People Share The Most Jaw-Dropping Historical Facts They’ve Ever Learned

Historical events, even in the most serious and intense periods of time, are always subject to questions of contingency, and blind luck. There are times when truth is stranger than fiction. Although some history is glossed over in textbooks, historians – and ordinary people who enjoy doing their research – have amazing, and sometimes unbelievable, stories to tell about events that actually happened.

From crazy dictators to wild assassins, people have acted out for thousands of years. Some leaders murdered millions of people, whereas others suffered greatly during times of war. Simply assuming that things were different “back then” is a cop-out; imagine these same things happening in today’s world, and they’ll seem even more insane. Here are some of the most jaw-dropping historical facts that you probably didn’t learn about in school…

Crazy Admiral

Admiral Zinovy Roshestvensky of the Imperial Russian Navy would make up insulting nicknames for ships and officers he disliked, such as “the sink-by-themselves squadron;” beat the tar out of crewmembers that disobeyed him; fire live ammunition across the bows of errant ships; and was even known to pull alongside other ships just to scream at its captain in front of the entire crew.

Despite all this, he was considered one of the best officers in the Russian Navy, was well-liked by his crew, and took full blame for his defeat at the Battle of Tsushima. So, while he may have been hotheaded and had high standards for his crew, he was ultimately a fair and honorable man, just doing the best he could with what he had. Reddit user: TheSorge

Wartime Succession

When the Netherlands were invaded and occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War, many people had to flee to Canada as refugees, including a very pregnant Princess Juliana of the Netherlands and her husband Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld. Their daughter, Princess Margriet, ended up being born in Ottawa during the war. However, this posed a slight problem for the Dutch.

If the child had dual nationality, it wouldn’t be in line for the Dutch throne. Not knowing the gender of the baby, and hence the heir to the throne, Canada declared the maternity ward of the Ottawa hospital extraterritorial. This turned the maternity ward into international soil. As a result, the child would derive its nationality wholly from the mother, thus making the baby 100% Dutch. Reddit user: Slothofdoom

Our TV President

The election of Volodymyr Zelensky as president of Ukraine is a fact of history. People talk about how crazy it is that a reality TV star got elected President of the US, but I think this story is even crazier. Zelensky was the star of a political satire show called Servant of the People, where he played the president of Ukraine. The show’s last episode aired on March 28, 2019.  

Three days later, Zelensky carried 30% of the popular vote in the first round of elections, almost double the number carried by the incumbent president. Three weeks later, in round two of the elections, Zelensky won with 73% of the popular vote. It just seems like the type of thing that’ll be turned into a great documentary in 50 years or so. Reddit user: maleorderbride

Chinese Retirement

In the book The Art of War by Sun Tzu, I read about a Chinese general who, after defeating his enemies, invited them all over for dinner. They accepted, but were cautious. At the dinner table, the other men were skeptical because they’d thought that the general was going to poison them. However, this was far from the actual truth.

In order to deal with his enemies, this general didn’t kill them. Instead, he actually retired his enemies by giving them a place to stay, riches, positions within his government and army, and women. As a result of this generous treatment, they never betrayed him. Thus demonstrating the wisdom of “make friends with your enemies so that they don’t betray you.” Reddit user: DaBears1289

Near Miss

During the Cuban Missile Crisis and the American blockade of Russian ships to the island, a Russian submarine on patrol was found by the Americans, and was under “soft attack.” Ships were dropping depth charges on them to try and get them to surface and communicate. The Soviets had pre-delegated nuclear release authority to submarines with nuclear weapons, but that wasn’t all.

