Human World
The women of the Tiwi tribe
in the South Pacific are married at birth.
When Albert Einstein died,
his final words died with him. The nurse at his side didn't understand German.
St Patrick, the patron saint
of Ireland, was not Irish.
The lance ceased to be an
official battle weapon in the British Army in 1927.
St. John was the only one of
the 12 Apostles to die a natural death.
Many sailors used to wear
gold earrings so that they could afford a proper burial when they died.
Some very Orthodox Jew
refuse to speak Hebrew, believing it to be a language reserved only for the Prophets.
A South African monkey was
once awarded a medal and promoted to the rank of corporal during World War I.
Born 4 January 1838, General
Tom Thumb's growth slowed at the age of 6 months, at 5 years he was signed to the circus
by P.T. Barnum, and at adulthood reached a height of only 1 metre.
Because they had no proper
rubbish disposal system, the streets of ancient Mesopotamia became literally knee-deep in
rubbish.
The Toltecs, Seventh-century
native Mexicans, went into battle with wooden swords so as not to kill their enemies.
China banned the pigtail in
1911 as it was seen as a symbol of feudalism.
The Amayra guides of Bolivia
are said to be able to keep pace with a trotting horse for a distance of 100 kilometres.
Sliced bread was patented
by a jeweller, Otto Rohwedder, in 1928. He had been working on it for 16 years,
having started in 1912.
Before it was stopped by the British, it was the not
uncommon for women in some areas of India to choose to be burnt alive on their husband's
funeral pyre.
Ivan the terrible claimed to
have 'deflowered thousands of virgins and butchered a similar number of resulting
offspring'.
Before the Second World War,
it was considered a sacrilege to even touch an Emperor of Japan.
An American aircraft in
Vietnam shot itself down with one of its own missiles.
The Anglo-Saxons believed
Friday to be such an unlucky day that they ritually slaughtered any child unfortunate
enough to be born on that day.
During the eighteenth
century, laws had to be brought in to curb the seemingly insatiable appetite for gin
amongst the poor. Their annual intake was as much as five million gallons.
Ancient drinkers warded off
the devil by clinking their cups
The Nobel Prize resulted
form a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after
his death as a propagator of violence - he invented dynamite.
The cost of the first
pay-toilets installed in England was tuppence.
Pogonophobia is the fear of
beards.
In 1647 the English
Parliament abolished Christmas.
Mao Rse-Tang, the first
chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, was born 26 December 1893. Before his rise to
power, he occupied the humble position of Assistant Librarian at the University of Peking.
Coffee is the second largest
item of international commerce in the world. The largest is petrol.
King George III was declared
violently insane in 1811, 9 years before he died.
In Ancient Peru, when a
woman found an 'ugly' potato, it was the custom for her to push it into the face of the
nearest man.
For Roman Catholics, 5
January is St Simeon Stylites' Day. He was a fifth-century hermit who showed his devotion
to God by spending literally years sitting on top of a huge flagpole.
When George I became King of
England in 1714, his wife did not become Queen. He placed her under house arrest for 32
years.
The richest 10 per cent of
the French people are approximately fifty times better off than the poorest 10 per cent.
Henry VII was the only
British King to be crowned on the field of battle
During World War One, the
future Pope John XXIII was a sergeant in the Italian Army.
Richard II died aged 33 in
1400. A hole was left in the side of his tomb so people could touch his royal head, but
376 years later some took advantage of this and stole his jawbone.
The magic word
"Abracadabra" was originally intended for the specific purpose of curing hay
fever.
The Puritans forbade the
singing of Christmas Carols, judging them to be out of keeping with the true spirit of
Christmas.
Albert Einstein was once
offered the Presidency of Israel. He declined saying he had no head for problems.
Uri Geller, the professional
psychic was born on December 20 1946. As to the origin of his alleged powers, Mr Geller
maintains that they come from the distant planet of Hoova.
Ralph and Carolyn Cummins
had 5 children between 1952 and 1966, all were born on the 20 February.
John D. Rockefeller gave away over
US$ 500,000,000 during his lifetime.
Only 1 child in 20 are born on the
day predicted by the doctor.
In the 1970's, the Rhode Island
Legislature in the US entertained a proposal that there be a $2 tax on every act of sexual
intercourse in the State.
