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Reagan went through 720 lbs a month of Jelly Belly jellybeans in the White House. His method of eating Jelly Bellys (by the handful) was seen as crass by the enthusiasts who prefer to eat them one by one. The oldest continuously operating business in the world is a Japanese construction company that now specializes in Buddhist temples. It's been running for 1400 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kong%C5%8D_Gumi The company that makes Zildjian cymbals was formed in the 17th Century Ottoman Empire to make scary noisemaker cymbals for the army. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okehazama A pretty hilarious battle occurred in 16th century Japan. Oda Nobunaga with a force of 2,500 had an army of 25,000 marching towards him. Oda planned a secret attack on the larger force, and left behind all their tents and a small force carrying banners to make it look like the whole army was encamped while his main force snuck around the forest. The larger army had had a pretty good string of victories, and, expecting that their enemies were encamped, got permission to all get drunk and celebrate. There was a huge thunderstorm that day, which hid Oda's army movements. After the storm ended, they launched a surprise attack from the rear on a drunken and unprepared army. The army fled, and their commander and daimyo came out from his tent to reprimand his men for what he assumed was them fighting amongst themselves. He got his head lopped off immediately afterwards. This brought the Oda clan from scrappy upstart to having just defeated the largest and most powerful clan. The battle of HMS Speedy vs. Spanish xebec El Gamo is a pretty great story. A 14 gun sloop crewed by 50 men takes on a 32 gun frigate crewed by 300 men. Through a flag ruse, Speedy rolls up alongside the Gamo and fires cannons at point blank. The frigate was so much bigger than the sloop, that she couldn't depress her guns far enough downward to return fire into the smaller ship. Whenever the Spanish marines would put together a boarding party to hop onto Speedy, Speedy separated at enough distance that the marines couldn't leap across, but also that Gamo couldn't fire on Speedy. Eventually, Speedy puts together a boarding party which consisted of literally everybody on the ship except the surgeon (tasked with holding the ship's wheel to keep them close). Those 50 hop onto the ship carrying 300 men and begin hand to hand combat, with Speedy's captain shouting back (in Spanish, of course) to the surgeon helming the empty ship to send the rest of the boarders across. The Spanish captain surrendered, and that's the story of how Lord Thomas Cochrane captured a better equipped ship while outnumbered 6-1. One of the last cavalry charges in history was in 1942, when Italian cavalry charged a Soviet flank with pistols, sabers, and hand grenades. It didn't end super well for the cavalry, though the resulting Italian infantry charge won the day.
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Nov 5, 2015 00:20
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Abraham Lincoln was once challenged to a duel by a political opponent who he had offended in a newspaper article. Dueling was not legal, but this was the frontier. As the challenged party, he had the opportunity to choose the venue, rules, and weapons. He wasn't really the dueling type, and didn't want to kill the guy, but social customs required that he answer. He chose a pit, with a 10 foot long plank in the middle that neither party could step on or over, and huge heavy cavalry broadswords. Lincoln was 6'4", and his opponent was 5'9". Lincoln was also crazy strong too, from a lot of hard labor in his early years. It was set up in such a way that the other guy had a reach disadvantage and had pretty much no chance of winning. Just showing up was enough to answer the challenge, and they shook hands and parted ways without fighting. Lincoln said that he didn't really want to fight or kill him (explaining why he chose such weird circumstances), but that if he did want to, he could have split that guy in half. Here's a story in Lincoln's own words about how he accidentally took a poo poo in his own hat: “‘I would rather see Golliher than any man living, he played me a dirty trick once and I want to pay him up. One Sunday Golliher and another boy and myself were out in the woods on knob Creek playing and hunting around for young squirels, when I climed up a tree and left Austin and the other boy on the grown. Golliher shut his eyes like he was asleep. I noticed his hat sat straight with the reverse side up I thought I would poo poo in his hat. Gollier was watching and when I let the load drop he swaped hats and my hat caught the whole charge.’ At this recital the President laughed heartily.”
