9 real historical facts that sound like a joke

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

At least for those who love black humor.

1. In the Middle Ages, some conflicts between husband and wife were resolved by a judicial duel

Domestic violence is a serious problem. In the Middle Ages, they found a very original way to resolve disputes between spouses - not to prohibit them, but to legitimize them. So, in the book of 1467 by duelist Hans Talhoffer called Fechtbuch ("fencing book", a guide to fencing), the rules for conducting judicial battles between spouses are described.

A man sitting waist-deep in an earthen hole was armed with a truncheon. His wife was given a sack with a stone weighing four or five pounds (1.5-2 kg). Any tricks were allowed - including blows to the head, strangulation, sticking a club between the legs of a woman and twisting a man's penis (yes, Master Talhoffer mentioned such details). The winner was determined by the judge.

2.60 Holy Roman nobles drowned in feces in Erfurt

Once, two influential gentlemen, Louis III, Landgrave of Thuringia, and Archbishop of Mainz Konrad of Wittelsbach, quarreled,,.

There was a certain tension between Thuringia and Mainz for a long time, and the archbishop decided to build a castle on the border with a potential enemy, in Heiligenburg, just for every fireman. The Landgrave said that this was a provocation and that decent archbishops did not act that way, and therefore now he was simply obliged to organize an invasion of Mainz.

Emperor Henry VI, just passing by on business - wanted to make war with Poland, nothing special - decided to help the gentlemen make peace. For this, he organized a diet, that is, a meeting of important people, in the city of Erfurt.

If Louis, Konrad and Heinrich met in person, face to face, there would be nothing to talk about. But in the Middle Ages, this was not done, so everyone came to negotiations with a huge retinue. Plus to this number was added nobility from all over the Holy Roman Empire - who was on a serious matter, who was counting on a banquet.

In general, on July 25, 1184, more than a hundred people gathered at the St. Peter's Cathedral in Erfurt for the negotiations.

And when the meeting began, the wooden floor beneath them, not designed for that weight and also rotting, collapsed. The monsignors fell down, smashed the next floor with their bodies, and finally collapsed into a huge septic tank located under the monastery. A septic tank that has not been cleaned for many years.

As a result, more than 60 people died - some from fall injuries, others drowned in tons of excrement. Among the dead were such distinguished gentlemen as Gozmar III, Counts Ziegenhain, Beringer I von Meldigen and Friedrich Abinberk and other important persons. As you can see, not only in "Game of Thrones" the nobles have a hard time.

Louis III floundered in the septic tank, but managed to get him out. The archbishop also survived by sitting next to the window.

And King Henry at this time retreated into a niche-toilet with a stone floor (in those days, such places in castles were delicately called wardrobes). He had to wait, sitting in the restroom, while the servants dragged the stairs and removed him from the second floor of the collapsed building. After that, His Majesty became disillusioned with diplomacy and left Erfurt.

3. Pope Formosa was brought to trial after exhuming

In January 897, Pope Stephen VI decided to accuse his predecessor, Formosa, of heresy. This was the most popular way in Rome to remove an objectionable hierarch - to call him a heretic and anathematize him. Kind of like a culture of abolition, just for popes.

The fact is that Formosus anointed the wrong person to reign the Holy Roman Empire - Arnulf of Carinthia from the Carolingians. After Arnulf, who had reigned for a short time, was paralyzed, another king, Lambert Spoletsky, began to claim the title. Formosa's decision urgently needed to be canceled in court, pretending that it was not the pope at all, but a traitor to the church. It doesn't matter who he anointed there.

There was, however, one snag: Formoz died safely nine months before the start of the session, so he could not come to court, which was quite expected.

But the fact of the defendant's death did not stop the justice machine. The decomposed corpse was pulled out of the tomb, dragged through the streets, taken to the Lateran Basilica, dressed in papal clothes and placed on the throne. Pope Stephen accused the corpse of perjury, violation of canon law and misappropriation of the title of bishop and began interrogation. The answer, of course, was not Formosus himself, but a deacon hiding behind the back of the throne, imitating the voice of the deceased.

At the end of the meeting, the corpse was found guilty, declared all his decisions, including the anointing of Arnulf, null and void, cut off his three fingers (which he used for blessings during his lifetime), tore off the papal vestments from him and buried him in the cemetery for the rabble.

The adventures of Formosa did not end there. He was exhumed again - apparently, grave diggers hoping to profit from something. But since the excommunicated pope was buried without any honors, the robbers did not find anything of value, tied a load to the corpse and threw it into the Tiber River.

