where they did a HALO onto the Whitehouse. Whitehouse Secret service had their live ammo removed, so they knew there was some sort of exercise going on, but they weren't given details and were basically bulldozed by the delta force team.

Source: "The Pentagon's Brain" by Annie Jacobson.
Leggo My Elko
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Quote:

I think the book 1491 argues for around 100 million, while other estimates seem to be anywhere from 10 to 110 million.

Some estimates put it around 60-70 million, which is certainly possible.
I read the book years ago and can't remember the exact details regarding the population estimates. However, the main point I came away with was that the native populations that Europeans encountered as they moved in and colonialized, had as rule of thumb, largely been depopulated by disease in the century's prior to colonial expansion.

Had Louis & Clark started their expedition in 1504 instead of 1804, they would have encountered a shockingly more amount of people.

I can't remember if it was in the in the 1491 book or where I read it, but one argument of specifically North America's depopulation is the linguistic and genetic evidence suggesting there had been a decent amount of movement around North America by native tribes in the couple centuries prior to European expansion. The claim being this movement is evidence of native populations traditional (pre-contact) political boundaries having been whipped away by disease and who and where people were in 1750 - 1850 was not a indication of what was happening pre-contact.
CanyonAg77
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I don't think it has been mentioned on this thread, but maybe in another discussion.

Benjamin Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a prominent physician. Served for a time as Surgeon General of Washington's Army.

From Wiki:


Quote:

In 1803, Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis to Philadelphia to prepare for the Lewis and Clark Expedition under the tutelage of Rush, who taught Lewis about frontier illnesses and the performance of bloodletting. Rush provided the corps with a medical kit that included:

Turkish opium for nervousness

emetics to induce vomiting

medicinal wine

fifty dozen of Dr. Rush's Bilious Pills, laxatives containing more than 50% mercury, which have since colloquially been referred to as "thunderclappers." Their meat-rich diet and lack of clean water during the expedition gave the men cause to use them frequently. Although their efficacy is questionable, their high mercury content provided an excellent tracer by which archaeologists have been able to track the corps' actual route to the Pacific


Archeology is a fascinating subject. I've seen battles traced in the local Red River Wars, by finding cartridges fired by individuals. But tracing my mercury-filled poop is quite different.
JABQ04
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Similiar to your Red River battles, there was a show on The Little Bighorn (I believe History Detectives) where they used spent cartridges to track individual troopers and Indians movements. Pretty neat stuff.
Sapper Redux
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Rush was also a pioneer in psychiatric medicine. Being a strong republican, he created a diagnosis called "revolutiania" or "Tory Rot" which he identified as a type of hypochondria. I've included a link to a textbook he wrote on psychiatric diagnoses and treatments for anyone interested. Revolutiania is not in this particular book.

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Rush_Diseases_of_the_Mind_1812_edition.pdf
Rongagin71
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The Treaty of Windsor (1386) between England and Portugal
is the longest running alliance in the world.
It started after the Portuguese won a few very nasty battles from the Castilians with English help despite the French helping the Castilians.
Start at the 4:30 mark to skip the intro & commercial.

CanyonAg77
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Rongagin71 said:

Did someone say mental?

https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard

I'd say wanting us to log into tumblr is mental
Rongagin71
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After seeing how badly it worked, I changed it out to Treaty of Windsor.
Ciboag96
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Miranda



Francisco De Miranda was definitely a world traveler and player. He was a Venezuelan revolutionary and military leader, born in 1750, who got to know a few world leaders very well while trying to throw the Spanish out of South America. Miranda started what Simon Bolivar tried to finish. I just listened to a podcast on the formation of the country of Columbia, and this dude was everywhere.

This cat:
- He fought against the British with the Spanish Army in Florida and even helped send assistance to George Washington before the Battle of Yorktown.
- Got busted with smuggled black market goods, fled to London via the US. Hung with George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, James Madison, Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Lafayette while in the US. Even got busy with Livingston's daughter.
- Hung with Fredrick the Great in Prussia and Gustav III in Sweden
- Supposedly got real cozy with Catherine the Great as her lover in Russia. She had him given a Russian Passport to protect him diplomatically
- Came up with the tri-color flag while hanging with Goethe
- Served as a General in the French Revolutionary Army
- Married an English woman and raised some kids in London. House is still there.
- Raised an army of American freelancers from NY, attacked into Venezuela, only to haul ass with a bunch of treasure
- eventually arrested and died in a Spanish prison

Interesting dude.

 
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