What historical facts mess with your perception of time?

 

• Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler were born in the same year, namely 1889.

In fact, their births were only four days apart, Charlie Chaplin on April 16 and Adolf Hitler on April 20.

• Static electricity was discovered by Thales in 600 BC, before Siddhartha Gautama (Gautama Buddha) was born in 563 BC or 480 BC.

• Construction of the Eiffel Tower began in 1887 and was completed 26 months later in 1889.

Meanwhile in Japan in 1889, the new Nintendo Game company was founded.

Source: Sanny's

What are some rare historical photographs that are so unusual you wouldn't believe they exist?

 Historical photographs remind us of what life was like back then. The world we see today has changed dramatically.

Let's take a look at a few examples.

1. Control room of German submarine UB-110

2. The opening of the Statue of Liberty's head in 1885.

3. A circus hippo pulling a cart, 1924.

4. Annette Kellerman advocated for women's right to wear tight-fitting one-piece swimsuits in 1907. She was arrested for indecent conduct.

5. Old Stockholm Telephone Tower, 1887.

6. Baby cages were used to ensure that children living in apartments could get enough sunlight and fresh air (circa 1937).

7. An Austrian boy receives new shoes during World War II.

8. A diagram illustrating the British class system.

9. "Wait for me, Papa," by Claude P. Detloff, New Westminster, Canada, October 1, 1940.

10. Around 1920, a young actor, Jackie Lucas, is trying to retrieve a ball that has fallen into a river with his golf club when a dog grabs his golf jacket.

What historical fact blows your mind?

 In 1965 the CIA lost something in the Himalayas that is still a threat to 600 million people.

China successfully conducted its first nuclear test in 1964, this caused serious concerns in both the US and India. Facing a common threat, the two countries decided it would be wise to spy on the Chinese from the heights of the Himalayas.

To do this they decided to plant a nuclear powered listening device on top of the second highest peak in India, Nanda Devi.

The device was called SNAP-19C, a radioisotope thermoelectric generator containing 5kgs of weapons grade plutonium. The plan was to conduct surveillance over the Tibetan Plateau and operate for decades with zero maintenance.

A joint team of American and Indian climbers was assembled and the mission went ahead. Everything was going well until they reached 7500 meters, just 300 meters from the summit, when a blizzard struck. To save their lives they had to retreat, leaving the generator anchored to an ice shelf. The plan was to retrieve it in spring.

But when they returned, an avalanche had already swallowed everything. Multiple recovery missions were launched but nothing was ever found.

60 years later, that 5kgs of weapons grade plutonium remains buried beneath the glaciers which are the source of River Ganga. The device is still missing, still radioactive and nobody is looking for it.

Do you know 10 fun historical facts?

 

1. Bob Marley was buried with his guitar, a soccer ball, a bible, a ring (a gift from an Ethiopian prince) and a stash of marijuana.
2. During his four films Rambo would have killed 370 people.
3. The word school derives from the ancient Greek skole which means rest, fun.
4. Originally, Coca Cola was green.
5. The word "cemetery" comes from the Greek koimetirion, which means "place to sleep".
6. During the Civil War, when troops returned to camps after a battle, the number of fallen soldiers was written on a blackboard. If there had been no losses, it was written "0 killed", hence the expression OK in the sense of "all good".
7. The Vikings never wore horned helmets.
8. Before the nineteenth century, shoes were not divided into right and left.
9. Venice is often called "The Bridge Capital of Europe" but it has only 398 bridges, while Amsterdam has 1280 and Hamburg has 2400.
10. In 1987, American Airlines saved $40,000 simply by removing an olive from each of the salads it served in first class.

What are some amazing historical photos?

 Traied best not to repeat photos.

1)This is bombed London in 1940. A little girl is sitting in the ruins of a building with her dolly.

Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is returned to the Louvre after WWII

Back in 1956, a PanAm plane was needed to to transport a 5 MB hard drive.

Human-size chess game with actual soldiers in St. Petersburg, Russia (1924).

The 1937 “walking machine” tested wear on shoes (1937).

Arnold Schwarzenegger on the day he received his American citizenship

Testing bullet proof vest 1923. Because this is how they tested things back in the days - on humans

Elephants know how to have fun. Just ask Queenie, the first one to water surf (circa 1950)

Gandhi visits London

Police chasing skinny dippers.

