Historical fact. In 1357, Portugal became Queen … a dead woman. Two years earlier, the king of Portugal had forced his children to kill this woman. Because one of his sons was in love with her, and she was a commoner. When the son ascended the throne, he ordered the exhumation of his beloved and
obliged the Portuguese nobility to recognize her as Queen.

In 1854, the construction of the English Parliament building on the banks of the Thames in London was stopped: the builders could not stand the stench rising from the river. The fact is that in those days all the city’s sewage was dumped into the river. And then it was decided to create a sewage and wastewater treatment system in London.

At the end of the nineteenth century, there was a catastrophic shortage of coal and wood in Egypt: all the reserves were burned in the furnaces of steam locomotives. But there were human mummies in abundance, and they were used as fuel.

On April 15, 1912, the Titanic was wrecked on its maiden voyage. Then 1,500 people died. But here’s what’s amazing: 14 years before that, a book by M. Robertson was published, which told about the wreck of a ship called “Titan”. In this story, the ship also collided with an iceberg, this was its first voyage and the crash also occurred in April! Did the author possess a magic crystal?

In the 1980s, during the war between the Afghan Resistance forces and the Soviet army, the Afghans used kamikaze camels. The animal was loaded with dynamite and driven to the location of the Soviet troops. When the camel got close enough, the Afghans used remote control to detonate the cargo.

In Ancient Egypt, there was a rule: if a patient died on the operating table, surgeons cut off their hands. However, for these patients it is the punishment of the doctors was of little consolation.

During the Second world war, British airmen always had playing cards with them. These cards could be soaked in water and then spread out. As a result, the pilot was in the hands of a geographical map, which helped to navigate if he was threatened with German captivity.

During the Second world war, the diet of British pilots necessarily included blueberry jam. Pilots claimed that if they ate a little of this delicacy before the flight, they could see better at night. Today, this phenomenon has an explanation: blueberries contain substances that improve vision.

In 1918, the calendar in Soviet Russia was shifted by 13 days to match the calendar of other European countries. That is why the anniversary of the October revolution is celebrated today in November.

Automobile traffic in modern large cities is very intense. But this problem did not arise today. In Ancient Rome, for example, Julius Caesar forbade wheeled carriages to travel on roads during the day. In 1868, signal lights were hung on the streets of London to regulate the movement of pedestrians and carriages.

The world’s oldest toilet was discovered in the tomb of a Chinese Emperor. The toilet was 2,000 years old, but it looked more like a throne: it had armrests, a seat with a round hole, and it was also equipped with a device for draining water. Most recently, in the twenty-first century, world toilet day was established: it falls on November 19. Since we visit the toilet on average six times a day, or more than 2,000 times a year, this fact seems important enough to be celebrated by the whole world every year.

At the end of the 19th century, there was a law in England that required a steam carriage to move at a speed not exceeding … three kilometers per hour. Moreover, a person with a red flag had to walk in front of the car and warn pedestrians.

The Incas, who lived in South America, created an Empire in the 12th century. Which disappeared in the 17th century. They didn’t know how to read or write, but they came up with a way to remember important events in history, take into account the number of gold bars, the number of inhabitants in a particular city, and so on. All these facts they marked with knots tied on a special rope.

The shortest war in human history took place in 1896 and lasted only 38 minutes. The opposing sides were British soldiers and the army of the African island of Zanzibar.

In 400 BC, the Greek city of Sparta had far more slaves than free citizens. At the height of its glory, the city had 25,000 full-fledged residents, and more than 500,000 slaves.

Julius Caesar suffered from epilepsy. During the attack, he fell to the ground and convulsed. The people thought that he was talking to the boks, and so they elected him Supreme ruler of Rome.

In the Middle ages, women used belladonna extract to dilate their pupils. In those days, large pupils were all the rage. However, if you overdose on belladonna, you may experience a weakening or even loss of vision. By the way, the latest research by psychologists shows that women with large pupils are considered more beautiful today

The Royal dynasty of great Britain was called Saxe-Coburg – Gotha until 1917. When the First world war broke out, members of the Royal family decided that they should not be associated with Germany, and renounced all German titles and the German surname. Since then, this English Royal dynasty is called Windsor.

In the 18th century, the richest English ladies wore wigs up to a meter high. These wigs were floured and decorated with figures of birds, fruit baskets, small models of ships, and so on. This wig was a great shelter for insects and even … for mice!

In the 14th century, a plague epidemic claimed the lives of a huge number of people. In England, for a long time it was thought that this disease is spread by cats. It is not surprising that thousands of these animals were destroyed in those years. It turned out, however, that the plague carriers are not cats at all, but rats.

To embalm and mummify the body of the deceased, the Egyptians worked for up to 70 days. So, they pulled the brain out of the skull through the nostrils. The total length of the cloth that was wrapped around the body reached 2.5 kilometers.