Of the three officers on board, the captain and political officer wanted to retaliate with a nuclear weapon. But Vasily Arkhipov, who was the commander of the submarine flotilla, disagreed and refused to approve the use of a nuclear weapon. He persuaded the captain of the submarine to surface, and await further orders. This action prevented the Cuban Missile Crisis from escalating to a nuclear conflict. Reddit user: lowstrife 

Popery Fun

Pope Stephen VI really hated the guy that was pope before the guy that was pope before him, aka Pope Formosus. It was pretty much all because of powerful families, and politics, and old grudges. Still, being pope is literally a lifelong gig, and that means the guy he hated had been dead for a bit by the time Stephen VI became pope (about 7 months).

So what did Stephen VI do? He dug up the dead previous pontiff, and put his remains on trial, of course. He was found guilty, stripped of his garments, had three fingers removed, was redressed in peasant garb, and reburied in a pauper’s grave. Later, he had him chucked into the Tiber River. Stephen VI was then imprisoned for the whole thing, and later strangled. Reddit user: Reverse_Waterfall

Irony

During the 1901 Republican nominations, Teddy Roosevelt was unanimously voted to be the Vice President, with the exception of one vote – his own. He was adamant about not becoming the VP because he claimed, “It is a stepping stone to nothing but oblivion.” The Republican bosses figured he would actually do the least amount of damage as the VP because, in every other role, he ended up being quite popular.  

Senator Mark Hannah said to McKinley when Teddy Roosevelt became the Vice President, that, “Your only duty to the country is to live for four years.” As everyone knows, McKinley was shot and killed by an assassin a couple of years later, making Theodore Roosevelt the youngest man ever to serve as President of the United States. Reddit user: Ace_of_Clubs

Weekend At Uncle Joe’s

Joseph Stalin used to take people to the side to have some drinks with them, or invite them to join him for a vacation in his dacha. Khrushchev wrote about how much he hated those drinking breaks and vacations. Stalin would try to get his guests drunk, get info from them, and could decide he wanted to kill you during the vacation. 

Khrushchev would also subtly try to get Stalin drunk as well, and get info from him. It happened a few times, and one time during one of these vacations, Stalin asked him to dance a Ukrainian folk dance in front of a bunch of people. Khrushchev hated dancing, but he had to do it, lest he risk upsetting his boss. Reddit user:_Norman_Bates

French Potatoes

Potatoes were not a very popular food in Ancient Regime France. They were seen as fit only for animals. Not only that, but they were considered to be generally indigestible by humans. However, a pharmacist named Parmentier knew they were perfectly edible food for people (and thank goodness for that), and wanted to popularize their consumption among the working class. 

So he got a two-acre farm on which he grew potatoes, and placed armed guards around the farm at all times. People assumed that armed guards meant something very valuable was growing there, so they began to steal the potatoes he grew there. As a result, potatoes became increasingly popular among the French working classes, and they’ve remained popular to this day. Reddit user: burningmanonacid

Toothache

During the era of the Vikings, there was a leader named Sigurd. He allied with a Viking warlord named Thorstein. He wanted to conquer more land, and expand his territory. He’d already been very successful in doing so. This was until he feuded with another leader called Máel Bucktoothed, or Máel Tusk, as his front two teeth were abnormally large.

They decided to settle their differences on the battlefield, and both agreed on bringing only 40 men with them. However, Sigurd brought 80 men. Mael Bucktoothed, and his men, ended up being killed. Sigurd ordered his men to behead everyone, and tie the heads to their saddles as trophies. However, as Sigurd rode home, the severed head of Bucktoothed pierced his leg, which led to an infection, killing him soon after. Reddit user: sourcec0de1010

Luck

Back in the year 1961, a B-52 bomber carrying two Mark 39 nuclear weapons on an airborne alert suffered a refueling accident in the air. The crash led to both 3.8 megaton thermonuclear devices being released near Greensboro, North Carolina. During recovery of the weapons, it was discovered that three of the four failsafe protocols had been triggered to arm one of the devices. 