Albert Einstein on the porch of your furry slippers. Even geniuses like cute stuff!

Shakira posts a TBT picture of her younger self for the International Women's Day

A woman uses an exercise bike (left) on the Titanic

The last known Tasmanian Tiger (now extinct) photographed in 1933

The Falling Man is a photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew of a man falling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:41:15 a.m. during the September 11 attacks

Here are cameramen shooting and recording the lion roar for the MGM logo.

Steven Spielberg jokes his cult movie Jaws (Jaws) filming

Carl Akeley posed with the leopard he killed with his bare hands after it attacked him, 1896

What are some interesting historical facts that most people don't know?

 1. In 1991, a young Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were seen chatting together.

2. The cockpit of the famous Millennium Falcon spaceship. A scene from the filming of "Star Wars".

3. One of the original McDonald's restaurants. Photographed in 1948.

4. Singer Sting, rapper Tupac, and Madonna chatting together at a drinking party.

5. You might not believe it, but this is the city of Brasília. Construction began in 1960, and it is now the capital of Brazil.

6. The last photograph of the Titanic before it sank. April 1912.

7. The wedding of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda.

The man in the trench coat and hat in the background is Hitler, serving as the groom's best man.

8. A commemorative photograph of Walt Disney and his brother Roy at the founding of Disney Studios. Their mother and wives are also in the picture.

9. The Porsche 911 assembly line in Stuttgart, Germany. Photographed in 1970.

10. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. pulls up a crucifix that white supremacists had burned in front of his Atlanta home. His son stands beside him. Photographed in 1960.

Which celebrity/historical figure has a dark past that everyone seems to ignore?

 

• Abraham Lincoln.
  He is known as the president who abolished slavery in America in 1865. But many people do not know that he did this solely for the political stability of the country.
  In a presidential debate in 1858, he himself had stated that he did not believe in racial equality or that Black people should be allowed to vote.

• Winston Churchill.
  In Europe, everyone sees him as a good man who played an important role in stopping World War II.
  After the First World War, the Ottoman Empire fell apart, and the British controlled a few parts of it in the Middle East at the time due to conflict.
  And this is what he had written in a memo: "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes" when the British were there in 1919.
  Also, under his leadership, millions of Indians died of famine when the British still held India.

• Nelson Mandela,
  the former South African president, is a massive symbol of civil rights who spent nearly three decades in prison protesting against the apartheid regime. While
  most people believe his imprisonment was due to mere racism, the fact is that Mandela belonged to a terrorist splinter group of the African National Congress that employed sabotage, torture, and rigid tactics in their operations and was collectively responsible for over 130 deaths.
  In 1961, he broke with fellow African National Congress members who advocated non-violence, creating a terrorist wing.
  Mandela even proposed cutting off the noses of Black people considered collaborators.

• Mahatma Gandhi
  is known for making India independent from the British in a loving and peaceful way.
  However, he did not always practice what he preached.
  Despite this, he had many affairs with women.
  He is said to have slept right next to underage girls.
  And he also said racist things about Black South Africans.

• Martin Luther King
  had prostitutes and relationships with as many as 40 women.
  And he also plagiarized a number of works.

What is a piece of historical trivia that is so bizarre it sounds like it was taken from a fictional movie?

 In the most D&D thing which has ever happened, the world’s oldest (surviving) printed book was found by a cleric as part of a trove of mystical works in a secret room in an abandoned temple.

This is the Mogao cave shrine near Dunhuang, China, on the edge of the Taklamakan desert:

It’s complex of small shrines dug into the side of a hill (they’re artificial, not natural caves). Construction and use started around the 4th century AD. It grew to significant size, with dozens of individual shrines and sub-rooms. Around the beginning of the 11th century, a room full of books—mostly Buddhist texts but covering a wide range of other topics, including a Jewish manuscript—and other paraphernalia was walled off for reasons yet unknown. And in the 14th century, the complex fell out of use after a period of decline.

The site was rarely visited, but around the dawn of the 20th century, a Taoist monk became interested in it and worked to try to preserve it from further damage from the elements. While exploring the site, he realized that there was a walled off room, so he opened it up and discovered the so-called library cave. Among them was a complete copy of the Diamond Sutra printed with wood blocks in 868. There’s older printed material, but it’s all fragmentary. This is still the oldest known complete printed book.