British Admiral Nelson began service on the ship when he was not yet 12 years old, and by the age of 20 he had already become a captain.

Nelson died during the war in 1805 on Board his ship during the war in 1805 on Board his ship. To preserve the body until it returned to England, it was placed in a barrel of alcohol. Did the sailors then just take and pour out the precious drink?

During world war II, the Americans invented an excellent system for encoding secret messages. They used the language of the Navajo Indians.

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, came from a family that seemed to be haunted by evil fate. Two of her sisters were killed because they wanted to usurp their father’s throne, and two of her brothers were killed by assassins. Cleopatra herself died from the bite of a venomous snake, deliberately putting her hand under its deadly teeth.

In the Middle ages, people already used something like biological weapons. For example, with the help of a catapult, they threw decaying animal corpses into the besieged camp of the enemy – a source of all sorts of infection.

The Etruscans, an ancient people who lived in Italy, were already familiar with the art of dental prosthetics for 700 years before the new era. As prostheses, they used the teeth of various mammals, and made them something like a bridge.

By perpetuating a historical event, you can get into a mess. So, on one of the Islands of the Caribbean sea, a postage stamp was issued, which depicted the discoverer of America Christopher Columbus with a telescope in his hand. Meanwhile, the telescope was invented 100 years after the discovery of America.

In 1973, when landing in new Jersey in America, the German airship “Hindenburg” burned down: it was filled with a flammable gas, hydrogen. This cigar-shaped device 253 meters long was an unsurpassed luxury means of transporting people by air. The fire on the airship stopped the development of airship construction. At least the aircraft was named “Hindenburg”, and not” Adolf Hitler”, as was intended in the beginning!

A high-ranking government official who lived in the 10th century in Persia had a strange habit. He carried his library with him everywhere. All her 117,000 books were loaded onto 400 camels, which moved in alphabetical order!

When you watch the news on TV, you always know that there is a war going on in some corner of the world. If you look back, you will find that there have always been wars in the world. Historians estimate that over the past 3,500 years, our planet will barely have 230 years without wars. Not very optimistic.

During world war II, a young Walt Disney came up with a way to make some money. Together with a friend, they painted soldiers ‘ helmets in camouflage colors and made dents in them, as if they had already been in battle, and sold them as Souvenirs to naive Americans.

The Roman Emperor Caligula of the Julius-Claudian dynasty (by the way, the literal translation of his name is “soldier’s Shoe”) fancied himself a God and once decided to go to war against Poseidon himself, the Greek side of the seas. His soldiers were ordered to throw spears into the sea. His other crazy idea is to appoint his horse as a Senator.

After world war II, the capital of Canada, Ottawa, received 100,000 Tulip bulbs as a gift from Juliana, Princess of the Netherlands. It was a thank you to the Canadians for providing shelter and hospitality to the Royal family of the Netherlands during the war. This gift also expressed the Princess’s gratitude to the people of Canada, who contributed to the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi occupation.

In the recent past, there were very curious methods of healing. So, in the 15th century, patients were often dressed in all red and surrounded with red objects. It was believed that this color contributes to recovery. In English hospitals in the 17th and 18th centuries, people often died not from disease, but from treatment. So sometimes when the patient was bleeding, so much blood flowed out of the patient that he died from its loss.

In Ancient Egypt, the bald head was a symbol of high social status or beauty. For example, the priests shaved off not only their hair, but also their eyebrows and eyelashes. Among the Egyptians, who lived in the era of about 1500 years before the new era, the naked skull was also considered the highest attribute of female charm. Fashionistas plucked the hair on their heads with gold tweezers and then rubbed the skull with a cloth until it shone. So don’t worry if your hair isn’t as thick as you’d like it to be. Maybe the ancient Egyptian fashion will return?

During the first world war, during the battle of the Marne (France), soldiers were brought to the front line not by train, not in vans or army vehicles, but… by taxi. The authorities mobilized all Parisian taxi drivers for the needs of the front.

The ancient Romans used beans to vote in elections and trials. Black Bob meant that the person voted against or considered the defendant guilty, white-that in both cases his opinion is the opposite of what he expressed in previous votes.

To turn the head of Julius Caesar, Queen Cleopatra sent him a kind of gift-a carpet, which was wrapped in another gift, she herself! Caesar was delighted and entered into an affair with her. The same Cleopatra from time to time, performing her functions as Queen, wore a false beard.

In 1909, the British national anthem “God save the king” was performed by the German military band 17 times in a row while waiting for king Edward 7 to enter the Brandenburg station platform. The fact is that the king really did not want to wear a German uniform. It took him a long time to get over it, and the band kept repeating the British national anthem over and over again.