The late ex-pope surfaced, fishermen found him and, according to the historian Liutprand of Cremona, was taken to the church of the blessed prince of the Apostles Peter. There, the remains of Formosa are rumored to have begun to perform miraculous healings. In addition, they recalled that during the "Corpse Synod" there was an earthquake that damaged the Lateran Temple, which further convinced the rabble of the holiness of Formosus.

A little later, the new pope, John IX, reinstated Formosus in his rights, buried him in the papal tomb with honors and forbade him to continue to carry out the trial of the dead.

And some time later, another pope, Sergius III, canceled this decision and again declared Formosa a heretic, and ordered to leave an inscription on the grave of Stephen VI, what a fellow that Formosa had exposed. True, for the third time they decided not to exhume the poor fellow, and he remained to rest in St. Peter's Basilica.

4. Indian Galvarino fought with the Spaniards without hands

When the Spanish conquistadors invaded South America, they faced fierce resistance from the Mapuche Indians, or Araucanians. Almost one and a half hundred Mapuche were captured after the fierce battle in Araucania in 1557.

Chile's Governor García Hurtado de Mendoza ordered most of the prisoners to have their right hand and nose cut off. And the most ferocious warrior named Galvarino was cut off both hands at once. Apparently, he was really cool in battle.

If you think that the loss of limbs stopped Galvarino, you are wrong. He attached a pair of knives to his stumps and continued to fight the Spaniards. Galvarino even without hands laid the mountain of conquistadors in the battle of Millarapu. True, in the end, the Spaniards still prevailed, killed almost three thousand Mapuche and fed Galvarino to the dogs alive.

5. The Romans used urine to wash and brush their teeth

The Romans were interesting guys in general. For example, they were extremely ingenious in the use of urine. Since it contains a lot of ammonia, which has bleaching properties, it was used as a laundry detergent.

The laundries were staffed by specially trained people called fullo. They immersed worn togas in vats of stale urine and then stomped on them with their feet. Then they were washed in water with ash or clay. This allowed the fat to be removed from the fabric.

Human urine has also been used in tanning leather, treating sheep (by pouring urine down their throats) and, according to COLUMELLA, On Agriculture of the Roman historian Columella, used as fertilizer for growing pomegranates.

Urine was so necessary in the Roman economy that Emperor Vespasian taxed the public latrines that sold it. To his son Titus, when asked if his father had gone mad, he reasonably replied: "Money does not smell."

And for dessert, here's the most original use of urine among the Romans: they rinsed their mouth with it to make their teeth whiter. Interestingly, it even makes some sense - again thanks to the ammonia. Fortunately, such sacrifices, apparently, were not made by everyone, but only by the most desperate snobs who treasured their snow-white smile. For example, the historian Catullus ironically mentions one such original named Egnatius.

6. The Roman Empire was auctioned off

By the way, something else about the Romans. There was one unpleasant period in the history of Rome - 193, during which five emperors were replaced on the throne.

Emperor Commodus, the one played by Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, was actually a very strange guy. He loved to fight in the arena against real fighters, but he often scored on the affairs of the empire. And, besides, he suffered from paranoia and liked to kill his consuls just in case, otherwise they suddenly think of something. It is not surprising that the confidants decided to carefully eliminate him and appoint a better ruler.

It didn't work out neatly. The attempt to poison Commodus failed because the emperor vomited. I had to hastily bribe his personal trainer in Greco-Roman wrestling, Narcissus, to strangle Commodus while taking a bath. The fighter coped with the task, and one of the conspirators, Pertinax, was appointed the new Caesar.

He, in principle, was a good man and could become a quite decent emperor, because he abolished the draconian taxes of Commodus and gave more freedom to Roman citizens. But he did not bring money to the Praetorian guard, and they were offended by him.

The guards who guarded the emperor were accustomed to receiving from each new applicant a certain amount as a gift, called "donative", or "donatvium".

Praetorians are not bloggers for you, unwillingness to donate to them led to unpleasant consequences.

Therefore, the Praetorians took and finished off Pertinax, and then announced an auction. The lot was the Caesar throne and the entire Roman Empire to boot. The wealthy senator Didius Julian offered the highest price - 25 thousand sesterces for the praetorian, and he was declared the new Caesar.

True, he ruled for only two months, because he could not pay off the Praetorians on time, and did not know how to take a loan. On the 66th day of reign, the guards, who had not received payments, killed the debtor.

Only the next emperor, Lucius Septimius Severus, was able to bring order to Rome. He became a good ruler and enjoyed the support of ordinary Romans. And he was clearly not stupid, since the first thing he did when he became Caesar was to dismiss the Praetorian Guard, replacing them with his own soldiers.

