History Facts They Didn’t Teach You At School

[01dragonslayer]

In Ancient Greece, wearing skirts was manly.

In fact, the Ancient Greeks viewed trousers as effeminate and would mock any men who wore them.

[01dragonslayer]

A singing birthday card has more computer power in it than the entire Allied Army of WWII.

I bet Hitler, Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt would have killed to get their hands on one of those cards!

The computer chip within them was so powerful by comparison that it would be inconceivable to the leaders of that time how we simply throw them away!

[01dragonslayer]

In 1386, a pig was executed in France.


There wasn’t a great detail of civil rights in the Middle Ages, and as it turns out there weren’t a great of animal rights either. So much so that they were even subject to human justice.

One such case happened in Falaise, France, where a pig attacked a child’s face who went on to later die from their wounds.

The pig was arrested, kept in prison, and then sent to court where it stood trial for murder, was found guilty, and then executed by hanging!

[01dragonslayer]

Cleopatra’s reign was closer to the moon landings than the Great Pyramid being built.


This is one of those facts that gives you some impression of just how expansive the life of the Egyptian Empire truly was.

Cleopatra reigned from 51 BC to 30 BC, roughly 2,500 years after the Great Pyramid of Giza was built (between roughly 2580 BC – 2560 BC), and roughly 2,000 years before the first lunar landings in 1969.

[Roughrydr]

Did the pig have a good lawyer? The town butcher maybe?

[01dragonslayer]

Shrapnel is named after its inventor.

British Army Officer Henry Shrapnel was the first person to invent an anti-personnel shell that could transport a large number of bullets to its target before releasing them.

This was all at a far greater distance than current rifle fire at the time.

[01dragonslayer]

Since 1945, all British tanks are equipped with tea-making facilities.


Before this time, British tank crews had to exit their armored vehicles when they wanted to make a quick coffee.

On the road to Caen in 1944, a German Tiger tanked ambushed and destroyed a parked column of almost thirty armored British vehicles in 15 minutes whilst the crew were having an impromptu tea break.

This made the British high command realize if tank crews could make a brew on the go, then they wouldn’t be susceptible to being caught with their pants down and their kettles out by the enemy.

So after this, the next British-designed battle tank, the Centurion, came with a boiler fitted to the interior powered by the tank’s electric circuits so the crew would never be short of a lovely warm cup of tea!

[01dragonslayer]

During World War I, the French built a “fake Paris”.

Complete with a replica Champs-Elysées and Gard Du Nord, this “fake Paris” was built by the French towards the end of WWI. It was built as a means of throwing off German bomber and fighter pilots flying over French skies.

It also even had a fake railway that lit up at certain points to provide the illusion from above of a train moving along the tracks!

[01dragonslayer]

The Eastern Roman Empire’s weapon called Greek Fire was used in ship-mounted flamethrowers.


The secret of how to make Greek Fire was lost with the fall of the Roman Empire.

This weapon so unique and deadly due to the fact that throwing water onto it would only feed the fire. It was almost gelatinous in texture and would stick to things.

It was mostly used in naval warfare, as the large flamethrowers needed for its projectile use could be better accommodated by ships rather than infantry.

The Greek Fire would easily demolish a fleet of wood and canvas ships floating on water.

[01dragonslayer]

An ancient text called the Voynich Manuscript still baffles scientists.

Hand-written in an unknown language, the Voynich Manuscript has been carbon-dated to roughly 1404 – 1438.


Some of the pages are missing, and some of them are foldable pull-out pages, while most pages have illustrations.

Hundreds of cryptographers and master codebreakers have tried to decipher it over the years with none succeeding to grasp its meaning or origin.

[01dragonslayer]

A Japanese fighter pilot once dropped wreaths over the ocean to commemorate the dead from both sides.

During a sea battle in Pacific Ocean during December 1940, two Royal Navy ships, the HMS Prince of Wales and the HMS Repulse were sunk by Japanese fighters.

The following day, Japanese Flight Lieutenant Haruki Iki flew to the location of the battle and dropped two wreaths over the seas.

One to commemorate the pilots of the Japanese Naval Air Force, who died. The other for the sailors of the British Navy, who fought so valiantly to defend their ships.

[01dragonslayer]

4% of the Normandy beaches is made up of shrapnel from the D-Day Landings.

More than 5,000 tons of bombs were dropped by the Allies on the Axis powers as part of the prelude to the Normandy landings.

Scientists have studied the sand on the beaches of Normandy and they’ve found microscopic bits of smoothed down shrapnel from the landings.

They estimate that, within 150 years, the beach will have fully lost any remaining shrapnel to rust and erosion.

[01dragonslayer]

The saying “fly off the handle” originates from the 1800s.

It’s a saying that refers to cheap axe-heads flying off their handles when swung backwards before a chop.

[A.B]

Lol I do enjoy reading these.

[01dragonslayer]

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Lol I do enjoy reading these.