30 Interesting Facts To Raise Your Curiosity About History, As Shared On This IG Page (2024)

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This is 6-year-old Ruby Bridges being escorted by U.S. Marshals to school in 1960. She was the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South.

For her first day, federal marshals with guns had to escort Bridges to and from school through a crowd of grown men and women shouting the n word, spitting on her, making death threats against her and her family and waving Confederate flags. They even carried a small coffin with a black baby doll inside, which caused Ruby to have nightmares at the time.

In her classroom, all her classmates were either withdrawn by white parents or abandoned the class refusing to sit with her. She refused to eat any food that wasn’t prepackaged for and sealed because they threatened to poison her.

Nearly all the teachers abandoned the school except for one, by the name of Barbara Henry. For a whole year, it was just Barbara teaching Ruby in an empty classroom. “I had never seen a white teacher before, but Mrs. Henry was the nicest teacher I ever had. She tried very hard to keep my mind off what was going on outside. But I couldn’t forget that there were no other kids,” said Ruby.

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Frank Sinatra was a fervent anti-racist and an early activist during the civil rights movement.

He refused to stay at hotels and play at clubs that did not admit Black people. His band would also provide equal pay and treatment for Black musicians. It was through his relentless and tireless efforts that Las Vegas quickly became integrated.

In an interview in 2016, Frank Sinatra, Jr. had this to say about his father:

“In the days when Las Vegas began to become popular, the Black performers could play in showrooms, but they couldn't stay in the hotel. And it was Frank Sinatra who went to the board of directors, who had rather shady pasts, and he said, 'Are you guys going to come into the twentieth century, or aren't you?'... Somebody said 'Well, we have white people, we have Black people." Sinatra, the story goes, said to them, "The money is green. How about that?" And they began to look at each other and the wheels were turning, and because of Sammy [Davis], Las Vegas became integrated.”

Sinatra was also a big-time supporter of Martin Luther King and helped him raise money to support the Civil Rights Movement by headlining fundraisers. In 1958, he wrote in Ebony Magazine: “A friend to me has no race, no class and belongs to no minority. My friendships are formed out of affection, mutual respect and a feeling of having something in common. These are eternal values that cannot be classified.”

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One of the saddest chapters in history.

George Stinney Jr. was the youngest person sentenced to death in the United States. He was only 14 when he was executed by electric chair in 1944.

During his trial, until the day of his execution, he always carried a Bible in his hands, claiming for innocence. He was accused of killing two white girls, Betty of 11-years-old and Mary of 7, the bodies were found near the house where the boy resided with his parents.

At that time, all the jurors were white. The trial lasted only 2 hours and the sentence was handed down 10 minutes later. The boy’s parents were not allowed in the court room, and was subsequently expelled from that city after the trial.

Before the execution, George spent 81 days in prison without being able to see his parents, he was held in solitary 80 miles from the city, he was held alone without anybody to talk to. He was heard alone without the presence of his parents or a lawyer.

He was electrocuted with 5,380 volts in the head.

70 years later, his innocence was finally proven by a judge in South Carolina. The beam with which the two girls were killed, weighed more than 19.07 kilograms. Therefore, it was impossible for Stinney to be able to lift it, let alone be able to hit hard enough to kill the two girls.

Stephen King was inspired by this case to write his book The Green Mile, which was taken to theaters in
1999. May his innocent soul rest in peace.

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For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. When you are 14, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday with 22 million people killed. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until you are 20. Fifty million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million.

When you're 29, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, global GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet.

When you're 41, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in the war and the Holocaust kills twelve million. At 52, the Korean War starts and five million perish.

At 64 the Vietnam War begins, and it doesn’t end for many years. Four million people die in that conflict. Approaching your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, could well have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening.

As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? A kid in 1985 didn’t think their 85 year old grandparent understood how hard school was. Yet those grandparents (and now great grandparents) survived through everything listed above.

Perspective is an amazing art. As #2022 ends, let’s try and keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out, and we will get through all of this. In the history of the world, there has never been a storm that lasted. This too, shall pass.

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This is 18-year-old Alice Roosevelt and her long-haired Chihuahua named Leo in 1902. She also had a pet snake named Emily #Spinach who she would wrap around on one arm and take to parties.

Alice was extremely independent and unlike many women of her time, she was known to wear pants, drive cars, smoke cigarettes, place bets with bookies, dance on rooftops, and party all night. In a span of 15 months, she managed to attend 300 parties, 350 balls and 407 dinners.

