‘What’s a bizarre piece of history that sounds completely made up but is 100% real?’ – 21 strange but true happenings from the past
‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’.
So says the opening phrase of L.P Hartley’s novel The Go-Between, and it’s true: the past is an absolutely wild place, where unbelievable things occur. They’ve been chatting about this on Reddit, after user Perfect-Philosophy23 asked:
‘What’s a bizarre piece of history that sounds completely made up but is 100% real?’
And people chipped in with some events from the olden days which are so weird you won’t be able to believe they actually happened.
1.
‘When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, they were met by a Wampanoag Indian who spoke English and had been to England.
‘His name was Tisquantum (popularly known as Squanto), and he had been kidnapped and sold into slavery in Spain years earlier, in 1614. From there he was ransomed to freedom by Franciscan priests, eventually making his way to England and then back to Massachusetts in 1619 — before the Pilgrims arrived in 1620.’
–No-Donkey-4117
2.
‘For a few brief moments in the early 70s, the most commercially successful solo member of the Beatles was actually Ringo Starr.’
–LouisGhem
3.
‘For some time, wealthy Romans used asbestos napkins, because they could be cleaned by putting them into the fire, incinerating the dirt, but leaving the asbestos.’
–Lvcivs2311
4.
‘The last execution by guillotine in Paris happened while Star Wars was playing in the movie theatre down the street.’
–usmcmech
5.
‘On March 3, 1876, chunks of red meat fell from a clear sky near Olympia Springs, KY, covering a 100×50-yard area. Witnessed by Mrs. Crouch, the ‘Kentucky Meat Shower’ baffled locals. Theories range from vulture vomit to alien origins. A preserved sample, identified as animal lung tissue, is displayed at the Bath County History Museum.’
–Appropriate-Age3827
6.
‘In the early 1950s the CIA bought the entire world’s supply of LSD and spent the next twenty years just sort of randomly dosing people without their knowledge or consent. Including their own office coffee supply, which explains some of the shit they got up to during the ’60s.’
–LeoTarvi
7.
‘Humans invented dildo before they invented wheels.’
–BenneIdli
8.
‘It sounds absolutely impossible but there were sharks on Earth before there were trees.’
–voivoivoi183
9.
‘Judy Cohen was one of the first female aerospace engineers, with her career beginning in the 50’s. She worked on the Hubble Space Telescope and the tracking and data relay satellite on the Minuteman missile. She was pregnant and working for the Apollo Space Program when she went into labour.
‘Before heading to the hospital, she picked up some documents for the problem she was working on. The problem was with the Abort-Guidance System, a crucial component for mission safety which ultimately played a major role in successfully returning the crew of Apollo 13. She worked on it while in labour at the hospital, solved the problem, and promptly gave birth… to Jack Black.’
–Heap_of_birds
10.
‘In 1866, Liechtenstein sent a small group of soldiers to fight in the Prussian war. 80 soldiers marched out to guard a pass between Austria and Italy. 81 returned, as they suffered no casualties and another soldier joined up along the way.’
–AmbitiousSquirrel4
11.
‘The Outerbridge Crossing, in spite of being the bridge furthest south that connects NYC to the American mainland, is actually named after a former chairman of the NY Port Authority – Eugenius Outerbridge.’
–scrubjays
12.
‘As a species, magnolia trees are so old that they’re pollinated by beetles because they evolved before bees existed.’
–PlasmaPizzaSticks