vikings made their woman handle the finances because they thought math is witchcraft
During a military campaign, Vlad the Impaler, the basis for Dracula, once pulled his troops out of a major engagement in a valley at dusk so that the sun was in their enemies’ eyes. Once they were over the hill, they set loose a bunch of rabid bats who flew away from the sun (towards the enemy) and attacked them, leading to significant infection in their ranks, and Vlad’s eventual victory. Because of how the bats appeared from where Vlad’s soldiers appeared to be at dusk, myth stated that the soldiers turned into bats at night, which is where the “Dracula can change into a bat” thing came from.
raphael, the renaissance painter, literally fucked himself to death
during the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan Ibrahim I had 280 of his concubines drowned in the ocean after ONE of them slept with another man.
The earths carbon levels fell by 700 million tons because Genghis Khan killed so many people
King James (the one known for revising the Bible) liked to watch women give birth. That’s where the “tradition” of women laying on their backs to give birth comes from.
Previous to that it was common for women to have chairs with holes in them and straw underneath, so they could sit on this special chair and let gravity help with the birthing process.
Spicy foods were thought to increase libido and cause children to masturbate. To prevent kids from touching themselves at night, a man named Kellogg invented the blandest combination of cereals, marketed it at kids, and called it Corn Flakes
At the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War, a small group of Union soldiers had run out of ammo against a large group of the Confederate Army. In a panic, the Union soldiers sprinted at them, screaming, with only bayonets drawn. The entire Confederate Army that was present turned and ran away in fear, not knowing that they had literally no ammunition.
When the Roman Emperor Caligula went to invade Britain he stood on the coast of Gaul with his army and suddenly declared war on Neptune, God of the Sea. He had his men collect sea shells from the shore as “spoils from the Ocean”.
Lawyers in this country are not sharp-dressed smartalecs with incredible hair, as all American films assure me they are on the other side of the Atlantic. Barristers and Solicitors in the UK are great ponderous blimps of human beings, wrapped in pinstripes and wigs and great flappy robes that make them look like Dracula’s socially-awkward great-uncle, and they spend all their time being extremely determinedly polite to one another and debating, in frankly incredible detail, the minute details of how one carries a handbag. They use latin phrases as a kind of verbal punctuation, and never look each other in the eye.
Admittedly, the reason that one judge famously asked for clarification on who the Beatles were was a perfectly sensible one- judges are not supposed to assume meaning for anything- but the response “a popular beat combo, m’lud”, is justifiably hilarious.
I am picturing everything perfectly unchanged from the days of David Copperfield.
the wigs and black gowns that Barristers wear is due to the entire bar collectively going into mourning following the death of Queen Anne in 1714, and I know that sounds like I just made it up but I didn’t.
So what do they do when another monarch dies, wear darker black?
the convenient thing about being in perpetual mourning for three hundred years is you never really need to change your clothes. King dies? No worries, you put on your robe and lawyer hat, like you do every day
I LEARNED RECENTLY THAT PLATO WON THE GOLD MEDAL IN THE OLYMPICS FOR WRESTLING THREE TIMES. THIS PUTS A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS. I ALWAYS IMAGINED PLATO TO BE FRAIL AND MISSHAPEN BUT HE MUST HAVE BEEN FRICKEN RIPPED. I WONDER IF ARISTOTLE EVER FELT ANXIETY ABOUT GETTING PHYSICALLY (I.E. NOT JUST METAPHYSICALLY) DISMANTLED BY PLATO. PLATO WAS PROBABLY PISSED OFF BY AT LEAST A HANDFUL OF QUESTIONS ARISTOTLE ASKED HIM. ARISTOTLE WAS A LITERAL GENIUS TOO. IMAGINE PLATO LECTURING AND WRITING ON A BLACKBOARD AND ARISTOTLE THROWING A COMMENT OUT THERE ABOUT SOME COMPLEX MISSTEP IN PLATO’S LOGIC AND PLATO’S CHALK JUST SNAPS AND ARISTOTLE’S TESTICLES SUCK WAY BACK UP TO WHERE THEY DROPPED FROM, THEN PLATO IN A BLUR APPEARS BESIDE ARISTOTLE SITTING AT HIS DESK AND HE PICKS HIM UP AND SUPLEXES HIS MACEDONIAN ASS.
given the content of a lot of Plato’s conclusions I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Plato responded to a lot of reasonable criticisms with “Fight me” and that was the end of it.
ANOTHER FUN PLATO FACT
People think of Plato as kind of feeble because we think of philosophers that way, but some historians believe that we have conclusive evidence that he wasn’t
and it’s been staring us in the face the whole time.
Because Plato’s real name wasn’t Plato – it was Aristocles.
So some historians believe that ‘Plato’ was a nickname, bestowed upon him by his buddies. And do you know what Plato roughly translates to when you flip it out of greek? Broad. As in, broad shouldered.
This guy’s been going around with a name that literally means ‘Buff McWrestleton’ and we still think of him as a feeble old guy (probs. because Aristotle wanted us to…)
BRITISH EMPIRE: All right, fine, your stupid embargo worked. We won’t levy any more taxes-
AMERICAN COLONIES: Huzzah! Time to get drunk!
BRITISH EMPIRE: Except on tea.
AMERICAN COLONIES: What?
BRITISH EMPIRE: Get over it, it’s just tea. Seriously, where do you get this idea that you’re special and should never have to pay taxes? We hope that idea doesn’t go on to infect your political discourse centuries from now.
AMERICAN COLONIES: We’re not buying your stupid tea.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Are you being serious right now? What are you going to do, just stop drinking tea?