Widows in equatorial Africa actually
wear sackcloth and ashes when attending a funeral.
The 'Hundred Years War' lasted 116
years.
The British did not release the body
of Napoleon Bonaparte to the French until twenty days after his death.
Admiral Lord Nelson was less than
1.6 metres tall.
John Glenn, the American who first
orbited the Earth, was showered with 3,529 tonnes of ticker tape when he got back.
Native American Indians
used to name their children after the first thing they saw as they left their
tepees subsequent to the birth. Hence such strange names as Sitting Bull and
Running Water.
Catherine the First of Russia, made
a rule that no man was allowed to get drunk at one of her parties before nine o'clock.
Queen Elizabeth I passed a law which
forced everyone except for the rich to wear a flat cap on Sundays.
In 1969 the shares of the Australian
company 'Poseidon' were worth $1, one year later they were worth $280 each.
Julius Caesar wore a laurel wreath
to cover the onset of baldness.
Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour
during World War II, left school at the age of eleven.
At the age of 12, Martin Luther King
became so depressed he tried committing suicide twice, by jumping out of his bedroom
window.
It is illegal to be a prostitute in
Siena, Italy, if your name is Mary.
The Turk's consider it considered
unlucky to step on a piece of bread.
The authorities do not allow
tourists to take pictures of Pygmies in Zambia.
The Dutch in general prefer their
french fries with mayonnaise.
Upon the death of F.D. Roosevelt,
Harry S Truman became the President of America on 12 April 1945. The initial S in the
middle of his name doesn't in fact mean anything. Both his grandfathers had names
beginning with 'S', and so Truman's mother didn't want to disappoint either of them.
Sir Isaac Newton was obsessed with
the occult and the supernatural.
One of Queen Victoria's wedding
gifts was a 3 metre diameter, half tonne cheese.
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor
of the telephone, never phoned his wife or his mother, they were both deaf.
It was considered unfashionable for
Venetian women, during the Renaissance to have anything but silvery-blonde hair.
Queen Victoria was one of the first
women ever to use chloroform to combat pain during childbirth.
Peter the Great had the head of his
wife's lover cut off and put into a jar of preserving alcohol, which he then ordered to be
placed by her bed.
The car
manufacturer Henry Ford was awarded Hitler's Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of
the German Eagle. Henry Ford was the inventor of the assembly line,
and Hitler used this knowledge of the assembly line to speed up production, and to create
better and interchangeable products.
Atilla the Hun is thought to have
been a dwarf.
The warriors tribes of Ethiopia used
to hang the testicles of those they killed in battle on the ends of their spears.
On 15 April 1912 the SS Titanic sunk
on her maiden voyage and over 1,500 people died. Fourteen years earlier a novel was
published by Morgan Robertson which seemed to foretell the disaster. The book described a
ship the same size as the Titanic which crashes into an iceberg on its maiden voyage on a
misty April night. The name of Robertson's fictional ship was the Titan.
There are over 200 religious
denominations in the United States.
Eau de Cologne was originally
marketed as a way of protecting yourself against the plague.
Charles the Simple was the grandson
of Charles the Bald, both were rulers of France.
Theodor Herzi, the Zionist leader
who was born on May 2 1860, once had the astonishing idea of converting Jews to
Christianity as a way of combating anti-Semitism.
The women of an African tribe make
themselves more attractive by permanently scaring their faces.
Augustus II, the Elector of Saxony
and King of Poland seemed to have a prodigious sexual appetite, and fathered hundreds of
illegitimate children during his lifetime.
Some moral purists in the Middle
Ages believed that women's ears ought to be covered up because the Virgin May had
conceived a child through them.
Hindus don't like dying in bed, they
prefer to die beside a river.
While at Havard University, Edward
Kennedy was suspended for cheating on a Spanish exam.
It is a criminal offence to drive
around in a dirty car in Russia.
The Emperor Caligula once
decided to go to war with the Roman God of the sea, Poseidon, and ordered his soldiers to
throw their spears into the water at random.
The Ecuadorian poet, José Olmedo,
has a statue in his honour in his home country. But, unable to commission a sculptor, due
to limited funds, the government brought a second-hand statue .. Of the English poet Lord
Byron.