7. Britain and the United States went to war over the killing of a pig

In 1846, Britain and the United States divided territories on the North American continent and signed the Oregon Treaty, which stipulated their borders west of the Rocky Mountains.

The problem is that geography was not so-so back then, since Google Maps and mapping satellites had not yet been invented. So the agreement turned out to be somewhat vague. There were no difficulties with dividing the borders on land, but on the water …

In general, the two powers were unable to divide the small island of San Juan, and both declared it their territory. And they forgot about its existence for 13 years.

On one half of the island, the British Hudson's Bay Company established a sheep farm, and on the other half of the island settled American settlers who grew potatoes. For a long time they lived in peace, until one unfortunate incident occurred.

One day, an American farmer named Lyman Catlar got up in the morning, went out into the street and found that a big black pig was ravaging his garden and eating potatoes. Since this was not the first time this had happened, Catlar freaked out, took a rifle and knocked down the pig on the spot without firing a warning shot.

Then, like a decent man, he went to the owner of the pig, Irishman Charles Griffin, who ran a sheep farm, told about the incident and offered $ 10 in compensation. Griffin apparently loved the pig very much, because he got angry and demanded at least 100. Catlar refused to pay, because it was the pig that invaded his territory.

And when the British authorities threatened to arrest Catlar - in those wild times people often forgot about such a thing as jurisdiction - he went to the gallant American warriors for protection.

Brigadier General William Harney, commander of the Oregon Military District, took the report that American citizens were being bullied. And he sent 66 soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment under the command of Captain George Pickett to protect the farmer. Seeing that a real military detachment arrived on the island, the British also decided not to waste time on trifles and requested support in the form of three warships with marines.

The conflict escalated, and on August 10, 1859, on San Juan Island, 461 American soldiers with 14 guns prepared to fight five British warships with 167 guns and 2,140 men on board. Fortunately, the commanders of the armies, American Colonel Silas Casey and British Rear Admiral Robert Baynes, after learning what the fuss was about, decided that it was foolish to start a war over a pig. Therefore, both ordered their men to never shoot first.

For several days, American and British soldiers, seated in positions, shouted all sorts of offensive things to each other, trying to provoke the enemy into aggression in order to get the right to bypass the order and use weapons. But not a single shot was fired.

Upon learning of what had happened, high officials in Washington and London were horrified at the prospect of a war on such a trifling matter and began negotiations. But then the Civil War in the United States began inopportunely, and the negotiations dragged on for 12 years. All this time, American and British garrisons of a hundred men each held their own half of San Juan Island. The British left the island only in 1872, the Americans withdrew their troops in 1874.

Thus ended the long Anglo-American confrontation on the island of San Juan, the only victim of which was a pig.

8. And Canada and Denmark are still fighting for the island of Hans

However, sometimes countries manage to conduct conflicts in a more peaceful way. For example, Canada and Denmark cannot share the small island of Hans, which you can see in the illustration.

Therefore, the so-called "intelligent war" is being waged on the island. Once every few months, the Canadian naval forces arrive there, plant the flag of their state on the island, absorb the supply of strong drinks left by the enemy on the island in advance, celebrate the capture of the island and leave with victory.

After some time, the Danish military landed on the island, set up their flag, consume the booze left by the Canadians, declare the island their own and sail away.

This conflict has lasted from 1984 to the present day. Danish sailors traditionally leave schnapps on the island, and Canadian ones - whiskey.

If all wars were fought like this, the world would be much more fun.

9. Time is relative

Finally, here's some food for thought.

You've probably heard a fun fact surfing the Internet: Cleopatra lived closer in time to the flight to the moon than to the construction of the pyramids. And it is true,.

Cleopatra VII, a descendant of the Macedonian commander Ptolemy, a companion of Alexander, lived from 69 to 30 years. BC NS. The construction of the Djoser pyramids began from 2667 to 2648. BC NS. And the first landing on the moon took place in 1969.

But here's an even stranger fact: at the same time when the pyramids were being built, real mammoths still walked on the Earth! Naturally, not in Egypt, but on Wrangel Island, but still. The last population of mammoths perished around 1355-1337. BC e., during the reign of Tutankhamun.

The famous tyrannosaurus rex also lived closer in time to the flight to the moon than to the stegosaurs. The latter existed 156-144 million years ago, and tyrannosaurs - 67-65 million years ago.

And finally, know: during the premiere of the first "Star Wars" in France, people were still executed on the guillotine. The last person was beheaded in this way in 1977.