12 History Trivia Items That Will Make You Feel Like the Smartest Person in the Room
If there’s one thing people love to talk about, it’s stories. But the thing about good stories is that they always come in finite amounts.
So how do you become someone who never runs out of them? Easy! Make history your companion, and you’ll always have an anecdote up your sleeve.
Does this sound like something you’d want to hop on? The following is a list of 12 interesting history trivia facts you can use to keep the conversation going and establish yourself as the smartest person in the room.
1. The Shortest War in History
The next time someone tells you that all good things take time, remind them of the Anglo-Zanzibar War that took place in 1986 and only lasted for around 38 minutes.
Unbelievable right? Even a football match is 90 minutes long! But that’s the total time it took for the British to overthrow the new Sultan of Zanzibar and place their desired candidate on the throne.
2. Stalin’s Fake Photos
Did you know that the trend of editing people you no longer like out of group photographs has existed since before the invention of smartphones or editing apps?
Joseph Stalin, the premier of the Soviet nation from 1941-53, was the first person to popularize this practice. But his motives weren’t driven by mere pettiness.
Anyone who fell out of his favor was immediately declared an enemy of the state, and proof of their existence was wiped from the face of the Earth.
This was a political move designed to control historical narratives so people only remembered particular individuals and versions of an event that Stalin approved.
3. The Stone Tablets of Japan
We all wish to inherit something valuable from our ancestors: a piece of land, perhaps, or a map leading to a hidden treasure.
While that wasn’t the case for me, Japan was lucky in the ancestor department. Previous generations left stone tablets that marked the perfect elevation for houses and identified tsunami-prone zones for the future inhabitants of the land.
If you’re wondering whether they were right, the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011 is the perfect example of “listen to your elders, and you’ll be safe.” While the disaster caused severe destruction, the villages that followed the instructions were spared.
4. The First Vending Machine
We like to think that machines are a recent concept. In reality, however, humans have been automating routine tasks since the 1st century CE (almost 2000 years ago).
Take the first vending machine, for example. While you’d expect it to pop out snacks or drinks, Hero of Alexandria, a Greek engineer, designed it to dispense holy water when planted with a coin.
The best part? This happened way before electricity was invented or modern machinery became common knowledge among engineers.
5. The Year of No Summer
Imagine prepping all winter for that perfect summer body or planning a vacation you’ve been putting off forever, only to find that there will be no summer this year.
This is precisely what happened in 1815, aka the year of no summer. Due to a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia, a considerable amount of volcanic ash and sulfur dioxide was released into the Earth’s atmosphere.
As a result, the Northern Hemisphere (Europe, Northern America, etc.) experienced unexpected temperature drops, snowfall, and cold showers in peak summer months like June, July, and August.
6. Queen Victoria’s Assassination Attempts
If Queen Victoria were alive today, Netflix would be queuing outside her palace with its writers, trying to get a detailed account of her eight assassination attempts.
With little to no effort, the longest-reigning monarch dodged bullets like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix.
The only difference is that Keanu was 33 when pulling off those action moves. Queen Victoria, on the other hand, was pregnant, a mother of 3, and in mourning in the different instances that her life was threatened.
7. The Longest War in History
The longest war in history is much longer than you’d expect it to be. The Iberian Religious War, also known as the “Reconquista” (or the Reconquest), stretched between 711 to 1492.
When the Muslims invaded the Iberian Peninsula, they occupied most of the land. The Christian strongholds in the North that remained unconquered retaliated against this expansion, marking the beginning of the 781-year war.
In 1492, Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I marked its end by triumphing over the last Muslim territory of Granada, solidifying Christian influence across the land again.
8. The Dancing Plague of 1518
Our history is flooded with numerous unsolved mysteries, and The Dancing Plague of 1518 is one of them.
It is said that one day, out of the blue, the residents of Strasbourg maniacally started dancing in the streets and would sometimes continue for days without stopping to rest. The exertion from this activity resulted in the death of many and injured many more who were left with broken bones, dehydration, or unstable minds.
While the exact cause of this plague remains unknown, psychological stress due to the harsh living conditions, ergot poisoning, and demonic possession are among the theories that surround this incident.
9. Cleopatra Is Not as Ancient as You’d Like to Believe
Why is it that when we talk about Cleopatra, we subconsciously associate her with Ancient Egypt?
In fact, you’d be surprised to know that her reign was closer to the first moon landing (2000 years after her death) than the construction of the pyramids of Giza (2500 years before her reign).
It’s important to note that Egypt’s history expanded over 3000 years, and Cleopatra was the last of its active rulers before Rome annexed the country.
10. The Ketchup Cure
There have been many examples throughout history of products that were initially created to serve a different purpose than what they’re known for today.
Tomato ketchup is one such product that was initially marketed as a cure for indigestion, jaundice, rheumatism, or diarrhea by Dr. John Cook Bennett and sold in the form of tomato pills.
When people took the medicine and saw that none of the claimed cures materialized, the idea was deemed ineffective, and the product was later transformed into the condiment we can’t live without today.
11. The Devil-Worshipping Cats
How many times has it happened that a person of prominence shared their assumption with the crowd, and the people viewed it as the gospel truth?
A similar incident occurred during the reign of Pope Gregory IX, who declared that cats were creatures of evil. Upon hearing this, many people across Europe started mass campaigns to eradicate cats from their land by brutally murdering these animals.
Whether the Pope’s belief was true or not, we do not know. However, the elimination of cats gave rise to the rat population, which contributed to the spread of The Black Death, a disease that killed around one-third of Europe. Karma is real!
12. Abraham Lincoln’s Dual Profession
You know Abraham Lincoln as the US president who ended slavery when he was 54; I know him as an accomplished wrestler who won 299 out of 300 matches in his early teens, we are not the same.
These back-to-back victories established him as a respected and celebrated individual within the local community, not knowing that soon he would amass the respect and adoration of his entire country.