If it hadn’t been for the fourth remaining failsafe protocol actually working, there’d have been a significant nuclear event that would have spread fallout all along the East Coast of the United States, two days after the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. And, according to a documentary from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, that fourth failsafe protocol had failed in numerous tests. Reddit user: Stillwater215 

Caesar’s Mercy

When Julius Caesar was in his mid-20s, he was captured and held for ransom by pirates. Apparently, he was insulted by the amount of ransom they’d asked for, and demanded they ask for more. Well, while people were off gathering the random ransom, Caesar basically told the pirates, while laughing and joking with them, that after he was freed, he was going to have them crucified.  

They didn’t believe him, so good ol’ Caesar, not one to make empty threats, upon being freed had them rounded up and sent off to execution via crucifixion. However, in the end, he showed mercy and had their throats slit, resulting in a much quicker, less painful, and exponentially faster death than they would have had via crucifixion. Reddit user: SpCommander

Wojtek, The Bear

Wojtek was an actual bear. He was a Syrian brown bear bought, as a young cub, at a railway station in Hamadan, Iran, by Polish II Corps soldiers who had been evacuated from the Soviet Union. In order to provide for his rations and transportation, he was eventually enlisted officially as a soldier, with the rank of private, and was subsequently promoted to corporal.

He accompanied the bulk of the Polish II Corps to Italy, serving with the 22nd Artillery Supply Company. During the Battle of Monte Cassino, in Italy in 1944, Wojtek helped move crates of ammunition, and became a celebrity with visiting Allied generals and statesmen. After the war, he lived out the rest of his life at the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland. Reddit User: Nerex7

Demon Core

After World War Two, the United States took the third nuclear core – which was initially intended as a third nuclear bomb for Japan, if they still didn’t surrender – and used it for testing. One of the experiments that the scientists preformed was putting the core in two beryllium hemispheres, and holding one of the hemispheres up using just a flathead screwdriver in an experiment called “tickling the dragon.” 

The scientist that did this wore jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat. Of course, the scientist eventually ended up dropping the other hemisphere on the core, and making the core go supercritical, later killing the scientist with acute radiation poisoning. Subsequently, the core was nicknamed “The Demon Core,” and was ultimately melted down to be used in other cores. Reddit user: GoonmanHLR

Meme Teddy

Teddy Roosevelt was on his way to a speech, and as he was waving to those assembled to hear him speak, someone shot him, but was restrained by the crowd. Roosevelt was the calmest person in the crowd, and asked them to bring him over. Teddy asked, “What did you do it for?” After he didn’t get an answer, he calmly said to take him to the police.

He checked, saw a bullet hole and, after seeing it didn’t hit his lungs, Teddy Roosevelt gave the speech. The bullet was slowed by his thick coat, steel-reinforced eyeglass case, and hefty speech – thank God. He finished the 90-minute speech and glared down his aides when they tried to keep him standing up straight, or from falling. Reddit user: Redneck_Pyromaniac 

White Death

The legend of the “White Death” in Finland, during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union, is quite famous. The White Death was a sniper who’s been estimated to have had at least 500 confirmed kills in the war, which took place in 1939-1940. The man’s name was Simo Häyhä. The story basically goes that he was so ridiculously good that the Russians were scared to go into the forest.

Simo was known to have made his shots without using a scope (he used iron sights), due to the cold weather, and because he preferred it that way. He also would eat snow while making shots to conceal his breath, and this was in -20 to -40 degree weather. He killed many enemy soldiers, and even other snipers that were sent to kill him during his time in service. Reddit user: FearNoShadow

Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat was a successful British deception operation of the Second World War, launched to disguise the 1943 allied invasion of Sicily. Two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating rat poison, dressed him as an officer of the Royal Marines, and placed personal items on him identifying him as the fictitious Captain William Martin.