AMERICAN COLONIES: Yes. We’ll drink coffee.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Do you even know what that is?
AMERICAN COLONIES: No, but we’ve heard it’s good and we’re feeling surly.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Fine, whatever, we don’t even care what you do anymore.
BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY: Actually, we are pretty much bankrupt, so you need to make them drink the tea.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Oh, for—just drink the tea.
AMERICAN COLONIES: No.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Do it.
AMERICAN COLONIES: NO.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Drink it.
AMERICAN COLONIES: Fuck you.
BRITISH EMPIRE: Drink it or we’ll punch you in the face.
AMERICAN COLONIES: *Boston Tea Party*
BRITISH EMPIRE: What the hell?
AMERICAN COLONIES: We heard it was Indians.
BRITISH EMPIRE: That’s interesting, because we heard it was a bunch of colonists wearing paint and dressed in costumes that were remarkably similar to what a crowd of drunks who wanted to look like Indians would assemble if the only supplies they had were found in an alley behind a bar.
AMERICAN COLONIES: You get all types in Boston.
BRITISH EMPIRE: …*Coercive Acts*
AMERICAN COLONIES: Oh, it is ON.
if you’re ever worried about how weird your fanfic is just remember that Aristophanes wrote about Aeschylus and Euripides having a rap battle in the underworld while Dionysus croaked at hell frogs
I love how humans have literally not changed throughout history like the graffiti from Pompeii has people from hundreds of years ago writing stuff like “Marcus is gay” “I fucked a girl here” “Julius your mum wishes she was with me” and leonardo da vinci’s assistants drew dicks in their notebooks just for the banter and mozart created a piece called “kiss my ass” so when people wish for ‘today’s generation’ to be like ‘how people used to’ then we’re already there buddy we’ve always been
The Hagia Sophia has inscriptions that were considered sacred for centuries until they were deciphered in the 70s to be Nordic runes saying “Halfdan wrote this”
Fucking Halfdan.
I’m just imagining future archaeologists thinking that Kilroy was some kind of all-seeing deity
Confusing archeologists of the future is a good reason to do something
That’s why I want my skeleton buried atop a horse skeleton with a shark skeleton posed like it was fighting us
When some douchebag digs up my bones in a few thousand years time I want them to be puzzled by why the horse/land shark battles were left out of the history books
There’s a book out there that’s either one of the last great unsolved cyphers or a massive medieval hoax. Welcome to the weird world of the Voynich Manuscript. And no, it isn’t solved yet.
I did this comic for The Niblast year (The Nib is an amazingly great place for comics on Medium if you don’t know that already). You can follow all my work on Medium here.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Claudius Aelianus, so here are some Roman natural history highlights:
In Egypt, whenever it rains, mice are born instantly.
During the Olympics flies “make peace with visitors and residents alike” and disappear until the games are over.
If a jackdaw sounds like a hawk, snow is on the way.
Because cows can sense rain, people wearing leather jackets can sometimes predict the weather
Whelks have a king and submit gladly to its rule. Catching the whelk king will bring good luck to any fisherman.
Hawks are the only bird that can fly directly into the sun without suffering from its heat.
Anyone who wishes to remain beardless should rub tuna blood on their chin.
The left paw of a hyena can put people to sleep. The right fin of a hyena fish will cause terrible visions if placed under a sleeping person.
To gaze at the toad is dangerous. If a man looks at it, it will stare back, locking its eyes on the man and causing him to turn so pale anyone would think he had been sick for a long time.
“Chroniclers praise the Babylonians and Chaldeans for their knowledge of the heavens. Ants have this knowledge too.”
If you throw a wolf vertebra among a team of horses they will immediately become unable to move.
Beetles can be killed by perfume or rose petals.
The spines of dead criminals become snakes.
If you hit a lizard with a stick and then cut it in half each half will go on living, moving independently but not very well on two feet. The halves will eventually find each other and become a whole lizard again.
Eagles never drink or rest. As soon as eaglets hatch their parents force them to stare into the sun, and if they blink they are unworthy and are thrown out of the nest.
gosh, the united states doesn’t have the government i want. how do i fix this? what if i wrote an 85-part “anonymous” essay in the newspaper
gosh, i don’t like the president. how do i fix this? what if i wrote a 15-part open letter in the newspaper
gosh, my Nemesis found out about that time i accidentally fucked a woman not my wife who was only doing it to blackmail me. how do i fix this? what if i wrote a 95-page pamphlet and published it in
(side note: what the fuck, hamilton)
gosh, george fucking washington is not promoting me fast enough. what if i purposefully pissed him off to End Our Friendship Forever
gosh, my home was just hit by a hUGE FUCKING HURRICANE. what if i used this opportunity to write a poem about it so people give me Lots Of Money Forever
gosh, president john adams doesn’t love me as much as washington did. what if i got all of his cabinet members to give me dirt on him that i then published in a 15-part open letter in the newspaper so he can’t get reelected, despite the fact that he is a mEMBER OF MY PARTY
(side note: WHAT THE FUCK, HAMILTON)
GOSH, I’M NOT HAVING A GOOD DAY, WHAT IF I THREATENED TO FIGHT THE ENTIRE FUCKING DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY
side note: whAT THE Fokay you know what i give up. i fucking give up, alexander hamilton, you useless twit of a brilliant handsome probably bisexual sharp-tongued eloquent abolitionist immigrant new yorker, i cannot sort you into a hogwarts house. please never, ever, ever attend hogwarts.
Kimchi and Justice 