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History Facts They Didn’t Teach You At School

Before the 19th century, dentures were made from dead soldiers’ teeth.​


Dentistry in 1815 wasn’t exactly as… “intricate” as it is today. In fact, it was downright savage!

After the Battle of Waterloo, dentists flocked to the battlefield to scavenge teeth from the tens of thousands of dead soldiers.

They then took their bounty to their dental workshops are crafted them into dentures for toothless rich people.
 

Tug of War used to be an Olympic sport.​


It was part of the Olympic schedule between 1900 and 1920, and occurred at 5 different Summer Olympic Games.

The nation to win the most medals in this was Britain with 5 (2 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze), then the USA with 3 (1 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze), while Sweden had one gold medal, France and the Netherlands had one silver medal, and Belgium won a bronze medal.
 

People were buried alive so often, that bells were attached to their coffins.​

Due to medicine not being so great, comatose people were sometimes mistakenly buried alive.

In order to counteract these potential blunders, people were buried with little bells above ground. These bells were attached to a string, which went into the coffin.

If the person was buried alive, and later woke up they would tug on the string that would ring the bell above ground.

Someone would hear it and then dig the person out of their premature resting place.
 

The term “saved by the bell” does not originate from people being buried alive.​


Because of bells attached to coffins back in the day, people wrongly assume that the term “saved by the bell” comes from people being saved by these coffin bells.

However, the term actually comes from boxing.

It comes from being saved from a knockout or countdown by the ring of a bell, which signals the end of the current round.
 

George Washington didn’t have wooden teeth.​


It’s often said that George Washington had wooden teeth.

However this is as false as the dentures he actually wore.

George had luxury dentures that were made out of gold, lead, and ivory, as well as being a mixture of animal and human teeth!
 

During a Roman Triumph, soldiers sang lewd songs about their commander to amuse the crowds.​


A Roman Triumph was a sort of parade. During this, a Roman General who had conquered new territory for Rome marched through the streets with his troops. They showed off the spoils of war in front of huge crowds of partygoing spectators.

There were many customs that occurred during a Triumph. One of which was for the returning Roman soldiers to sing crude and banter-like chants about their commanders, to the amusement of the crowds.

One that survived history is from Julius Caesar’s Gallic Triumph. His soldiers sang something like: “Romans hide away your wives, the bald adulterer is here. We drank away your gold in Gaul, and now we’ve come to borrow more!”
 

Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs used their slaves as fly catchers.​

They would lather their slaves in honey, which would serve a dual purpose of attracting any flies to their slaves rather than themselves, as well as trapping and killing the flies.
 

In Ancient Rome, urine was used as mouthwash.​


This is because urine contains a very high ammonia content, and ammonia is one of the most powerful and readily available natural cleaners on this planet!
 

In the Victorian era, men with moustaches used special cups.​


As a Brit, this is probably my favorite history fact on this list!

Pragmatically called “moustache cups”, these specially-made mugs had guards on them which prevented a man’s moustache from dipping into their warm cup of tea!
 

The earliest ever lottery was during the Chinese Han Dynasty between 205 – 187 BC.​


Although it’s not exactly known what the prizes were, it’s believed that Chinese citizens of this era could draw keno slips (in the way one draws straws) for a nominal fee.

This lottery was created to help fund major government projects, including the construction of the Great Wall of China.
 

The Roman lottery’s prizes were known and were damn savage at times.​


Created by Emperor Augustus Caesar for the same reason, to fund government projects such as repair works, the Roman lottery came with prizes that were objects usually varied in value.

Pretty tame, right? Well, one Roman Emperor’s lottery prizes weren’t so friendly at all.

Elagabalus, who reigned between 218 & 222 AD (and we’ll come back to that whole “4-year reign” tidbit shortly) was known for his cruel running of the lottery.

At first, his lottery was pretty brilliant and had prizes such as slaves or houses.

However, not long into his reign, he started having lottery tickets catapulted into crowds of gathered plebs.

Oh, did I forget to mention that he also catapulted live freaking venomous snakes into the crowd along with the lottery tickets?!

What about the fact that, not after long, the prizes tended to be things like dead animals, death sentences. Even goddamn wasps and bees.