Correspondence between two British generals, which suggested that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia, with Sicily as merely the target of a feint, was also placed on the body. But that’s not all. The body was then tossed overboard from a ship, washed up on shore, and was found by German intelligence. It successfully diverted German forces away from Sicily. Reddit user: KingBalld

Hannibal

Hannibal’s defeat of the Romans at Lago Trasimeno is an historical fact. By leaving soldiers to light fires in the hills, he created the illusion that his army was three days’ march away, when tens of thousands of men were actually concealed in the hills just above the lake. The Romans were surprised on the shore, and trapped between the onslaught and the water.

And, they were in their armor. Half of the 30,000 Roman troops were either killed in battle or drowned in the lake. Five thousand were captured, and the other 10,000 staggered back to Rome, creating a panic that the greatest army in the world had just been handed their ass by a Carthaginian upstart. It was the greatest ambush in military history. Reddit user: brianfit

Alexander

Alexander the Great is known for many things. He was doing his thing, rampaging through the Persian Empire, because that’s what you do. He comes across the city of Tyre, an impregnable island fortress that had been a bit too chummy with the Persians. They had a powerful navy that kept hampering efforts to put them under siege, and Alexander was getting peeved.

Now, the whole issue was that the “impregnable island fortress” required an attack by sea. So, Alexander just decided to turn a shallow isthmus between the mainland and the island into a landmass. He was thus turning Tyre into a peninsula. Crazy shenanigans involving cranes on boats, and naval raids to impede the progress of the Macedonian troops and engineers, occurred. In the end, Tyre fell, and Alexander the Impossibly Persistent was rewarded with victory. Reddit user: el_pobbster

World War I Pirates

In World War One, Germany had a pirate ship. They had no way of communicating with other friendly ships, as it could alert hostile ships. They made their way to South Africa, India, Malaysia, and even Australia. They laid mines in all those locations, and made their way home. Even though the British knew about the ship from survivors, all incidents from the mines were simply called gas leaks. 

On its route, they plundered many convoys, and took their supplies (coal and food mostly) and later even their crews, so that the enemy wouldn’t know any information about the ship from the people left behind. The only enemy ship that fired at it was a member of a Japanese convoy, and the captain would’ve seen it as a dishonor to simply surrender. Reddit user: Legend_Ares

Dreadnought Hoax

In 1910, Horace De Vere Cole and a number of his friends tricked the Royal Navy into showing their flagship, HMS Dreadnought, to a fake delegation of Abyssinian royals. They all dressed as “royalty”, and the Royal Navy welcomed them with an honor guard. An Abyssinian flag wasn’t found, so the Navy proceeded to use that of Zanzibar, and to play Zanzibar’s national anthem.

The group inspected the fleet. They communicated in a gibberish of words drawn from Latin and Greek. According to press reports, during the visit to the Dreadnought, the visitors repeatedly showed amazement or appreciation by exclaiming, “Bunga Bunga!” And despite a cousin of some of the group’s members being present on the Dreadnought, no one at the time realized they were being pranked. Reddit user: youns_lee 

Big Bird

In the early 1980s, NASA approached Caroll Spinney, the actress who played Big Bird on Sesame Street, to be launched into orbit on a space shuttle alongside their astronauts, to inspire children to be interested in science and engineering. The plans fell through, however, mainly due to the Big Bird costume being too bulky for the cramped space shuttle. 

So instead, NASA decided to send up Christa McAuliffe, a high school social studies teacher, as part of the Teacher in Space Project instead. She, unfortunately, didn’t make it to space either – because she was one of the crew of STS-51-L. This was the last flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger. So in some alternate timeline, Big Bird is a casualty of the space program. Reddit user: Omny87

Slapstick Assassination

The first attempt of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination was an absolute joke. Six assassins were put up to it. As his car drove past, the first one did nothing, just like he was planning to. The second threw his grenade at the car, and, as they were meant to kill themselves to avoid revealing anything if they were captured, he drank his cyanide and jumped into the river nearby. 

