The Did you know thread. Uselss, but Fascinating historical facts and stories)

Discussion in 'History' started by Excape Goat, Jan 2, 2006.

  1. Excape Goat

    Excape Goat Member+

    Mar 18, 1999
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    "Count Wampyr" was the orignal name that Bram Stoker was going to use for the title charactor later known as "Dracula".
     
  2. yasik19

    yasik19 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Chelsea
    Ukraine
    Oct 21, 2004
    Daly City
    Makes sense.
     
  3. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
    Corona, Queens
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    Lessons from Failed Cold War Spy Mission in China - Associated Press

     
  4. Excape Goat

    Excape Goat Member+

    Mar 18, 1999
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    The origins of Hannibal's elphants had always been a mystery in history. African elephants are believed to be untamable. So where did Hannibal get his elephants? Some believed these elephants were North African Elephant(now exhinct), but they were small.


    Hannibal's favourite elephant was named Surus or "the Syrian". The Seleucids in Syria are known to use Asian elephants. Some belived that Hannibal's elephants were Asian.
     
  5. nutbar

    nutbar New Member

    Apr 22, 2001
    Canada
    clip of Mussolini speaking in English; he could speak several languages

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTXhez2mNmM"]YouTube- (Very Rare!) Mussolini's Speech - in English! (1929 Fox Movietone Newsreel)[/ame]
     
  6. Excape Goat

    Excape Goat Member+

    Mar 18, 1999
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Francis Tumblety, one of the Jack the Ripper suspects, was arrested for complicity in the Abraham Lincoln assassination in 1865, but was released without charge after three weeks in prison. He was a suspect becuase he lived in London at time of one of the murders and he was known for his hatred of women and prostitutes.

    I do not know how he was connected with the Abraham Lincoln assassination.
     
  7. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Who was the last person to sign?

    what ever happened to the movie?

    Mexicana just filed for bankruptcy. :D
     
  8. Excape Goat

    Excape Goat Member+

    Mar 18, 1999
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    A lot of people know about tghis one. U.S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant. Congressman Thomas L. Hamer mistakenly nominated him as "Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio." to West Point. Thus, he became Ulysses S. Grant while in West Point. "S" stands for just the letter "S".


    Jefferson Davis served three terms on the senate, but he never served full term in any of the three terms. Of course, he did not served his entire term as President of the Confederate States of America. So he had never served a full term in any elective office.

    As of 2007, Tennessee had 32 dedicated historical markers linked to Nathan Bedford Forrest, more than are dedicated to the three former Presidents associated with the state: Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson
     
  9. yossarian

    yossarian Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jun 16, 1999
    Big City Blinking
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Not too surprising since Forrest led cavalry raids/battles all over the state.
     
  10. Q*bert Jones III

    Q*bert Jones III The People's Poet

    Feb 12, 2005
    Woodstock, NY
    Club:
    DC United
    So Palin's already got him beat!
     
  11. taosjohn

    taosjohn Member+

    Dec 23, 2004
    taos,nm
     
  12. Excape Goat

    Excape Goat Member+

    Mar 18, 1999
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Tipu Sultan Beach, a fishing village in the Malappuram district of the Indian state of Kerala was renamed Saddam Beach after former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, in an act of solidarity during the 1991 Gulf War.
     
  13. Excape Goat

    Excape Goat Member+

    Mar 18, 1999
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Bruce Lee's maternal grandfather was the brother of Sir Robert Ho Tung, the richest man in Hong Kong. In fact, Sir Robert was the first Chinese tycoon in Hong Kong.

    Ho Kom-tong(Bruce lee's grandfather and Sir Robert's brother) was a prominent businessman and philanthropist. He received an OBE from the British government in 1928. He was also a classmate and a sponsor of Dr Sun Yat-sen. In fact, the Dr Sun Yat-sen Museum in Hong kong was the former residence of Ho Kom-tong'. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints bought the mansion in 1960 and used it as their headquarter until around the year 2000. The building became the Dr Sun Yat-sen Museum. I wondered how many Mormons realized that their headquarter was the family home of Bruce Lee's grandfather.


