History Facts They Didn?t Teach You At School

01dragonslayer

01dragonslayer

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Augustus Caesar was the wealthiest man to ever live in history.​

Nephew and heir of Julius Caesar, Roman Emperor Augustus had an estimated net worth of $.46 trillion when counting for inflation.

Some say that Mansa Musa, king of Timbuktu, was the world?s wealthiest man as his wealth was apparently too great to count.

However, Augustus?s staggering wealth could be measured.
 
Alexander the Great was buried alive… accidentally.​


At age 32 when he died, Alexander the Great had conquered and created the largest land-based empire the world has ever seen. It stretched from the Balkans to Pakistan.

In 323 BC, Alexander fell ill and, after 12 days of excruciating pain, he seemingly passed away.

However, his corpse didn’t show any signs of rot or decomposition for a whole six days.

Modern-day scientists believe Alexander suffered from the neurological disorder Guillain-Barr? Syndrome.

They believe that when he “died” he was actually just paralyzed and mentally aware. Basically, he was horrifically buried alive!
 
The world’s most successful pirate in history was a lady.​


Named Ching Shih, she was a prostitute in China. This was until the Commander of the Red Flag Fleet bought and married her.

But rather than just viewing her as a wife, her husband considered her his equal and she became an active pirate commander in the fleet.

Ching Shih soon earned the respect of her fellow pirates. So much so that after her husband’s death she became the captain of the fleet.

Under Shih’s leadership, the Red Flag Fleet consisted of over 300 warships, with a possible 1,200 more support ships. She even had a possible 40,000 – 80,000 men, women and children.
 
In the Ancient Olympics, athletes performed naked.​


The athletes did this to imitate the Gods, but also to help them easily clear toxins from their skin through sweating after each attempt at a sport.

In fact, the word ?gymnastics? comes from the Ancient Greek words ?gumnas?a? (?athletic training, exercise?) and ?gumn?s? (?naked?).

This translates as ?to train naked?.
 
Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times.​


Julius Caesar is probably the most iconic name associated with the Romans. Likewise, his assassination and death are also highly notorious.

Due to his coup d’?tat of the Roman Republic and his proclamation of himself as Dictator for Life, along with his radical political views, a group of his fellow Roman senators led by his best friend Brutus assassinated him on March 15th, 44 BC.

During the assassination, Caesar was stabbed at least 23 times, before finally succumbing to his wounds.

He passed away with fabled words to his former best friend Brutus, allegedly being “you too, sweet child?”
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The Colosseum was originally clad entirely in marble.​

When you visit or see the Colosseum these days you’ll notice how the stone exterior appears to be covered in pockmarks all across its surface.

Whilst you might assume this is just degradation of the material due to its age, it is actually because it was originally clad almost entirely in marble.

The reason for the pockmarks is, after the fall of Rome, the city was looted and pillaged by the Goths. Yes that’s right, the Goths!

They took all of the marble from the Colosseum, and stripped it (mostly) down to its bare stone setting.

The holes in the stone are from where the iron clamps and poles attaching the marble cladding to it have been ripped out.
 
It was named the Colosseum because it was next to a statue called the Colossus.​


It was originally known as the Amphitheatrum Flavium, or Flavian Amphitheatre, as it was constructed during the Flavian dynasty.

Residents of Rome nicknamed it the Colosseo.

This was due to the fact that it was built next to a 164-foot statue of Emperor Nero known as ?the colossus of Nero?.
 
Rasputin survived being poisoned and being shot.​

Grigori Rasputin was a Russian mystic and supposed holy man. He became friends with the last Russian Tsar and Tsarina.

Over time, he came to influence the Russian royals much to the displeasure of many members of the Russian nobility.

This, combined with his drunkenness and lechery, led to several Russian nobles forming a plot to assassinate the man.

They invited him over to one of their houses, gave him cakes and wine laced with cyanide all to no effect, and then shot him in the chest.
 
There were female Gladiators.​

A female gladiator was called a Gladiatrix, or Gladiatrices (plural). They were rarer than their male counterparts.


Gladiatrices served the same purpose of executing criminals, fighting each other and fighting animals in Rome?s various fighting pits.
 
The Vikings were the first people to discover America.​

Half a millennium before Christopher Columbus ?discovered? America, Viking chief Leif Eriksson of Greenland landed on the Island of Newfoundland in the year 1,000 AD.

The Vikings under Leif Eriksson settled Newfoundland as well as discovering and settling Labrador further north in Canada.
 
The Luftwaffe had a master interrogator whose tactic was being as nice as possible.​

Hanns Scharff was a master interrogator who was very much against physical torture and brutality.

His techniques were so successful that the US military later incorporated his methods into their own interrogation schools.

Scharff’s best tactics for squeezing information out of prisoners included: nature walks without guards present, baking them homemade food, cracking jokes, drinking beers and afternoon tea with German fighter aces.

He even took trips to visit fellow POWs and swimming pool parties. And on some rare occasions even test flights of German fighter aircraft.
 
In Ancient Asia, death by elephant was a popular form of execution.​

As elephants are very intelligent and easy to train, it proved easy enough to train them as executioners and torturers.

They could be taught to slowly break bones, crush skulls, twist off limbs, or even execute people using large blades fitted to their tusks.

In some parts of Asia this method of execution was still popular up to the late 19th century.
 
The UK government collected postcards as intelligence for the D-Day landings.​


Starting in 1942, the BBC issued a public appeal for postcards and photographs of mainland Europe?s coast, from Norway to the Pyrenees.

This was an intelligence-gathering exercise. Initiated by Lieutenant General Frederick Morgan, he was searching for the hardest beaches to defend.

The postcards were sent to the War Office and helped form part of the decision to choose Normandy as the location for the eventual D-Day landings.
 
When Marcus Crassus died, molten gold was poured down his throat.​
Marcus Licinius Crassus was known as the wealthiest man in Rome during his life.

The son of a Consul of Rome, Crassus fought in Sulla?s Civil War, played a key part in defeating Spartacus and ending the Third Servile War, and formed the first Triumvirate with Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great.

A shrewd man, throughout all he did Crassus accumulated more and more wealth ? and it was his thirst for wealth that would eventually lead to his downfall.

Leading his troops in an ill-fated conquest of Parthia (modern-day Iran), Crassus and his forces were brutalized and bested by the Parthians time and time again.

After an unsuccessful parley for peace with the Parthian leaders, Crassus was killed. The Parthians poured molten gold down his throat, as a symbol of his thirst for wealth.

Some even say that his gilded head and hands were sent to the Parthian King to keep as trophies of his victory against Crassus and Rome.
 
Germany uncover 2,000 tons of unexploded bombs every year.


Over the course of WWII, the Allied armies dropped roughly 2.7 million tons of bombs over Nazi-occupied Europe. Half of that which landed on Germany.

Before any construction work can begin in Germany, the ground must undergo extensive surveys to look for unexploded ordinance.

Sometimes bombs are discovered naturally. One example was from 2011:

45,000 people were evacuated from their homes when a drought revealed a 4,000-pound “blockbuster” bomb lying on the bed of the River Rhine in the middle of Koblenz.
 
In Ancient Greece, wearing skirts was manly.

In fact, the Ancient Greeks viewed trousers as effeminate and would mock any men who wore them.
 
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!
 
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!
 
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.
 
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.
 
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!
 
During World War I, the French built a “fake Paris”.

Complete with a replica Champs-Elys?es 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!
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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