This article is definitely of the species of articles which are to be read idly, possibly while bored at work, or on the toilet. So what we have here is a list of facts from all over the world, covering odd little nuggets of human history, and yes, they are all true, except for one. See if you can guess which it is.
In 300 B.C., Mayans worshipped turkeys as vessels of the gods. Their gods were, for the record, really weird.
The Olympic Games used to hand out medals for arts and humanities. At the time, 151 medals were awarded for architecture, literature, painting, music, and sculpture. Art competitions formed part of the modern Olympic Games during its early years but ended in 1954 because the Olympics are for amateurs, and artists are considered (by the Olympics) to all be professionals, regardless of whether or not they’d ever been paid for their work.
The fork was once considered sacrilegious because they were seen as "artificial hands." This was because (according to anti-fork 11th century Venetians) God gave us fingers for a fucking reason.
Contrary to popular portrayals, Cleopatra wasn’t actually Egyptian. She was the daughter to famous Macedonian Greek general Ptolemy. So, while she was indeed an Egyptian queen, she was, in fact, a Greek.
In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IV issued a papal decree denouncing cats because he believed they were instruments of Satan. It is believed the widespread murder of the animals contributed to the population explosion of rats spreading the black plague. Whoops.
Ketchup was originally made of mushrooms. The first recipe using tomatoes to make it was published in 1824. You can still get mushroom ketchup to this day...if you look for it.
Before his political career, Abraham Lincoln was an elite wrestling champion. In 300 matches, he only lost one. He would flex his strength by holding two sledgehammers in his fully outstretched arms for several minutes.
On the subject of former presidents, George Washington opened a whiskey distillery after leaving office, making some 11,000 gallons of booze before he died, and the business folded.
Most men in the Old West didn’t wear the iconic wide-brimmed cowboy hat, so often portrayed in fiction. Rather, the most popular style of hat out West was the bowler. The wide-brimmed Stetson hat was popular mostly among ranchers, who were just as likely to wear Mexican sombreros. Sombreros were a little more practical back then, as opposed to the rhinestone mariachi-band ones we see today. The Stetson only gained popularity well after the Civil War due to its adoption by Union cavalry.
A Great Dane named Juliana peed on an incendiary bomb during World War II, disabling it, and earned a Blue Cross medal for the urinary feat of bravery.
Another war dog&mash;a mutt named Sergeant Stubby&mash;was in 17 battles on the Western Front in World War I, received a combat promotion to US Army Sergeant, and a Wound Stripe for being stabbed by a German soldier. His taxidermied remains are kept at the National Museum of American History.
A woman named Jeanette Rankin was elected to Congress in 1916, which was four years before women could even vote.
In 1952, Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel. He turned it down because he felt he lacked sufficient people skills. I imagine that was probably indeed the case.
The Kettle War was a military scuffle between the troops of the Holy Roman Empire and the Republic of the Seven Netherlands on 8 October 1784. It was called the Kettle War, as the only shot fired...hit a soup kettle.
Another weird military situation was the time Australia sent the army to kill emus. The large, unruly birds were ravaging crops, and after many pleas for assistance, the army sent out a couple of guys with Lewis guns (light machine guns) and a pile of ammo. Their orders? "Time to light up some emus, mate." This was met with failure, as only a handful of emus were successfully blasted, given that they tend to run from loud noises like machine gun fire. They would later solve the problem by merely placing a bounty on emus and eventually just putting up fences.
On the note of pest control, there was a time in 1958 when Chinese leader Mao Zedong ordered sparrows destroyed en masse, citing them as pests who eat farmers’ grain. Millions and millions were killed. With the sparrows largely gone, insects ravaged crops, as they no longer had a natural predator. Widespread famine followed. Oops!
The famous cocktail we now call the Bloody Mary was not always called that. It was, when invented, called "a Bucket of Blood." I think we should still call it that.
On the subject of beverages, the popular oolong tea is not actually some exotic foreign tea strain. It is merely a way of processing regular tea, which was first developed in 1870 by a chemist named Francis Oolong.
The pilgrims who came over to America on the Mayflower were not seeking religious freedom. They were English Protestants who were living in exile in Holland (because they were pissed at the Church of England) and then got pissed at the Dutch for being more tolerant of the Jew, Catholics, and even the atheists. The horror! So they were, in fact, seeking a place to be more restrictive and without all those groups around.
Famed inventor (and unscrupulous idea thief) Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb. He got a patent for it in 1880, though the actual inventor was Warren de la Rue, a British astronomer, and chemist. He created the very first light bulb forty years before Edison did his famous work with it.
Speaking of Edison, he is often associated with electrocuting to death a circus elephant that had killed a spectator, in order to promote DC current against rival Westinghouse’s AC current. He actually had nothing to do with this. The pachyderm zapping happened over a decade after he had left the electric business. A scoundrel, yes, but at least he didn’t crispy-fry an elephant.
Italy’s famous Leaning Tower of Pisa was never fully upright. Its foundation was built on unstable soil, and it sank as soon as they started on the second floor. Apparently, this was not a problem for them because they said "fuck it" and built the whole thing anyhow.
So, there’s the list. I have a whole sackful more as I collect them, but these ones are some of the more interesting ones. Perhaps, I shall write a part two at some point.
Enjoy yourselves, and go make history.
-Wombstretcha
Wombstretcha the Magnificent is a soup enthusiast, life-saving urinator, bucket of blood guzzler, sombrero wearer, writer, and retired rapper from Portland, Oregon. He can be found at Wombstretcha.com, on Twitter as @Wombstretcha503 and on Facebook (boo!) and MeWe (yay!) as "Wombstretcha The Magniflcent."