However, history shows that he forgot the grenade had a ten-second delay, so the car was able to drive off safely. The cyanide he drank was out of date and only made him vomit, and the “river” he jumped into was approximately four inches deep. While processing what the hell had just happened, Gavrilo Princip – who eventually would assassinate the Archduke – went off to get a sandwich. Reddit user: randomweeblet

Filibustering

William Walker was born in the 1820s; he goes to college and medical school, gets bored of medicine, and goes to California in the 1850s to recruit a private army to invade Mexico, to expand the United States. He does it, it works for a while, and then he gets kicked out. He then recruits another army, sails to Nicaragua and invades it, sets up a government, and becomes the President of Nicaragua. 

And he was officially recognized by President Pierce in 1857. Talk about a career change. Eventually, the Nicaraguans revolt, and he’s overthrown, and executed. He reinstated slavery in Nicaragua, and part of his recruitment pitch to the future Confederate Southern states to donate to/join his invasion army was that Nicaragua could be a new slave state, and give the south two more senators. Reddit user: averidgepeen

Medieval Revenge

When invading the Byzantine Empire, Khosrow Anishurvan, the Shah of Persia, came across the city of Antioch. He gave them the standard ultimatum of, “Join us or get turned to rubble,” and they refused. Naturally, he turned Antioch into rubble, and enslaved the entire population. But before besieging the city, he sent his engineers in to take very detailed measurements of the city.

After that, he rebuilt the city brick for brick deep in Iran, and moved the entire population back into their old houses. The new city was then named “Weh Antioch Khosrow,” translating to “Better than Antioch, Khosrow built this,” and filled the city with chariots and baths and circuses to ensure the population would want to stay. Reddit user: CrazyFroster

Caesar’s Bluff

In 54 BC, Julius Caesar was at war with the remaining Gallic tribes fighting against Rome, who’d been united by King Vercingetorix. Vercingetorix camped out in the hill city of Alesia, so Caesar built a 24 MILE wall around it to starve the city. But then, Gallic reinforcements arrived, which vastly outnumbered Caesar’s army 10 to 1. Instead of running, Caesar sent a small cavalry detachment to attack their front lines.

The Gauls looked at each other and thought, “Nah, Caesar isn’t stupid enough to send 40 dudes against hundreds of us.” So they come to the false conclusion that Caesar actually planned this, and that there was an entire Roman reinforcement force behind them, so they all retreat. So Caesar starves out the city, and conquers all of Gaul. Reddit user: ScarletBall

Pig Latin

Literacy in local languages during the 1500s was something like 50 percent. The knowledge of Latin was at a far lower percentage; an optimistic guess is like two percent or less. There are some writings from clergy about this time that are in Latin, but only in the purest of mechanical senses, and far from actual literacy in the language.  

At the end of the day, when you tie all these clues together, it is very possible that at least one clergy member spent most of their life faking Latin sermons for the masses. This was somewhat well known. Because at the time he was writing, Shakespeare made fun of those who imitated Latin without actually speaking it a lot. Reddit user: Seelengst

Rasputin’s Prophecy

Have you ever heard of Rasputin’s prophecy before? According to legend, Rasputin foretold his own death in a letter written to Tsar Nicholas in December of 1916: “I feel that I shall leave life before January 1st… If it was your relations who have wrought my death, then none of your children will remain alive for more than two years….”

Rasputin was killed early on the morning of December 30th by a group that included the Tsar’s cousin and nephew-in-law. Less than two years later, in July of 1918, Nicholas, Alexandra, and their four children were executed. The letter didn’t appear until the 1920s, however, and the only person to vouch for its authenticity was Rasputin’s secretary, Aron Simanovich. Reddit user: oashish

Bat Bombs

There was a dentist friend of Eleanor Roosevelt who proposed that not only were the Japanese terrified of bats, but bats could also roost in difficult-to-access areas of Japanese buildings. Combine this with a timed incendiary device, and the wood-and-rice-paper construction of Japanese buildings. The Army Air Force spent six months trying to plan this all out and achieved little. 