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Nov 5, 2015 02:11
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Cleopatra lived closer in time to the moon landings than she did to the building of the pyramids at Giza
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Nov 5, 2015 03:00
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Tycho Brahe, famous Danish astronomer, died in the aftermath of rupturing his bladder after drinking too much at a meal (as it would have been impolite for him to get up). He either died from infection or from the huge dose of mercury that he took to treat it. Bonus fun fact: he was an astronomer in the pre-telescope era, and his observations were accurate enough for Johannes Kepler to use when he did the math to discover the three laws of planetary motion. He also had a pet elk, who sadly died when he drank too much beer and fell down the stairs. The same guy who developed CFCs and leaded gasoline got polio as an adult, and strangled himself in his own invented system of pulleys to move his limbs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr. Inca nobility in Cuzco would have this huge raging festival each year with a ton of drinking. People described the gutters in the street running with urine for days with as much volume as rainwater. George Washington, when elected president, suggested that Congress didn't need to pay him a salary, but instead would just pay his expenses. Congress said LOL NO because they tried that arrangement when he was commander of the Continental Army and spent a ton of money on frivolous stuff, like a Russian leather saddle worth a full year of a soldier's pay. http://www.plaintruth.com/the_plain_truth/2011/09/george-washingtons-expense-account.html
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Nov 5, 2015 04:13
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Jaguars! posted:
Good news is that missile avoidance was as simple as "step on the gas, because the missile will run out of fuel before it catches up" The "wild wild west" era as depicted in films only lasted like, 20 years. The "golden age of piracy" was about 10 years in an interwar period in the early 18th century. Old timey sailors had a tradition of wearing one or more gold earrings, so if their drowned bloated corpse washed ashore someone could take the earring as payment for a proper burial (that's why Morgan Freeman wears one. He's a big time sailor)
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Nov 5, 2015 22:01
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The SR-71 was one of the first aircraft to be designed with stealth features, but it had one of the largest IR (Heat-seeker) signatures of any aircraft.
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Rebel Blob posted:Early in the 20th century, the kings of Egypt and Italy (Fuad I and Victor Emmanuel III respectively) happened to be great friends. A personal deal they set up between themselves was that each one would send mistresses to the other once the first had gotten bored of her (have a citation). After all, what are seconds between friends and kings? Royal eskimo brothers. Noice. Name for avocados comes from the Aztec/Nahuatl language word "ahuacate". It's also Aztec slang for testicles (because they kind of look like a ballsack). So every time you use the word avocado, you are repeating a centuries old dirty joke
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Nov 6, 2015 18:06
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Loxbourne posted:I've seen this mentioned twice now and nobody has brought up just what the rations were. Specifically, they were onions and mascara. Lead-based eye makeup, no less. You'd probably see a strike at a modern US construction site if the foreman restricted use of sunglasses.
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Nov 9, 2015 19:19
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Frogfingers posted:You could see some raccoon-faced sailors as late as WW2. Still see it in pro football and baseball
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Nov 9, 2015 19:33
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Inca/Andean people used a proto-freeze drying method to preserve potatoes. Also, "jerky" is one of the few Quechua root words in English.
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Nov 11, 2015 21:06
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Silmarildur posted:Navajo code talkers movie but with this guy. The US successfully used Choctaw and Cherokee code talkers in WWI. Hitler sent over some anthropologists to the US in the interwar period to go learn the language of the Native Americans, to neutralize future native language code talking. The German anthropologists gave up upon learning that there were a few hundred languages, grouped into almost 30 distinct language groups (with a couple dozen more isolates as well for flavor.) Speaking of Native Americans in WWII, here's the short story of Joe Medicine Crow, genuine warchief and ultimate badass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Medicine_Crow quote:Medicine Crow joined the Army in 1943, becoming a scout in the 103rd Infantry Division and fought in World War II. Whenever he went into battle, he wore his war paint beneath his uniform and a sacred eagle feather beneath his helmet.[2] Medicine Crow completed all four tasks required to become a war chief: Touching an enemy without killing him, taking an enemy's weapon, leading a successful war party and stealing an enemy's horse.  He's still alive at 103 years old.
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Nov 16, 2015 19:32
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Red Bones posted:First Nations Canadians like acclaimed sportsman and great guy Tom Longboat. Speaking of... Jim Thorpe, Sac and Fox athlete, played against Dwight Eisenhower in college football the season after Jim won two gold medals in the Olympics. He tackled Dwight Eisenhower (playing for West Point) and busted his knee, effectively ending the future president's athletic career. Whoops! Eisenhower loved him though. He said that he was the best and most gifted football player he had ever seen.