    Information on Ho Tung:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Tung
     
  14. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
    Corona, Queens
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    Queen Elizabeth Becomes UK's Second-Longest Reigning Monarch - Reuters

     
  15. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
    Corona, Queens
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    Samoa to Skip Friday and Switch Time Zones - N.Y. Times

     
  16. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
    Corona, Queens
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    Mystery of Incident That Inspired 'The Birds' Solved? - USA Today

     
  17. Tom_Heywood

    Tom_Heywood New Member

    Jan 7, 2012
    Club:
    Blackburn Rovers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Wales

    It's the other way round. The murders took place in 1888-91. Interesting that he was somehow linked to the Lincoln assassination though. He also had a collection of wombs preseved in jars of alcohol, something Extreme Makeover House Edition should consider (well it would be considered extreme).
     
  18. taosjohn

    taosjohn Member+

    Dec 23, 2004
    taos,nm
    He was in St Louis using "Dr Blackburn" as an alias (he was more or less a con man and constantly in trouble for one scam or another.) Unfortunately for him, there was a real "Dr Blackburn" who had a reputation as some sort of Copperhead plotter, and was sought as a "usual suspect" when Lincoln was shot. The authorities in St Louis detained him until they determined he was not that Blackburn.

    Whether they figured out that he wasn't any Blackburn at all I do not know...
     
  19. Tom_Heywood

    Tom_Heywood New Member

    Jan 7, 2012
    Club:
    Blackburn Rovers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Wales
    I didn't know that. So he was a bit of a conman whose fake name got him pulled in for shooting Lincoln, then he later went to London and finally returned to America doing the same sort of crap he did before.

    1. Children's author and WW2 fighter pilot Roald Dahl, was also a spy who allegedly banged the wives of US Senators to gain information about US politics and how to get them more involved in the war.

    2. Christopher Columbus may have been half Polish, and even the son of the exiled Polish king.

    3. The Reichstag fire was started by Nazis who brought a load of flammable chemicals down a secret underground corridor linking the Reichstag to the Reichstag President's house. The President of the Reichstag at the time was Herman Goering.

    4. Hitler was never elected Chancellor of Germany. He was appointed by President Hindenberg.

    5. Count Mirabeau, a key figure in the early part of the French Revolution was famous for writing books that combined political philosophy with hard core erotic fiction.
     
  20. Lusitania14

    Lusitania14 Member

    Aug 24, 2010
    Club:
    FC Porto
    Nat'l Team:
    Portugal
    The Pacific Ocean was named by Maggellan. After having had bad weather crossing through South America on his voyage across the globe, when reaching upon the the Pacific Ocean (happened to be calm on that day), cried out "Mar Pacifico" which in Portuguese means "Peaceful Sea".
     
  21. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
    Corona, Queens
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    German Soldiers Preserved in World War I Shelter Discovered After Nearly 100 Years - The Telegraph

     
  22. Tom_Heywood

    Tom_Heywood New Member

    Jan 7, 2012
    Club:
    Blackburn Rovers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Wales
    During negotiations of the Munich Agreement of 1938, Adolf Hitler and the then British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden (who later became PM in the 1950's) talked about World War 1. They soon realised they were actually facing each other in the trenches at one point of the war.

    There is a photo of the main square of Munich taken at the public announcement of what became World War 1. Amongst the crowd, more or less in the centre of the picture is Adolf Hitler.

    A teenage Maximillian Robespierre delivered a speech marking King Louis XVI's coronation in the presence of the king.
     
  23. Umar

    Umar Member+

    Sep 13, 2005
    One step ahead
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Nat'l Team:
    Palestine
    [​IMG]
     
  24. guignol

    guignol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 28, 2005
    mermoz-les-boss
    Club:
    Olympique Lyonnais
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    in the part of france where WWI was fought they still uncover every year something like 2000 tons of unexploded munitions, which only accounts for a small percentage of the helmets, gas masks, old trucks, gun barrels, bits of airplanes... and bones, that are plowed up by farmers or road workers every day of the year.

    unless it's a case like someone finding 30 tons of cannon shells in his backyard necessitating the evacuation of a whole village such things don't even make the papers.
     
  25. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
    Corona, Queens
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    James Morehead, World War II Flying Ace, Dies at 95 - N.Y. Times

     

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