Some Amazing Historical Trivia & Facts That Seem Too Strange to Be True

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It can feel like you’re just learning facts and details about historical people by heart when you study history in school. Even though it’s vital to understand the past, knowing a few odd facts about it along the road makes it lot more enjoyable.

These incredibly strange historical facts and trivia are some of the most fascinating tidbits from the past, whether you want to learn more about the past or become an expert at your next random history facts trivia night.

1. Juliana, a Great Dane, received the Blue Cross Medal during World War II. She peed on an incendiary bomb to put it out!
2. By accident, Alexander the Great was buried alive. Guillain-Barré Syndrome is the neurological condition that scientists think Alexander had. They think he was simply mentally conscious and paralyzed when he passed away!
3. In ancient Rome, there were female gladiators! A gladiator who was female was referred to as a gladiatrix (plural gladiatrices). Unlike their male counterparts, they were very uncommon.
4. A woman named Ching Shih was the most prosperous pirate in history. Before being purchased and married by the Commander of the Red Flag Fleet, she was a prostitute in China. She became an active pirate captain in the fleet, however, because her husband saw her as his equal.
5. They are the heroes who broke box office records with their films, as you may know. However, after World War II, “The Avengers” were also a band of Jewish assassins who sought out Nazi war criminals, poisoning 2,283 German POWs in the process!
6. Fine art competitions were part of the Olympic Games from 1912 to 1948. Literature, architecture, sculpture, painting, and music all received medals. It goes without saying that the artwork had to have an Olympic theme.
7. A swarm of rabbits once attacked Napoleon Bonaparte, the famous conqueror! He had asked for himself and his guys to go on a rabbit hunt. Following their escape from their cages, the rabbits launched an unrelenting assault on Bonaparte and his troops.
8. In reality, Cleopatra was not Egyptian! The well-known femme fatale in Egypt was, as far as historians can determine, Greek! She was descended from Ptolemy, a Macedonian general under Alexander the Great.
9. In the 1830s, ketchup was marketed as medication. In 1834, a doctor from Ohio named John Cook marketed it as a remedy for unsettled stomachs. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that it became a popular condiment!
10. Did you know that Abraham Lincoln is a member of the Hall of Fame for wrestling? Known as an outstanding fighter in New Salem, Illinois, the 6’4″ president had only lost one of his approximately 300 fights.
11. After serving as president, George Washington established a whiskey distillery. By 1799, Washington’s distillery was the biggest in the nation, producing 11,000 gallons of whiskey without aging!
12. Despite the fact that most of the 2,000 suspected witches during the Salem witch trials were imprisoned and some were hung, none of them were ever burned alive.
13. President Zachary Taylor died from a cherry overdose: It is thought that the acid in cherries and milk caused President Zachary Taylor to overindulge in cherries and milk at a Fourth of July celebration in 1850, which resulted in his death from gastroenteritis on July 9.
14. According to one account, Andrew Jackson’s pet parrot, Polly, was expelled from Jackson’s burial because of its habit of using foul language. Jackson also trained Polly to swear like a sailor.
15. The Bloody Mary wasn’t always called Bloody Mary! The iconic brunch beverage was originally called A Bucket Of Blood, then Red Snapper, and finally Bloody Mary.
16. The word “gymnastics” is derived from the Ancient Greek words “gumnasía” (“athletic training, exercise”) and “gumnós.” 16. In the Ancient Olympics, competitors competed naked in order to gain a closer relationship with the gods and to help cleanse their skin through sweating.
17. A pig was hanged in France in 1386 After attacking a youngster in the Middle Ages who died from his injuries, the pig was taken into custody, imprisoned, and then transferred to court where it was tried for murder, found guilty, and hanged!
18. Food distributors began to make their sacks more colorful in order to keep people somewhat stylish during the Great Depression, when individuals manufactured clothing out of food sacks, flour bags, potato sacks, and anything else made of burlap.
19. In order to preserve one final image of their deceased loved one, people in the Victorian era would dress their recently deceased relatives in their finest attire, pose them in realistic ways, and take pictures of them after they passed away.