A friend of Alice’s stepmom once remarked that she was “like a young wild animal that had been put into good clothes.” Her stepmom went a step further and described her as a “guttersnipe” that went “uncontrolled with every boy in town.”

William Howard Taft banned her from the White House after Alice buried a voodoo doll (of Taft’s wife) in the front yard. Woodrow Wilson also banned her after she told a very dirty joke (sadly no record of the joke exists) about him in public.

Her father, Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.” Alice once told President Lyndon B. Johnson that she specifically wore wide-brimmed hats around him so that he could not kiss her.

During an interview in 1974, Alice described herself as a “hedonist.” She died in 1980 at the age of 96.

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A beloved McDonalds worker with Down’s syndrome has retired after 32 years in the job.

Russell O’Grady, 50, first came to the restaurant in 1984 on a work experience placement organized by Jobsupport, an Australian government initiative that helps people with intellectual disabilities find paid employment, when he was 18-years-old.

He was given a permanent role after the restaurant at Northmead, in Sydney‘s west, recognized his commitment and work ethic.

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A #Turkish homeowner chasing his chickens through a hole in his basem*nt during renovations came across an abandoned underground Turkish city that once housed 20,000 people.

In an effort to recapture his escaping poultry, the man knocked down the wall in the #1960s to reveal a dark tunnel leading to the ancient city of Elengubu, known today as Derinkuyu.

Derinkuyu, burrowed more than 280 feet beneath the Central Anatolian region of Cappadocia, is the largest excavated underground city in the world and has 18 levels of tunnels containing dwellings, dry food storage, cattle stables, schools, wineries, and even a chapel.

The exact date the impressive city was built remains contested, but ancient writings dating back to 370 BC indicate Derinkuyu was in existence.

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Refusing to do the Nazi salute, 1936.

The man was later identified to be August Landmesser who joined the Nazi Party in 1931, believing that in doing so would help him land a job during a poor economy. However, in 1934, as fate would have it, Landmesser fell in love with a Jewish woman named Irma Eckler.

A year later, they became engaged but their marriage application was denied by newly enacted Nuremberg Laws, which prohibited marriages between Jews and non-Jews. This, however, did not deter them from having children, and Eckler gave birth to their first daughter, Ingrid, in 1935.

Two years later, Landmesser and his wife and daughter attempted to flee Germany to Denmark but were apprehended by authorities. Landmesser was charged with “dishonoring the race” under Nazi racial law, but was later acquitted due to lack of evidence and was just ordered to end his relationship with Eckler with the warning that a repeat offense would result in a multi-year prison sentence.

However, he refused to abandon his wife and was eventually arrested again in 1938. This time he was sentenced to hard labor for 3 years at a concentration camp. It was the last time he would see his wife and daughter.

Eckler was sent to prison where she gave birth to their second daughter, Irene. From there, she was sent to a concentration camp where she was eventually murdered in 1942.

Landmesser was released from his duties in 1941 and was eventually drafted to fight against the Allies. He was sent on the most dangerous missions due to his “criminal past.” He was killed-in-action in Croatia in 1944. His body was never recovered.

The two daughters were placed with foster parents and survived the war.

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This powerful photo shows a young child, dressed in white Klan hood and robe, touching his reflection in a riot shield carried by an African-American Georgia State Patrol trooper during a rally in downtown Gainesville on Sept. 5, 1992.

This photo was taken over twenty years ago by Todd Robertson in Gainesville, Georgia. Seeing his reflection, the boy reached for the shield, and Robertson snapped the photo. The now-retired trooper, Allen Campbell, is staring down at the child, no particular expression on his face. “Me and this kid, neither one, made a choice to be here,” Campbell said. “The state patrol made me come, and his mom and daddy brought him.”

Almost immediately, the mother swooped in and took away the toddler, whom she identified to Robertson as “Josh”. The moment was fleeting, and almost no one noticed it, but it had been captured on film. The two hadn’t met since the photo was shot.

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Abraham Lincoln in 1860 vs. 1865. Before and after the Civil War.

Many people believed Abraham Lincoln was ugly, including himself. Once, when he was accused of being “two-faced” during a debate, he replied, “If I had two faces, would I be showing you this one?”

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Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s was a notorious hotbed of gang activity, with notorious figures such as Al Capone and Bugs Moran making headlines with their violent exploits.

