16 Random History Facts That Aren't Technically Important But I Feel Like You Should Know Anyway

Radioactive makeup was a thing for a while.

History is full of bizarre stories that we rarely learn in the classroom because, quite frankly, they're not that important.

BBC One

Still, the "unimportant" bits of history are often the most fun. Do yourself a favour and Google "Andrew Jackson's parrot."

But, the whole point of trivia is that it's, well, trivial. So, here are 16 useless history facts that are still worth knowing!

1. There was a top-secret military project to create an ultra-powerful stink bomb.

CBC

During World War II, the  American Office of Strategic Services created a non-lethal chemical compound that smelled like poop. They called their smelly substance "Who Me?". 

I wish I was kidding. 

The OSS planned on giving this chemical to the French Resistance, so they could covertly spray German officers, humiliating them. However, the plan was swiftly abandoned after they realised that the person spraying Who Me? often ended up smelling just as bad as their target.

2. One of the acqueducts built during the Roman Empire is still in use today.

Warner Bros.

The Acqua Vergine – built in 19 B.C.E. – is still used to supply water to the Trevi fountain. 

3. In the Soviet Union, people used old X-Rays to listen to banned music.

NBC

Lots of musicians, including The Beatles, had their music banned by the Soviet Union. However, music lovers in the USSR snuck around the Soviet Union's strict censorship policies through a thriving black market. While available, vinyl records were incredibly expensive (for the average Soviet worker, a single record cost more than two weeks' salary). The cheaper alternative was "Roentgenizdat" or "music on ribs": gramophone recordings made on old X-Ray film. The sound quality was pretty terrible, and the "rib" could only be played a couple of times before deteriorating.  

4. Prime Minister William Gladstone was absolutely obsessed with "saving" prostitutes.

CBS

He used to regularly walk the streets of London at night, hoping to find sex workers that he could rescue from their life of "sin". Sometimes, after talking to a sex worker, Gladstone would return home and whip himself. 

5. In the 1936 Olympics, two best friends, Shuhei Nishida and Sueo Oe, tied for second in the men's pole vault. Wanting to share the silver medal, they refused to compete in a tiebreaker.

Paramount Pictures

The Olympic officials rejected their request to share second place. Eventually, Nishida was awarded silver and Oe was awarded bronze. However, when they returned to Japan, Oe and Nishida cut their medals in half and then fused them together, so they each had one half-silver and half-bronze medal. They became known as "the medals of friendship."

6. King Charles VI suffered from the "glass delusion." He believed that his body was made of glass, and that he might shatter at any moment.

CBS

To avoid shattering, the King wore clothes enforced with iron rods and did not let anyone touch him. Many other people suffered from similar delusions. The 1621 book The Anatomy of Melancholy describes patients who believed that they were made of cork.

7. Graham crackers and cornflakes were created to make us less horny.

CBS

Sylvester Graham thought that consuming things like alcohol, meat, and other flavourful foods increased one's greed and lust.  His solution? The Graham cracker!

 John Harvey Kellogg agreed with Graham's reasoning and concocted his famous cornflakes, in the hopes that people who consumed them would be less likely to masturbate. 

8. Radium was a popular ingredient in beauty products.

CBS

Marie Curie's breakthrough discovery was treated as a cure-all and quickly became a fad. Radium was added to nearly any product you can imagine (including toothpaste). There was even a whole line of radioactive makeup called "Tho-Radia". It included lipstick, face powder, suppositories, and even condoms. Luckily, most radium products had fairly low levels of radiation.

9. People used to call cancer "the wolf."

PBS

Thomas Adams, a clergyman in the early 17th century, wrote in his journal "that disease in the brest, call’d the Cancer, vulgarly the wolfe." Cancer was also called "the worm."

10. The NAACP owns the rights to all of Dorothy Parker's works.

CBS

Dorothy Parker was a prolific writer, known for her poems, short stories, and screenplays. She was actually one of the writers for the original A Star Is Born film! Parker was also civil rights activist, and in her will, she gifted her estate to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. To this day, the NAACP receives money by licensing her works and receiving royalties.

11. Abraham Lincoln grew out his beard after a young girl told him it would make him more electable.

DreamWorks Pictures

Grace Bedell was 11 years old when she decided to write a letter to the then-clean-shaven Presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln. In the letter, she wrote, " I have got 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you anyway and if you will let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President." 

Thoroughly charmed, Abraham Lincoln responded to Grace's letter, writing, "As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now?"

Regardless, Lincoln decided to stop shaving and grew out his now-famous beard. After he won the election, Lincoln actually met Grace Bedell on his inaugural tour. According to Bedell, Lincoln said "Gracie, look at my whiskers. I have been growing them for you."

12. In Ancient Greece, people used olive oil as a lube.

Pompeian / Via giphy.com

Called "liquid gold" by Homer, olive oil was for a variety of purposes. Want some perfume? Use olive oil. Need to make soap? Use olive oil. Want to have sex? Make sure you use olive oil, both as  a sexual lubricant AND as a contraceptive (yes, really). 

13. Commando, a military pigeon, carried out over 90 successful missions during World War II.

Comedy Central

Commando's job was to smuggle messages out of German-occupied France. His performance is even more impressive when you learn that war pigeons had a very high fatality rate. The BBC estimates that "fewer than one in eight of the birds sent on the missions returned home." They were regularly shot out of the sky or died in stormy weather. For his valiant service, Commando received the Dickin medal.

14. A plant called Silphium, frequently used as a form of contraceptive, was so valuable that Julius Caesar stockpiled it in the Roman treasury.

Netflix

In addition to its contraceptive use, the resin from the plant was also used as an anti-nausea treatment, fever medication, and to treat corns on feet. The wild plant was so popular that, for a long time, scholars believed that the Romans had driven it to extinction. However, researcher Mahmut Miski believes that he may have rediscovered the plant on Mount Hasan.

15. Ski ballet (think figure skating, but on skis) used to be an Olympic event.

ABC

While it never reached Olympic sport status, ski ballet became a demonstration event in the 1988 and 1992 Winter Olympics. Its popularity steeply declined in the nineties, and by 2000, there were no longer any formal ski ballet competitions. 

Here's a video of ski ballet:

youtube.com

Y'all, we gotta bring this sport back. 

16. Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi were pen-pals.

NBC

In 1908, Ghandi wrote to Tolstoy, asking for permission to republish Tolstoy's writing in Ghandi's newsletter Indian Opinion. This sparked a correspondence between the two pacifists that would last until Tolstoy's death in 1910. 

You, after reading this list:

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