20. The Anglo-Zanzibar War, which took place on August 27, 1896, between Britain and Zanzibar over the ascension of the new Sultan in Zanzibar, was the shortest war in history, lasting only 38 minutes and ending in a British victory.
21. The sport of tug of war was once an Olympic event, appearing at five successive Summer Olympic Games between 1900 and 1920. Britain won the most medals with five, followed by the United States with three.
22. In contrast to the Aztec Empire, which is believed to have begun in 1325 when the Mexica founded the city of Tenochtitlan at Lake Texcoco, the University of Oxford is older, having opened its doors to students as early as 1096.
23. Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed, a Hungarian Countess, was the most well-known female serial killer. She was charged of torturing and killing more than 650 young ladies, the majority of whom were between the ages of 10 and 14.
24. Russia ran out of vodka while celebrating the conclusion of World War II! After the protracted conflict, the Soviet Union was plunged in days of street festivities, until just 22 hours after the celebrations began, all of the country’s vodka supplies ran out.
25. Union soldiers who took part in the Great Locomotive Chase in 1862 received the first Medal of Honor, which were given out during the American Civil War.
26. Those wealthy enough to buy a pineapple would carry them around as a display of their personal wealth and high-class position in 18th-century England, where the tropical fruit was used to embellish everything from houseware to apparel.
27. Redheads were thought to become vampires after death in ancient Greece, in part because they were extremely pale and sensitive to sunlight, in contrast to the dark features and olive skin of the Mediterranean Greeks.
28. The most common pets in the Roman Empire were ferrets, dogs, and monkeys. The Romans used ferrets to hunt mice and rats, dogs as guards, and monkeys as entertainment, in place of cats.
29. Originally intended to be used as a single large communal napkin, tablecloths were intended to be used by visitors to wipe their faces and hands after a messy dinner party.
30. Prior to smartphones and alarm clocks, there were individuals known as knocker-uppers who would physically knock on people’s windows to get them to wake up in time for work. Until the 1970s, knocker-uppers would use pea shooters, soft hammers, long sticks, or rattles to get to their clients’ windows!
31. While studying at Cambridge, British poet and politician Lord Byron kept a pet bear in his dorm room. Known for being a huge animal lover, he brought a tame bear to live with him on campus after learning that he couldn’t bring his dog, and he even took it for walks on a leash!
32. Canada and Denmark have been jokingly vying for possession of Hans Island, a small island close to Greenland, for more than 30 years. As a show of strength, officials from each nation occasionally leave a bottle of their liquor on the island when they visit.
33. According to legend, Saint Lawrence joyfully exclaimed, “I’m well done on this side,” when he was cooked on a gridiron by the prefect of Rome during the persecution of Christians. Flip me over!He gets his support from chefs, cooks, and comedians as a result.
34. Before you start writing a murder mystery about the Founding Father, know that the 1,200 bones from roughly ten human victims were discovered in the basement of Ben Franklin’s home in 1998. The skeletons were utilized to study human anatomy.
35. Anna Haining Swan, who was 7’11”, and Martin Van Buren Bates, who was 7’9″, were the tallest married couple ever documented. Swan’s baby weighed 22 pounds at delivery.
36. The only World War II victims on American territory were a woman and five children who were killed when a Japanese balloon bomb burst in Oregon in 1945.
37. Roman gladiators frequently rose to fame and even became brand ambassadors; kids would even play with clay “action figures” of gladiators, and women would incorporate their sweat into skincare products since it was said to have aphrodisiac properties.
38. Johnny Appleseed was real! His real name was John Chapman, and he was born in Leominster, Massachusetts. The city planners believed that using his fabled name, Johnny Appleseed Lane, would be more poetic, but he did have a street named after him.
39. The United States did not originate cars! In fact, the first automobile was invented in the 19th century by European engineers Karl Benz and Emile Levassor, who patented the vehicle in 1886.
40. Abraham Lincoln was also a licensed bartender. In 1833, the 16th president and his buddy William F. Berry built a tavern in New Salem, Illinois, called Berry and Lincoln. The establishment was later shut down because Berry, a violent alcoholic, used up most of the supplies.