In 1726, at only 7 years old,
Charles Sauson inherited the post of official executioner.
Sir Winston Churchill rationed
himself to 15 cigars a day.
On 7 January 1904 the distress call
'CQD' was introduced. 'CQ' stood for 'Seek You' and 'D' for 'Danger'. This lasted only
until 1906 when it was replaced with 'SOS'.
Though it is forbidden by the
Government, many Indians still adhere to the caste system which says that it is a
defilement for even the shadow of a person from a lowly caste to fall on a Brahman ( a
member of the highest priestly caste).
In parts of Malaya, the women keep
harems of men.
The childrens' nursery rhyme
'Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses' actually refers to the Black Death which killed about 30 million
people in the fourteenth-century.
The word 'denim' comes from 'de
Nimes', Nimes being the town the fabric was originally produced.
During the reign of Elizabeth I,
there was a tax put on men's beards.
Idi Amin, one of the most ruthless
tyrants in the world, before coming to power, served in the British Army.
Some Eskimos have been known to use
refrigerators to keep their food from freezing.
It is illegal to play tennis in the
streets of Cambridge.
Custer was the youngest General in
US history, he was promoted at the age of 23.
It costs more to send someone to
reform school than it does to send them to Eton.
The American pilot Charles Lindbergh
received the Service Cross of the German Eagle form Hermann Goering in 1938.
The active ingredient in Chinese
Bird's nest soup is saliva.
Marie Currie, who twice won the
Nobel Prize, and discovered radium, was not allowed to become a member of the prestigious
French Academy because she was a woman.
It was quite common for the men of
Ancient Greece to exercise in public .. naked.
John Paul Getty, once the richest
man in the world, had a payphone in his mansion.
Iceland is the world's oldest
functioning democracy.
Adolf Eichmann (responsible for
countless Jewish deaths during World war II), was originally a travelling salesman for the
Vacuum Oil Co. of Austria.
The national flag of Italy was
designed by Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Matami Tribe of West Africa play
a version of football, the only difference being that they use a human skull instead of a
more normal ball.
John Winthrop introduced the fork to
the American dinner table for the first time on 25 June 1630.
Elizabeth Blackwell, born in
Bristol, England on 3 February 1821, was the first woman in America to gain an M.D.
degree.
Abraham Lincoln was shot with a
Derringer.
The great Russian leader, Lenin died
21 January 1924, suffering from a degenerative brain disorder. At the time of his death
his brain was a quarter of its normal size.
When shipped to the US, the London
bridge ( thought by the new owner to be the more famous Tower Bridge ) was classified by
US customs to be a 'large antique'.
Sir Winston Churchill was born in a
ladies' cloakroom after his mother went into labour during a dance at Blenheim Palace.
In 1849, David Atchison became
President of the United States for just one day, and he spent most of the day sleeping.
Between the two World War's, France
was controlled by forty different governments.
The 'Crystal Palace' at the Great
Exhibition of 1851, contained 92 900 square metres of glass.
It was the custom in Ancient Rome
for the men to place their right hand on their testicles when taking an oath. The modern
term 'testimony' is derived from this tradition.
Sir Winston Churchill's mother was
descended from a Red Indian.
The study of stupidity is called
'monology'.
Hindu men believe(d) it to be
unluckily to marry a third time. They could avoid misfortune by marring a tree first. The
tree ( his third wife ) was then burnt, freeing him to marry again.
More money is spent each year on
alcohol and cigarettes than on Life insurance.
In 1911 3 men were hung for the
murder of Sir Edmund Berry at Greenbury Hill, their last names were Green, Berry , and
Hill.
A firm in Britain sold fall-out
shelters for pets.
During the seventeen century , the
Sultan of Turkey ordered his entire harem of women drowned, and replace with a new one.
Lady Astor once told Winston
Churchill 'if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee'. His reply …' if you
were my wife, I would drink it ! '.
There are no clocks in Las Vegas
casinos.
The Great Pyramid of Giza consists
of 2,300,000 blocks each weighing 2.5 tons.
On 9 February 1942, soap rationing
began in Britain.
Paul Revere was a dentist.