The USAAF fobbed the project off to the Navy, who wisely passed it along to the Marines. To everyone’s surprise, the Marine Corps was able to get the project to work, even carrying out a successful test at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. Unfortunately, the project lost out to the atomic bomb, and was canceled in early 1944. Reddit user: MaiqTheLrrr

Salem

Giles Corey, one of the men accused and killed during the Salem Witch Trials, was pressed to death. There was a phrase an accused person was supposed to say when they were brought in for charges, without which a trial couldn’t happen. He paused, evidently a bit shocked at what he considered the absurdity of being accused, and the panel he was brought before began to panic.

Then he realized what was going on, and decided to simply refuse to say the phrase, so they couldn’t try him for being a witch. He was brought to a ditch, a plank of wood was placed over him, and large stones were placed on the wood. The intention was to press the phrase out of him. His last words are alleged to have been, “More weight!” Reddit user: fave_no_more

Man’s Best Friend

Who doesn’t love a good pup? The Ancient Romans loved their dogs, at least as much as we do. There are entire surviving texts of people talking about their daily, monotonous life with their dogs. In some cases, we have more information about their dogs and what they did with them than any of the other aspects of Roman life.

On a less funny, but equally sweet note, when their dogs died, many of them were given elaborate graves with highly decorative tombstones. They often carved poems about them, or wrote in length about how much they’d miss them, or what they loved about them most. These dog graveyards were considered sacred, and vandalizing them was a major offense. Reddit user: KnightCaptain_Bob

Operation Paul Bunyan

The United States of America and North Korea almost went to war over a tree. The US wanted to chop down a few branches, because they couldn’t see a DPRK guard post. The US chopped some branches off, and pissed off the North Koreans. The North Korean guards killed two American soldiers. In retaliation, the US created Operation Paul Bunyan. 

A few guys went to the tree, and had the support of an infantry company, Cobra Attack helicopters, and B-52s escorted by American F-4s and South Korean F-5s and F-86s. On top of that, F-111s were stationed at Taegu Air Base, along with F-4s from Kadena and Clark Air Force Bases. Additionally, the USS Midway and its task force were stationed offshore. Reddit user: zuul99

Ice Cream In The Pacific

During World War II, the Japanese were struggling, and failing, to produce enough of anything that would help them win. But, they still felt they had a chance to win if they could just get a single large victory. One commander remarked that he lost faith in this when he discovered that the US had two specially designed “Ice Cream Ships.” 

These were boats that were formally designed to make concrete on the move, and use that for building ports and airstrips in the Pacific. We made too many, however, so the US brass decided to convert two of them to make ice cream to be served to US troops fighting in the Pacific, where they had few tastes of home. Reddit user: zacurtis3

Ancient Trolling

In 80 BC, a man named Verres became Governor of Sicily. He was simultaneously an absolute tyrant and mad lad. On the one hand, he would tax his citizens so highly, and overwork his farmers so much, there was an alarmingly high suicide rate in the rural communities of Sicily. On the other hand, the man accomplished hilarious levels of trolling.

He appointed a butcher as head of the Sicilian Navy, just so he could sleep with the man’s wife. This led to pirates sacking Sicily (because of course, he was a butcher in charge of a navy protecting an island in the middle of the Mediterranean), and then doing a lap of honor round the island. Reddit user: SnapSnapWoohan

Esperanto Drama

Esperanto is a relatively famous invented language made in the 1880s—it has a few million speakers worldwide, including native speakers over the course of multiple generations. Its purpose was to be a language that all people could easily learn, regardless of where they were from, so that everyone had a mutual language. It’s one of the most successful invented languages in history. 

