it seems like many school systems have
left out a few important lessons from
the past welcome to watchmojo.com and
today we're counting down our picks for
the top 10 things you didn't learn in
history class astonishing what you call
that it okay
before we begin we publish new videos
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content for this list we're looking at
remarkable moments and facts from the
past that are seriously underrepresented
in history books
though you may be familiar with some of
these lessons if they made the list they
are far from common knowledge and you'll
likely didn't learn them in school take
with you the best sword you can find
number 10 a treatment for female
hysteria in the 16th century doctors
found that orgasms were a great way to
treat hysteria and women of course they
didn't call them orgasms they were
dubbed paroxysms because it was believed
women couldn't experience sexual
feelings force back riding or intimate
massage sessions administered by doctors
were recommended the 19th century saw
the invention of the first vibrator
which was a huge relief to doctors who
had started developing chronic
tendinitis from the repeated wrist
movements you see women weren't allowed
to relieve themselves since hysteria was
perceived as an illness that could only
be treated by science hmm while this is
certainly a stimulating fact we
understand why it wasn't addressed in
history class
number nine dividing your sleep into
according to several historians our
ancestors had very different sleeping
patterns than us in the Middle Ages
people used to divide their sleep into
two phases they would sleep for roughly
four hours then would wake up to do
different activities go see neighbors
pray read make love etc then they would
go back to bed for another four hours or
so of rest
however we should specify that they used
to go to bed rather early by our
standards without any electricity the
potential activities were pretty limited
after dusk look at Edison over there
there's damn electricity
hey Edison how about sharing some of
those light balls huh number eight
madhatters
did you know that hat makers back in the
day used to make their felt hats using
mercury and unfortunately in the 19th
century the significant health hazards
associated with being exposed to the
substance were unknown breathing in the
mercury vapors regularly hat makers
suffered from hallucinations and
excessive anxiety and often exhibited
unpredictable behavior in some cases
they even experienced slurred speech
these poor artisans were then classified
as lunatics now we understand the
behavior of the mad hatter and Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll's
wonderfully weird story might have been
strange but the Hatter wasn't actually
that far from reality
number seven art competitions and the
Olympics between 1912 and 1948 the
Olympics were not an exclusively sports
based competition they also recognized
the highest levels of skill in the
following categories painting sculpting
architecture literature and music the
only condition was that these pieces of
art be somehow associated with sports
just like athletes medals were awarded
to the winning artists the founder of
the project Pierre de Coubertin thought
the mind and body should go hand in hand
while he's not necessarily wrong
nowadays it's hard to imagine a painter
showing off his gold medal alongside
Usain Bolt
four times than the two Anja meters
that's what I do number six
Sparta's money yes the ancient Greek
city-state of Sparta was well known for
its strong emphasis on physical strength
and warrior culture what few are aware
of however is the relationship this
society had with money they strongly
discouraged the cultivation of wealth to
the point where silver gold and other
such precious metals were actually
banned by gold I would give it to you
but all we have it go on it the official
currency was iron and these bars were so
heavy that it was a real burden to move
even small amounts for any would-be
time-traveling tourists out there who
loved shopping the city of Sparta might
not be the destination for you number
five the Great Fire of London in 1666 a
devastating fire effectively burned
London to the ground an estimated 13,000
two hundred houses 87 churches as well
as the iconic Saint Paul's Cathedral
were wiped off the map what we don't
hear about however is the very low death
toll though an exact figure is hard to
pin down it's been estimated that fewer
than 10 people died during the fires
which is a good thing but it's still
pretty astonishing that a fire of that
magnitude lasting more than three days
only killed a small number of people for
further perspective consider the fact
that it left seven out of eight
Londoners homeless destroy the houses
have the troops decoded by whatever
means necessary
number four heroin was used to treat
coughs in the 19th century chemist
Heinrich Dreiser was looking for a
substitute for codeine which is
pharmacologically similar to morphine
his experiments led him to create heroin
which ended up being stronger than
morphine and was ultimately used as a
morphine substitute and as a cough
suppressant
Frazer tested his miracle drug on
animals his colleagues and himself
produced and distributed by Bayer it
became a massive success at the turn of
the century however the addictive
qualities of heroin revealed themselves
to such a degree it
could only be sold for medical purposes
by 1924 it was banned completely can you
imagine taking heroin for a cough the
field of medicine has come a long way
number three spy kittens the adorably
named acoustic kitty was a project
created by the CIA to spy on Russians in
the 1960s during the Cold War Americans
have the brilliant idea to use house
cats to collect information on the
Kremlin these professional spies
implanted a microphone in the cat's ear
and a small radio transmitter in the
skull in order to record conversations
without raising suspicion more than 20
million dollars went into this eccentric
experiment after several attempts the
CIA ultimately deemed the project a bust
and redirected their efforts poor
kitties all that for nothing
number two the dancing plague of 1518 in
1518 hundreds of residents of Strasbourg
were affected by a strange illness for
about a month these people were taken
over by a sudden urge to dance many of
them died from heart attacks or
exhaustion as a result of this
uncontrollable compulsion though this
epidemic eventually subsided a cause or
explanation was never uncovered some
doctors at the time believed those
people were afflicted by hot blood
modern-day historians on the other hand
believed the behavior to be caused by
argot a hallucinogenic fungus found in
wheat grains like rye which resembles
LSD before we unveil our number one pick
here are some honorable mentions
[Music]
number one post-mortem photography be
warned our top pick is quite morbid in
the 19th century it was relatively
common practice to hire a photographer
to shoot photos of the dead this helped
families mourn and gave them a souvenir
with which to remember their loved ones
the photographers placed the deceased in
a way that gave the impression they were
still alive and perhaps sleeping
children were often shot with a toy
others were sitting and surrounded by
their family members though it's
undeniably hard to say goodbye this
process sounds a lot more painful and
unnerving than anything else these days
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