The Budget speech on April 17 1956
saw the introduction of Premium Savings Bonds into Britain. The machine which picks the
winning numbers is called "Ernie", an abbreviation, which stands for' electronic
random number indicator equipment'.
Chop-suey is not a native Chinese
dish, it was created in California by Chinese immigrants.
The Russian mystic, Rasputin, was
the victim of a series of murder attempts on this day in 1916. The assassins poisoned,
shot and stabbed him in quick succession, but they found they were unable to finish him
off. Rasputin finally succumbed to the ice-cold waters of a river.
Bonnie Prince Charlie, the leader of
the Jacobite rebellion to depose of George II of England, was born 31 December 1720.
Considered a great Scottish hero, he spent his final years as a drunkard in Rome.
The Liberal Prime Minister, William
Gladstone, was born of the 29th December 1809. Apparently, as a result of his strong
Puritan impulses, Gladstone kept a selection of whips in his cellar with which he
regularly chastised himself.
A parthenophobic has a fear of
virgins.
South American gauchos were known to
put raw steak under their saddles before starting a day's riding, in order to tenderise
the meat.
There are 240 white dots in a Pacman
arcade game.
In 1939 the US political party 'The
American Nazi Party' had 200,000 members.
King Solomon of Israel had about 700
wives as well as hundreds of mistresses.
Urine was once used to wash clothes.
North American Indian, Sitting Bull,
died on 15 December 1890. His bones were laid to rest in North Dakota, but a business
group wanted him moved to a 'more natural' site in South Dakota. Their campaign was
rejected so they stole the bones, and they now reside in Sitting Bull Park, South Dakota.
St Nicholas, the original Father
Christmas, is the patron saint of thieves, virgins and communist Russia.
Dublin is home of the Fairy
Investigation Society.
Fourteen million people were killed
in World War I, twenty million died in a flu epidemic in the years that followed.
People in Siberia often buy milk
frozen on a stick.
Princess Ann was the only competitor
at the 1976 Montreal Olympics that did not have to undergo a sex test.
Ethelred the Unready, King of
England in the Tenth-century, spent his wedding night in bed with his wife and his
mother-in-law.
Coffins which are due for cremation
are usually made with plastic handles.
Blackbird, who was the chief of
Omaha Indians, was buried sitting on his favourite horse.
The two highest IQ's ever recorded
(on a standard test) both belong to women.
The Tory Prime Minister, Benjamin
Disreali, was born 21 December 1804. He was noted for his oratory and had a number of
memorable exchanges in the House with his great rival William Gladstone. Asked what the
difference between a calamity and a misfortune was Disreali replied: 'If Gladstone fell
into the Thames it would be a misfortune, but if someone pulled him out again, it would be
a calamity'.
The Imperial Throne of Japan has
been occupied by the same family for the last thirteen hundred years.
In the seventeenth-century a Boston
man was sentenced to two hours in the stocks for obscene behaviour, his crime, kissing his
wife in a public place on a Sunday.
President Kaunda of Zambia once
threatened to resign if his fellow countrymen didn't stop drinking so much alcohol.
Due to staggering inflation in the
1920's, 4,000,000,000,000,000,000 German marks were worth 1 US dollar.
Gorgias of Epirus was born during
preparation of his mothers funeral.
The city of New York contains a
district called 'Hell's Kitchen'.
The city of Hiroshima left the
Industrial Promotion Centre standing as a monument the atomic bombing.
During the Medieval Crusades,
transporting bodies off the battlefield for burial was a major problem, this was solved by
carrying a huge cauldron into the Holy wars, boiling down the bodies, and taking only the
bones with them.
A ten-gallon hat holds
three-quarters of a gallon.
George Washington grew marijuana in
his garden.
March 9th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Holly Crap, I agree with you completely. I grew up in much the same way.
- Matt
March 9th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Meh. I agree with you, but i dont think those crazy paranoid mothers are as widespread as you think. the kids on my street now run around like lunatics just as much as i did as a kid.
March 9th, 2009 at 11:39 am
I remember my childhood days of running around and having the time of my life too. Ah, fond memories! I pity kids today with their helicopter parents hovering over and planning every detail of their little lives. God, it must suck to be a kid in this day and age!