During this era, gangsters would go to great lengths to protect themselves from rival gangs and law enforcement, often resorting to extreme measures to stay one step ahead. This 1932 Cadillac is one such evidence of this, and it’s on display in the Historic Auto Attractions Museum in Roscoe, Illinois.

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The REAL Indiana Jones. In 2001, Cody Clawson was a 13-year-old Boy Scout when he got lost near Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. He was missing for more than 18 hours and spent the night curled up in a cave.

When he woke up, he heard airplanes and helicopters overhead. Clawson used his belt buckle to reflect the sunlight and they saw it and landed.

The Boy Scout was shocked to see it wasn’t just a search and rescue crew who landed — the pilot was none other than Harrison Ford.

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These photographs are powerful: This is the moment Joseph Goebbels, who was Nazi propaganda minister, found out his photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt was Jewish at the League of Nations meeting in Geneva in 1933.

Eisenstaedt was a German-born Jew. Not knowing this at first, Goebbels was initially friendly toward him, who was able to capture a photograph showing the evil Nazi in a good and cheerful mood.

However, he soon learned of the Jewish blood flowing through his veins. When Eisenstaedt approached Goebbels for another portrait, his expression was very, very different. Instead of smiling, he scowled for the camera, and the famous photo that resulted shows the man wearing the “Eyes of Hate”.

Here’s what Eisenstaedt later shared regarding experience:

“I found him sitting alone at a folding table on the lawn of the hotel. I photographed him from a distance without him being aware of it. As documentary reportage, the picture may have some value: it suggests his aloofness. Later I found him at the same table surrounded by aides and bodyguards. Goebbels seemed so small, while his bodyguards were huge. I walked up close and photographed Goebbels. It was horrible. He looked up at me with an expression full of hate.

He looked at me with hateful eyes and waited for me to wither. But I didn’t wither. If I have a camera in my hand, I don’t know fear.”

After Goebbels committed suicide at the end of World War II, Eisenstaedt shot an even more iconic photo. On August 14, 1945, he photographed a sailor celebrating Japan’s surrender by kissing a random nurse in #NewYork City. The photo came to be known as “V-J Day in Times Square.”

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A Greek Orthodox monk, Mihailo Tolotos, lived his entire life of 82 years without ever seeing a woman due to the strict rule of the monastery he lived in on Mount Athos, which banned #Women from entering.

A law was passed in 1060 AD banning women and animals from Mount Athos. Even today, only male tourists are allowed inside the monastery and monks are not allowed to shave, bathe, tight, argue and ask what lies beyond the walls of the monastery.

He was abandoned as an infant and adopted by the monastery, and never left the walls of the monastery throughout his entire life.

Despite living in seclusion, Mihailo’s story is a reminder of the strict rules and regulations that governed monastic life in the past.

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The largest tunnel is over 2,000 feet long. Some are large enough for cars to drive through – but they weren’t man-made. Giant ground sloths dug them in #Brazil over 10,000 years ago.

The walls of the tunnels are covered in giant claw marks from the floor to the ceiling. Geologists call the tunnels “paleo burrows,” which are believed to have been dug by a now-extinct species of giant ground sloth as big as #Elephants.

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A drought that has turned vast swaths of the #American West into a tinderbox and revealed several sets of human remains at the nation’s largest reservoir has unveiled another discovery in #Texas — dinosaur tracks.

Prints mostly left by the Acrocanthosaurus — a theropod that stood 15 feet, weighed 7 tons and roamed the area 113 million years ago — have emerged as the Paluxy River has dried up almost entirely in most parts of Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose.

Under normal conditions, the recently discovered prints are filled in with sediment — a condition that helps protect them from natural weathering and erosion.

The footprints left by a single acrocanthosaurus was an early cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex and had not been seen for more than 20 years.

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On April 23, 1972, Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke made his third and final moonwalk, accompanied by fellow astronaut John Young. During their exploration of the Descartes Highlands with the Lunar Rover, Duke left a unique token on the lunar surface: a photograph of his family.

The photo features Duke, his wife Dorothy, and their two sons, Thomas and Charles, seated on a park bench. Remarkably, for over 40 years, this family portrait, along with Duke’s boot print, has remained undisturbed on the moon.

In a symbolic way, Duke not only brought his family to the moon, but they also stayed there indefinitely.

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Justinas Keturka

Author, BoredPanda staff

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