PYF Historical Fun Fact: (USER LOSETH POSTYNG PRIVILYGES FOR FOUR AND TWENTY HOURS)

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > PYF Historical Fun Fact: (USER LOSETH POSTYNG PRIVILYGES FOR FOUR AND TWENTY HOURS)

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

# ¿ Nov 10, 2015 10:32

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:11

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

# ¿ Nov 11, 2015 08:12

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

RC and Moon Pie posted:

Blazing Saddles was the first film to have a fart scene.

I remember New Zealand television censoring this by removing the fart sounds, so you had a bunch of cowboys lifting their legs and scrunching up their faces in dead silence.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2015 05:21

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

D'oh!

# ¿ Dec 7, 2015 00:59

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Talking of historic cosmetics, the plant deadly nightshade used to be used in eyedrops by women to dilate the pupils of the eyes to make them appear 'seductive'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atropa_belladonna

# ¿ Dec 27, 2015 10:38

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

AgentF posted:

Greek fire can't melt stone aqueducts

On that subject, how cool was it that 7th century warfare involved flamethrowers, and that historians still aren't sure how exactly they did it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire

# ¿ Jan 6, 2016 03:07

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Angry Salami posted:

The emperor at the time was Maximinus Thrax

Fun fact: Thrax was supposedly 8'6" tall.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2016 03:19

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Definitely somewhat acromegalic in appearance.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2016 01:10

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Heights tend to be exaggerated or mistranslated. Goliath was either 6'9" or 9'9", depending on which text you read.

quote:

Goliath's stature grew at the hand of narrators or scribes: the oldest manuscriptsthe Dead Sea Scrolls text of Samuel, the 1st century historian Josephus, and the 4th century Septuagint manuscriptsall give his height as "four cubits and a span" (6 feet 9 inches or 2.06 metres) whereas the Masoretic Text gives this as "six cubits and a span" (9 feet 9 inches or 2.97 metres; Hebrew: amm w-zre).

# ¿ Jan 27, 2016 03:08

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

RenegadeStyle1 posted:

Are you telling me Paul Bunyan wasn't really a giant?!?

To give an example of how much heights can be exaggerated - this is Siah Khan, who was unfortunate enough to suffer from both Proteus Syndrome and Gigantism. He was reported to be 11'3" (sometimes even 12') when in fact he was 7'3", a full 4' shorter.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2016 01:13

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Many people think Lincoln had Marfan's Syndrome due to his height and long-limbed appearance.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/general/1354040/was_lincoln_already_dying_when_he_got_shot/

# ¿ Feb 1, 2016 00:38

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

I find the American Mid-Atlantic accent a strange thing - used by actors in American films up to the 1960s and beyond, even though hardly anybody spoke that way in America post World War 2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent

# ¿ Feb 2, 2016 03:07

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Best looking sword is the Heavy Ram-Dao, a sacrificial sword from Nepal. Unfortunately, it wasn't designed for combat, and was used to behead the sacrificed animal in one sword blow.

http://art-of-swords.tumblr.com/post/19884769923/ram-dao-the-sacrificial-sword-the-ram-dao-is-a

It even made an appearance in the manga, Berserk.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2016 23:56

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Manga, not anime!
There's a whole lot of historically-accurate armor and weapons in it.
Well, except for that Dragonslayer sword, which would weigh about 300lbs if it were real.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2016 00:25

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

e X posted:

Kind of a problem when your rulership is based on family relation. You want to keep the family small, otherwise you have to share the power with too many people. And of course, the other families also don't look kindly on your family spreading too wide. Just look at the clusterfuck that was the Habsburg-France rivalry.

And a need historic fact, this wasn't just something that happened in ancient and medieval times, royal intermariages managed to give a large chunk of European royalty hemophilia as late as the 19th and 20th century.

Charles II of Spain was so inbred that I suspect time travel was involved.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 03:01

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

RenegadeStyle1 posted:

I always found it was weird that nobility never saw the connection that their family had all these weird problems from inbreeding that the common people didn't have.

Clearly, having a face like a sack of elbows and constantly drooling on yourself is to be considered a mark of nobility/divinity.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2016 00:43

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

ToxicSlurpee posted:

When he died the doctor that examined his corpse was all like "what the everloving gently caress? How was this guy even alive?" he was so hosed up.

quote:

The physician who practiced his autopsy stated that his body "did not contain a single drop of blood; his heart was the size of a peppercorn; his lungs corroded; his intestines rotten and gangrenous; he had a single testicle, black as coal, and his head was full of water."

# ¿ Mar 24, 2016 02:53

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

A White Guy posted:

Ironically enough, fighter pilots on both sides were tweaking throughout the war, the Allies favoring benzedrine as their flavor of stimulant, the Nazis favoring actual methamphetamine. I imagine that at the end of war, with the Luftwaffe running out of skilled pilots, that the experienced fighter pilots started flying way more than they should have.

Go back to fark, thx.