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Nov 17, 2015 19:27
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Prokhor Zakharov posted:noted assholes like Jared Diamond. I saw him on a National Geographic special firing a harquebus in a demonstration, and he squinted and cowered like a turbowuss doing it. Shameful
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Jan 23, 2016 04:20
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The American stereotype that Europeans are smelly, rude, and dress weird has been true for at least 500 years
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Jan 23, 2016 07:50
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FreudianSlippers posted:Abraham Lincoln had a very high pitched voice sometimes described as sounding like a tea kettle. He was also possibly gay making him the second gay president after James Buchanan. Lincoln was probably not gay. None of his contemporaries thought so, and the only biographer who thinks so is a gay author who wants to sell books
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Feb 1, 2016 02:47
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goose fleet posted:How the gently caress do you determine if a historical figure is gay or not You say "historical figure was gay" and whenever someone disputes it you say "well, you can't know for sure he wasn't gay" 
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Feb 1, 2016 02:54
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Plucky Brit posted:Was that out of choice, though? Plenty of contemporaries were capable of painting feminine physiques. It's because Michaelangelo is a party dude
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Feb 2, 2016 04:07
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Arcsquad12 posted:Benedict Arnold once tried to "liberate" Quebec City from the English during the war of independence. He figured that the French citizens would welcome the Americans with open arms against their English overlords. What he didn't count on was the fact that the most of the French within the city wanted nothing to do with the Americans, who had occupied Montreal a few weeks earlier. Guy Carlton who was in charge of the garrison also outnumbered the Americans. When the fight came, Richard Montgomery was killed, Arnold was wounded and Daniel Morgan was captured along with 400 American troops. It was the first major defeat for the Americans in the war. Wasn't that the wound that was part of him getting all cranky and discontent with Continental leadership?
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Feb 24, 2016 22:56
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Gabriel Pope posted:I don't have time to get into it right now, but Irish culture follows a very broadly similar pattern--though the assimilation was much less amicable and the suppression was much harsher. Can you blame the English though? Look at how weird traditional Irish dance is.
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Mar 2, 2016 18:23
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Alhazred posted:In the battle of Aqaba in 1917 Lawrence of Arabia accidentally shot his own camel in the head while riding into battle. I don't remember that part of the movie
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Apr 8, 2016 16:58
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Mr. Flunchy posted:Don't know if this is the right place to post, but seems like there's a bunch of historians in here. Anyway, was out camping on Dartmoor, England this weekend and spotted this strange rock on a secluded island in the middle of a stream. Layman's knowledge makes me think they're runes, but I have no idea how to translate it. Anyone read runic? The first line reads "one must not forget to drink his ovaltine" but that sentence doesn't make any sense to me
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Aug 8, 2016 17:57
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Rutibex posted:I always wondered why they would go to all the trouble of carving an intricate marble statue, only to paint it like the mass produced Ronald McDonalds you see outside of restaurants. If you are going to paint them so gaudy you may as well make them out of molded concrete. Did Romans every make concrete statues? I saw some researcher say in a documentary about the statue colors too that some of these statues were not exactly viewable up close, because they might be on top of a 30 ft tall building and only really visible in daylight. In that case, higher contrast makes the underlying sculpted details easier to see. Sorta like how stage makeup and costumes look garish and bad up close but look correct when viewed from long distances under bright lights. That same documentary was describing how the Chinese tomb terracotta soldiers were all painted with crazy expensive lacquer. In present day, it peels up and falls off within a few minutes of being exposed to open air after excavation.
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Nov 1, 2016 00:35
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xthetenth posted:An example of things being out of style is The Meagre Company Nice over the shoulder pose, so they can show off their butts, racks, and face at the same time 
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Nov 5, 2016 02:59
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System Metternich posted:
Fits into the Mafia series or Assassin's Creed series well
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Nov 5, 2016 19:33
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Lincoln's (almost)duel was awesome. He didn't want to fight it, so he set it up to be hopelessly unwinnable for his opponent so he would agree to back down. http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/lincoln-hub/abraham-lincolns-duel.html quote:Since Lincoln was challenged by Shields he had the privilege of choosing the weapon of the duel. He chose cavalry broadswords "of the largest size." "I didn't want the d—-d fellow to kill me, which I think he would have done if we had selected pistols," he later explained. For his own part, he did not want to kill Shields, but "felt sure [he] could disarm him" with a blade. At six feet, four inches tall, Lincoln planned to use his height to his advantage against Shields, who stood at a mere five feet, nine inches tall. Height and size difference would be like Robert Downey Jr vs. The Rock. I can't find the quote, but I remember reading him saying something like "I didn't want to fight him, but if it came to that I could have split him in two."
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Nov 12, 2016 20:36
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Whitehead Speaking of firsts, there's a guy who maybe flew his own plane a couple years before the Wright Brothers. Big maybe there. He claims to have flown over Long Island Sound in his plane in 1902. It's an interesting bit of controversy, at least.
