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40 Weird Historical Facts That We Didn’t Learn in School

1. In the Great Fire of London in 1666, which destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 churches, the cathedral of St. Paul and left 70,000 homeless, only 8 people were killed.


3. The Arabic numerals were actually discovered by Indian mathematicians


5. The U.S. Air Force (then part of the Army corps) had 18 pilots and 5-12 serviceable aircraft at the beginning of WWI.


7. King George I of England was German.

8. At the beginning of the American Civil War, the commander of the confederate army, General Robert E. Lee did not own any slaves. The victor of the conflict union general Ulysses Grant did. Furthermore, the constitution of the confederate states of America banned the trade of slaves while the Union constitution did not.


10. In his college dorm room, Lord Byron kept a pet bear.

11. U.S. President Ronald Reagan was a life guard in high school. He has been credited for saving 77 lives.


13. The infamous Kim Jong Il has written six operas.

14. The New York Daily Tribune had a strange correspondent in Germany. Karl Marx.

15. Napoleon was attacked once by some rabbits.




19. Roman Emperor Gaius proclaimed one of the strangest senators that ever existed. His horse.

20. The Austrian army in 1788 attacked itself. 10,000 men were the casualties.

21. All British battle tanks since 1945 are equipped with tea making facilities.

22. The reason for creating the vibrator was to treat hysteria, as doctors were taking too long to masturbate the patients manually.

23. Warner Brothers Entertainment Company was founded a few months before the fall of the Ottoman Empire.





27. If people think that today’s athletes are compensated with a lot of money, they should think again. Gaius Appuleius, who was a Roman chariot racer, earned in today’s analogies, $15 billion. Similarly the richest person that ever existed was Mansa Musa I. His assets today would be worth $400 billion.

28. The most successful pirate that ever existed was a Chinese prostitute that owned 1,500 ships and 80,000 sailors.




32. Mrs. Bridget Driscoll is the first recorded accident of a pedestrian been killed by a vehicle. Arthur Edsell did that at the overwhelming speed of 4 miles per hour in August 17, 1896.

33. Essentially the same formula used today for concrete that is to be used underwater was created in 25BC by the ancient Romans.



36. The only known medical procedure with 300% mortality rate was performed in 1847 when a doctor performed an amputation in 25 seconds. His haste was such, that he also amputated his assistant’s fingers. Both the patient and the assistant died from sepsis, as well as a spectator, who died from the shock of what he saw.

37. April 23, 1982. The famous Key West area of Florida declared that it was seceding from the U.S. They declared war followed by a surrender and a request for a billion dollars of foreign aid…

38. The first slaves in America were the Irish.

39. Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates who demanded a ransom of 25 pieces of gold for his release. He became mad on the price and said that he was worth no less than 50…

40. Alan Turing committed suicide after being forced to go through a hormone treatment for homosexuality and being barred from continuing what he did for a living. Who was Alan Turing? Only the father of computer science, the code breaker of the famous Enigma code of the Germans in WWII and the father of artificial intelligence…

By Valerie, Learning Mind;