German soldiers were given testosterone during WWII ( it was first synthesized in 1935) to try and increase aggressiveness and performance. They were ahead of their time in the use of performance enhancing drugs.

https://books.google.co.nz/books?id...sterone&f=false

# ¿ Jul 24, 2016 01:45

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Wheat Loaf posted:

Shakespeare was pretty infamously bad at spelling, which is probably why he ended up inventing so many words.

It's estimated that Shakespeare used about 18,000 words in his plays and poems, while the Bible at the time used only around 8,000.

Not only that, but Shakespeare invented over 1700 new words.

Shakespeare invented the word 'zany'.

http://shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html

# ¿ Nov 23, 2016 00:01

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

According to the author, Kentaro Miura, Guts from Berserk wasn't inspired by G�tz.

# ¿ Dec 26, 2016 00:33

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

funmanguy posted:

Also a shocking number of people believe New Zealand is real.

Well, it's not on the map.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 09:55

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

# ¿ Jul 3, 2017 09:44

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Grand Prize Winner posted:

I thought the entire thing was completely apocryphal. Even losing 150 men to blue on blue crime speaks to remarkable incompetence.

It reminds me of the Terry Pratchett book Thud, where the dwarfs and trolls managed to accidentally ambush each other in the fog.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2017 01:48

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

quote:

Twain, in Innocents Abroad posted:
I shall only say that the fuel they use for the locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose, and that sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, �drat these plebeians, they don't burn worth a cent�pass out a King�

This just reminded me that powdered human mummies were used as medicine at various times in history.

'Mummia'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummia

Or, for something a little more horrifying, you can try some Mellified Man.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellified_man

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 03:42

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Captain_Person posted:

I'm constantly disappointed that we don't get to see moas or Haast's eagles any longer too.

Are you sure you'd want to live in a country with 12-foot tall, 500lb Emus and Eagles that are big enough to hunt them?

# ¿ Aug 14, 2017 01:02

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

ishikabibble posted:

Hitlerine is the worst mouthwash.

Hitlerina is a good stripper name.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2017 23:36

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Google app that finds your art doppelganger.
Oops.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2018 07:16

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Cythereal posted:

It is. The Southern aristocracy very deliberately emulated the British aristocracy, including accents.

Funny how the plummy British upper class accent probably came from them having hosed up jaws from inbreeding.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2018 04:07

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

That drat Satyr posted:

We actually don't know the identity of the first person to ever be photographed.

In 1838 Louis Daguerre was working on the process that later swept the world by storm, the Daguerreotype. He had set his equipment up and pointed it out his window, at Boulevard du Temple, in Paris, France. The exposure lasted about 7 miniutes.

The thing is, with these early long exposures, the only things that were captured clearly we're things that kept still during the entire process. That's why we see those stands that many claim were used for Momento Mori photos, to prop of the deceased for 'one last family photo'. Those stands we're actually used to help the subjects hold long, 10+ miniute exposures without moving around too much.

So, then, the first person ever photographed. There was a shoe shiner on the corner, and at some point during Dagurre's exposure, some gentleman stopped to have his shoes cleaned. As he stood there, he was fairly still.... And thus, we have him (and a few other figures, if you look closely) preserved as the first human to be photographed.

If you've ever wondered why everyone seems to look so stern in old photographs, this is the reason - nobody could hold a smile for the long exposure time.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2018 06:36

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

I find roman emperor Maximinus Thrax interesting solely based on the fact that his reported height was 8'6". I'm guessing there is some extreme exaggeration there, but he does look like he had gigantism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximinus_Thrax

# ¿ Jul 20, 2018 03:36

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Former DILF posted:

And its not like feet have changed much since his days, but we'll never be sure

Someone must have messed up the units, it's like Goliath's height being either 6'9" or 9'9".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath#Goliath's_height

# ¿ Jul 20, 2018 09:05

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

C.M. Kruger posted:

No no, this was the Paris Commune and the National Guard (plus some mobs) doing the killings. The Ancien Regime had ceased to exist in 1789, and Louis XVI had mostly been relegated to a figurehead with some marginal powers. And in mid-1791 he'd attempted to flee the country but was recaptured and placed under house arrest, shortly after which the monarchy was abolished entirely. He wouldn't be executed until several months later in early 1793.

The "reign of terror" was, to use a more modern/relatable analogy, Stalin going after the Old Bolsheviks and the military purges in the 30s. But because so much was going on in the French Revolution, years of stuff gets condensed down to Food Shortages > Bastille > Reign of Terror > Napoleon > Victor Hugo, and you miss out on all the interesting stuff like how one of the figureheads of the early revolution (the comte de Mirabeau) secretly working as a consultant for the king (he died of natural causes and was buried a national hero) or that when the Bastille was stormed it only housed a few criminals, a couple mentally disturbed people, and a nobleman who'd apparently been accused of incest and arrested as part of a conspiracy by his family to steal his property and money.

Apparently the average height of those who stormed the Bastille was only around five foot. Malnutrition is a hell of a thing.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2018 10:23

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:11

Say Nothing: Mar 5, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Tony Snark posted:

And that's how Panama was born.

...A man, a plan, a canal, Panama...

# ¿ Nov 18, 2018 09:12

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