Part of what helped propel it to popularity when it was first made was that there were already people looking for a good common language, but the language holding that role at the time, Volapük, was pretty bad, and everyone hated the creator. When Esperanto was made, the creator was much nicer to deal with, so everyone abandoned Volapük, and joined the Esperanto movement. Reddit user: jelvinjs7

Blind Knight

John, ‘The Blind King of Bohemia’, was as you might expect blind, and fought against the English at the Battle of Crecy. The knights that made up the French right flank charged at the English, but were beaten soundly. After that failure, John, leader of the French left flank, ordered that he be tied to his horse and pointed in the direction of the English.

Here’s the really funny thing. He actually succeeded in injuring the English Prince, and made some headway before he was cut down by English reinforcements. So, the blind guy ended up doing better than the highly trained, and snobbish, French knights when it actually counted, and that always makes me chuckle, at least a little bit. Reddit user: VoiceOfTheSoil40

Zanzibar War

In the year 1896, Zanzibar was an independent country squarely in the British sphere of influence. One tenet of Zanzibar’s independence was that any time a new sultan was to be appointed, the Brits had to sign off on it first. One guy, Khalid bin Barghash, decided that he was free to ignore the edicts of the most powerful empire in the world.

He poisoned his cousin, the sitting sultan, and declared himself the new sultan. The British reminded him that he needed their approval to do that. Perhaps believing that his German allies would protect him, Khalid decided to go ahead and declare himself sultan anyway. He fought a war in which 500 of his men were killed or wounded, while only a single Brit was injured. Reddit user: MiracleViolence 

Inter-Service Rivalry

The Marines have long had a tradition of storming beaches when deploying to a warzone, and they “officially” landed in Da Nang, Vietnam, on March 8th, 1965, to secure the airbase there. However, the task of scouting the beaches before landings is the responsibility of Navy UDTs – Underwater Demolition Teams. They map out the high and low-tide marks, and any underwater obstacles that might be encountered. 

Since they technically go in before the Marines, they’ve always enjoyed letting them know that the US Navy reach the area first, and when the Marines landed on the beach at Da Nang there were two crossed oars and a message in the sand that read, “Welcome U.S. Marines – UDT 12.” It’s all in love and good fun. Reddit user: badshadow

Distracting Washington

Here’s a good one. When they discovered Benedict Arnold was a traitor, Washington went to Arnold’s house, only to find his wife bare-breasted, feeding one of her kids, and raving “you’re going to kill all my babies!” And Washington (I think along with Hamilton and Madison) were like “No, ma’am; we’re just looking for your husband; we know you’re innocent in all this.”

She kept ranting and raving and screaming and throwing open her dress to expose herself, saying she didn’t know where Arnold was, or what was happening. Of course, she knew exactly what was going on – that Arnold had just run off, and she was distracting Washington and his men to buy enough time so Arnold could get away. Reddit user: MichelleInMpls

Doctor’s Lucky Break

Portuguese Jews were being persecuted in the 1720s by Spain, so being the nice guy he was, the King of England allowed a few hundred Portuguese Jews to go to the brand new trustee colony of Georgia. The family physician of Spain’s ruler was a Jew, unbeknownst to the government, and when they did finally find out, they were initially going to prosecute him. 

However, since he was such a good doctor, he was pardoned, but remained in fear for his life. When he heard about the free ride to the New World, he took the offer and lived in Savannah. When he arrived, an epidemic occurred (I forget which disease) and he had to get to work as soon as possible. He did save the city. Reddit user: Yoobtoobr

Afro Samurai

There was an actual afro samurai in Japan during the Sengoku era. Kurosuke (Kuro = Black / Yasuke, which is his given Japanese name) appears in a few anime, comic books, and one children’s book. When he first got to Japan, probably as a slave that came with the Portuguese, he got a whole lot of attention for his dark skin.

Nobunaga Oda, a powerful feudal lord, asked to see him, and didn’t believe that his skin color was actually that dark. So he made Kurosuke wash himself to take off the “charcoal on his skin,” and once Oda realized that it was his actual skin and not charcoal, Oda apologized and made him one of his Samurai. Reddit user: DaviBraid