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Nov 22, 2016 19:21
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https://youtu.be/C9jScOyH7TM This guy has iron wrists and must be fireproof too
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Dec 4, 2016 19:52
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gleebster posted:Aw, heck, that just exemplifies the lack of chairs in the 19th century. You joke, but beds too! I read a Lincoln book that addressed the "Lincoln was totally gay because he shared a bed with his friend" myth. The author said that in the 19th century on the frontier, there weren't enough beds for everyone and it was a very normal thing for the average heterosexual working class person to share beds with their friends or coworkers or whatever. When Lincoln traveled around with the circuit judges, all 5 or 6 of them would squeeze into however many beds the place they were staying had available (usually one or two)
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Dec 15, 2016 21:37
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Love and Mercy
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Dec 17, 2016 19:58
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Admiral Joeslop posted:I really liked Walk The Line and it got me into Johnny Cash. I dislike it because it made my wife hate Johnny Cash after learning that he was a wifebeater. I hope we never watch a John Lennon biopic together. Never meet your heroes.
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Dec 19, 2016 19:28
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Alhazred posted:Another was caught because he had german sausages in his suitcase. Getting caught was his wurst case scenario
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Jan 9, 2017 18:20
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Julius Caesar as a young noble was once captured by Cilician pirates, and held for ransom, as was the custom at the time. When they demanded 20 talents for him, he laughed at them and told them to ask for 50 talents instead. For 38 days he was their prisoner and buddy, hanging out with them, eating meals together, competing in games and athletic contests, and he'd go yell at them to pipe down if they were too loud when he wanted to go to sleep. He'd write speeches and poems and read them to them, and he'd mock them for not understanding them or appreciating him. He also told them that once he was free, he'd raise some ships and come back and crucify them all.  Har har! Our new buddy Caesar is such a jokester!Then when he was ransomed and released, he raised some ships and soldiers immediately when he got back to Italy. He sailed straight back, captured them all, and had them crucified. 
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Feb 1, 2017 02:59
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Platystemon posted:Tokyo wasn’t on the target list. Truman wouldn’t have bombed it on a lark. Tokyo had already been bombed like crazy, and part of the criteria was to bomb something that hadn't already been extensively bombed.
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Feb 1, 2017 03:07
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Inca taxes were a pretty neat system. If you were an average subsistence farmer, you'd start the season by plowing the fields of the elderly, sick, widowed, and those belonging to the families with soldiers in military service. Then you'd take care of your own fields. Then you'd take care of the nobles' fields. Then you'd take care of the government's fields. Repeat once the harvest would happen. So you'd keep all the stuff from your own fields, and the government would keep and put in storehouses all the stuff from their fields. They'd dole that out to people who needed it, either to people in case of natural disaster or to feed the soldiers. Then they'd put you to work doing huge public works projects. Building roads, building bridges, building temples, digging in a mine, maybe picking up a spear or a sling and fighting in a civil war, whatever. They'd all rotate too throughout the year, so you'd get to do a bit of everything. Urgh, hauling these rocks SUCKS but I've only got to do it for another 3 weeks so no big deal. Depending on your perspective it was either a huge scale socialist success story or an oppressive autocracy. Inca soldiers were pretty gnarly, even to the armored and sometimes mounted Spanish conquistadors. They said that a well aimed rock from a sling at close range would put a dent in their armor just like a shot from an arquebus. One of Pizarro's brothers got a glancing blow with one in the jaw, and his face swelled up such that he couldn't put his helmet back on. The civil war just before the Spanish arrived is scaled like a battle out of Lord of the Rings, with hundreds of thousands of people being killed in a short period of time.
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Feb 16, 2017 01:13
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Pick posted:Rommel wore a silly bathing suit. Why did you think they called him the Desert Fox? 
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Feb 19, 2017 02:28
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Alhazred posted:Parts of the Great Wall of China was paid for by state lottery. I didn't know that, but state lotteries were big time fundraisers in the 18th/19th centuries in Britain/US. They provided about a third of the funding for the British Empire's foreign wars. 
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Feb 22, 2017 19:36
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Platystemon posted:Shooting yourself probably shouldn’t count. It doesn't, unless it happens during a combat action/firefight. Then it counts.
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Feb 24, 2017 23:52
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Alhazred posted:I think it was more integral to being Michelangelo. All the other renaissance geniuses seems kinda chill. I thought it was Raphael who was cool, but rude?
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Mar 6, 2017 17:54
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bean_shadow posted:Didn't Jesse Owens wear Adidas or shoes they made (before creating the company) during the 1936 Olympics? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jas9ff0hdFI Jesse Owens was really, really fast. The runner in the video, Andre De Grasse, won Bronze in Rio in the 100 meter at 9.92 seconds.
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Apr 5, 2017 04:03
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Alhazred posted:A while back I discovered that a branch of my family tree were huguenots, they even had a coat of arms: A unicorn dancing the thriller, nice
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Apr 30, 2017 16:12
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Nessus posted:Wouldn't it need to be on the sea coast for this to be even kind of possible? Not a problem for Neptune, duh.
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Jun 29, 2017 07:00
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