March 9th, 2009 at 11:57 am
How true. When I tell my son the stuff we did, he thinks we were crazy. We had our own little society and we loved it! Plus no one ever died.
March 9th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I agree with you 100%. Kids ar ebeing turned into over-reliant dependents these days. Have a look at this blog and the corresponding book
http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/
and
http://tinyurl.com/bgszqf
Great info for parents who dont want to fuck up their kids.
March 9th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Pen & Teller did an episode of bullshit showing that when children get abducted, only 3% were by people they didn’t know. STRANGER DANGER = BULLSHIT.
Of course, I’m surprised your little turds didn’t get abducted in the mall.
Boy, would your cheeks have been red!
Or would it have been your wrists from the handcuffs?
March 9th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Wonderful post! I run a blog devoted to solving the problem of the lack of neighborhood play. It’s called Playborhood.com (http://playborhood.com). I’m writing a book on the topic right now.
March 9th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Thank fuck you are back, nice honest writing with great incite.
March 9th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
It is absolutely hilarious to watch kids who have freedom and haven’t been babied interacting with those whose parents have kept them on a leash (sometimes literally) their whole lives. My parents run a family resort in a rural small-town, and obviously they don’t have time to watch my seven year old sister’s every move. Meanwhile, people from Chicago will arrange ‘play-dates’ with my little sister via my mom. This means that my mom will send them outside after saying, “Don’t light anything on fire. Stay out of the lake. If you’re going to mess around on the skateboards, put a helmet on. If you need me I’ll be ____.”
It’s hilarious to watch their eyes bug out of their little heads. Needless to say, my little sister might be a hellian, but she runs shit.
March 9th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
A-motherfucking-men. What the hell is a playdate, anyways? I almost got kidnapped when I was a kid, but I was smart enough to run the hell away as fast as I could.
March 9th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
First let me say that being disabled I don’t get out much. Your blog is a wonderful diversion for me and I look forward to seeing new posts as often as you can get them out. Thanks for making my world a little brighter.
Second, I have been preaching the same thing for years! I had my 3 kids pretty early in life so they pretty much grew up the same way I did, running the neighborhood and having a blast while we did it. Yeah, a few of us got hurt now and then, but nothing serious. I think my broken arm back then was the worse thing that happened to any of us. My kids have thankfully never been seriously hurt while off having an adventure. I have friends that started having their children 10 years after I did so they are all into the coddling thing and I keep telling them that they are raising a bunch of pussies and they need to stop it.
We have raised a generation “by the books” and we have created monsters. We didn’t have school shootings when we were kids. The most violence we might see is a fist fight on the playground once in a while. Now we have kids with “self esteem issues” that have no clue how to cope with being told no and have no idea what go outside and play means. And think, they are the future of our world.
March 9th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I took my 5-year old cousin to the movies one day. We sat on the aisle, and she told me urgently, “I’m supposed to sit on the inside so I don’t get kidnapped.”
Oy vey.
March 9th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I played in the street, and I know a kid who got run over and crippled.
I played in the woods, and I know a kid who got sick and died.
When a bunch of us kids played together one of us managed to disengage the brake on a bulldozer that was parked at the top of a hill above a housing development….
At the school I went to kids brought guns and shot each other. I even saw someone get shot in front of my house.
Oh thats right, I grew up in a city. Where are you people from????
March 9th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
When I had just started school, so I must have been about 5, I used to be allowed to go to the post box at the end of the road to post letters - all by myself. I used to feel SO grown up. Then one day, as I went to the post box to post letters, a teacher from my school (which was at the end of the road) saw me and stopped me and asked what I was doing. When I told her, oh so proud, that I was posting letters for my mother she then told me off for leaving the house without an adult. I promptly ran home in tears and refused to post letters again for years.
So, even though my parents took a sensible attitude towards freedom in childhood, it was spoiled by idiot busy bodies.
Admittedly, whilst I then had a complex about doing chores outside the house without an adult, playing was just a-ok
March 9th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
V, you are awesome. You have a great attitude and your writing style is really satisfying at the end of a long day.
Yours,
Xiaoda
March 9th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
[...] Original post: Childhood: Then and Now [...]
March 9th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
You’re back. Good.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Exactly. Kids aren’t any different then when we were kids but adults with their media-induced paranoia are making them crazy.