So, going to back to his short reign, it should come as no surprise that he made for a pretty nasty emperor and was assassinated after four years at the age of 18!
 

Spartans were so rich that nobody had to work.​


Ancient Sparta, during its Classical Age, was an immensely wealthy country. Mainly due to their conquest and domination of a neighboring race named the Helots.

When a Spartan boy reached adulthood and became a man, the Spartan state awarded him with an allotment of public farmland. They also rewarded him with a constituent of Helot slaves to work it.

This basically turned every Spartan citizen into a wealthy member of the conventional upper class. So they didn’t have to work for a living.
 

Spartan women owned most of the land and wealth in Sparta.​


When a Spartan man died, his public state-given farmland went back to the state. However, his private land would go to his wife.

A lot of husbands died young in Sparta due to their militaristic culture, and when they did their widows would often grow their inheritance over the course of their life before their own deaths.

Upon their deaths, their land would pass equally to both their male and female children.

So, a young woman who married a wealthy man would most likely inherit his fortune young. Then inherit their mother’s fortune and grow their own, becoming super ultra-rich.

They would then pass that on to their children and on and on creating a crazy snowball inheritance effect.
 

The University of Oxford is older than the Aztec Empire.​


Mind-boggling as though it may seem, the University of Oxford first opened its doors to students all the way back in 1096.

It became a fully-fledged university with student housing and a specific curriculum by 1249.

By comparison, the Aztec Empire is said to have originated with the founding of the city of Tenochtitlán at Lake Texcoco by the Mexica which occurred in the year 1325.
 

The World War II army of the US is the is the biggest army in history.​


Due in part to the surge of wartime patriotism, and in part because of conscription, the US Army numbered 12,000,000 soldiers by the end of the war in 1945.

By 1943, the German military had reached 11,000,000 soldiers.

By the end of the war, the Soviet Union’s army (as formidable as it was) also reached 11 million soldiers.
 

Only 6 people died in the Great Fire of London.​


The great fire of 1666 apparently traces its way to a baker’s oven, and caused massive damage across the city of London.

However, despite destroying over 13,500 houses and displacing 80,000 people, it only claimed the lives of 6 unlucky Londoners.
 

Count Dracula was inspired by a real person.​


When Bram Stoker released his iconic horror classic in 1897, it was hailed as “the most blood-curdling novel of the paralyzed century” and terrified audiences worldwide.

However, the titular Count was based on none other than history’s own Vlad the Impaler.

As the ruling monarch of Wallachia, a Romanian region of Transylvania, Vlad soon made a fearsome reputation for himself by killing and impaling the still-twitching bodies of his enemies on long sticks which he planted outside his castle and all around his lands.

After Vlad’s eventual death at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, the history of his descendants is murky, which is what inspired Bram Stoker’s character of Count Dracula.
 

The most prolific female serial killer was a Hungarian Countess.​


Named Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed, she was born on August 7th, 1560.

She was accused of torturing and killing over 650 young women. Most the women were between the ages of 10 and 14.

Her cruelty was limitless. She regularly bathed in the blood of virgins to preserve her youthful looks.

After facing accusations from many people, smallfolk and nobles alike, she was detained. However she did not face trial due to her family’s aristocratic high-standing.

Instead, she was privately imprisoned in a windowless room for four years until she died in 1614.
 

For 12 years during the French Revolutionary Period, France had a whole new calendar.​


Not just that, but they also had a whole new timekeeping system too!

Between 1793 and 1805, the ruling French government used the French Republican Calendar to remove all religious and royalist ties to the old calendar.

It was also part of a wider effort decimalize France in terms of time, currency and metrication.

The French Republican Calendar had 10-hour days, with 100 minutes to an hour, and 100 seconds to a minute.

Whilst this crazy calendar did have 12 months, each one of these months was 30 days. They were all given new names that reflected a meaning for each season.

For example one in winter was named Nivôse, which is Latin for “snow”.
 

Genghis Khan created one the first international postal systems.​


One of the reasons the great Khan’s Mongol army were so lethal is because of their fluid and flexible makeup, as well as their vast communication capabilities.

One of his earliest decrees as Khan was to establish a mounted courier service called the “Yam”.

The “Yam” grew into a military postal service spanning across multiple borders, complete with a network of post houses and waystations across the whole of his Empire.
 

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