While many of us would prefer to look to the future history is a part of everyone's lives
but sometimes what we were taught in school was only the tip of the
historical iceberg. Here are 10 historical facts they never taught you in school
The Pony Express
The Pony Express is one of the most recognizable icons in American Old West lore
Following the gold rush in 1848 demands for a faster mail delivery service
grew, so three local businessmen had an idea.
They decided to use mounted riders rather than traditional
stagecoaches for faster delivery. They established a hundred and eighty four stations along their route about 10 miles apart
Roughly the distance a horse can gallop before becoming tired most people don't know that this mail delivery system only lasted
19 months
post-mortem photography
When the daguerreotype the first camera was invented in 1839 it made it possible for middle-class families to have images of their loved ones
Many families were not wealthy enough to afford painted portraits
So photography sessions were much faster and less expensive
at the time
childhood mortality was
Extremely high so using the daguerreotype to photograph the dead became a very common practice in Victorian era Britain
Sometimes the only images of the disease were taken after they had passed
The dead would be positioned to appear as though they were sleeping or propped up in chairs sometimes with the entire family
Heroine as medicine
Before it became an illegal narcotic
Heroin was used as medicine. It was used as an anti-diarrheal a cough suppressant and a way to soothe a fussy, baby
Medical professionals used opium to develop morphine around 1810
They were amazed by its ability to alleviate severe pain and named it after the Greek. God of dreams
Morpheus because of the euphoric side-effects
Then in 1894 Germany had developed their own version calling it heroin they claimed
It was a non-addictive alternative to morphine the drugs could be bought over the counter from pharmacies until the 1920s
Lafe erickson
500 years before Christopher Columbus was said to have discovered the Americas Norse explorer Leif Ericson is actually considered the first
European to discover North America Leif was the son of Erik the Red a Viking and founder of the Norse settlement now known as Greenland
after leaving Greenland to travel to Norway in 999 ad late converted to Christianity
I was instructed to bring the religion back to Greenland
It is believed that upon his return voyage Leif was blown off-course and came across the northern tip of what is now
Newfoundland though he did not settle the area
the swastika
5,000 years before Hitler turned the swastika
Into one of the most feared and heated symbols in the modern world it had a very different meaning
The symbol of the hooked cross represented good luck and well-being and dates as far back as the second century BCE
It is a sacred symbol even today in many Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism and have seen in temples and homes by
1920 the symbol was associated with the German ideology of a pure race and was later adopted by the Nazi Party during World War 2
Forever changing and stigmatizing the one's innocence symbol
female hysteria treatment
The idea of female hysteria dates back as far as the ancient Greeks
They believe that a woman's uterus was in fact a living creature that roamed her body causing illness and distress by the late
1850s female hysteria was one of the most commonly diagnosed mental illnesses in women
Symptoms of female hysteria were set to include insomnia nervousness and lack of appetite
In extreme cases physicians would order the removal of the uterus or a trip to the insane asylum
But more commonly the treatment involved a doctor manually
Stimulating the clitoris given the overwhelming amount of patients that were diagnosed with female hysteria
physicians develop the first vibrators to allow women to relieve their symptoms
world's shortest war
The anglo Zanzibar war of 1896 was a conflict between the military of the United Kingdom and the Zanzibar
Sultanate it began with the death of a pro-british Sultan his successor and cousin then took over the palace within hours of his death
Without the approval of the British diplomat
He was warned to stand down but began to gather his armies instead
Seeing this as an act of war the British also gather their troops the British offered the new Sultan an ultimatum
Stand down or be destroyed
He refused and the British opened fire the Sultan escaped and left his remaining people to fend for themselves
Within 38 minutes the war had ended
dr. Eugene, Lisowski
Known as the Polish Schindler Eugene lazatti was a Polish medical doctor during World War two when Germany invaded Poland?
LaSalle's key and fellow doctors stanislav Mutulu which began to experiment with bacterial injections
They discovered that the vaccine for typhus a highly contagious bacteria that can be fatal
Causes the person injected to test positive for the disease without the symptoms
Knowing the Nazis were terrified of disease they injected the residents of the town and managed to fake an epidemic
Rather than transporting the Jewish residents to death camps the Nazis quarantine the towns instead
This deception saved the lives of nearly
8,000 people
Mad as a hatter
Some think the expression mad as a hatter comes from Alice in Wonderland
But that's not the case in the 19th century felt hats were a popular fashion for men in Victorian England
Europe America and Russia the people that made the hats known as Hatter's worked animal fur through a solution that contained mercury
To create the felt it was later discovered that prolonged exposure to the vapors caused mental confusion and neurological damage
Which made the Hatters appear to be insane the syndrome came to be known as Mad Hatter disease
foot-binding
Also known as
lotus feet' foot-binding was the practice in Imperial China of binding a girl's feet before the age of six to stop them from growing the
Girl's toes would be bent underneath the sole of their foot and tied tightly with ribbon up to their ankles
They would then be made to walk until their foot broke
Which would tie the bindings tighter?
The process could take up to three years and their feet will remain deformed for the rest of their lives
Girls with lotus feet were considered to be the most beautiful and sexually pleasing and earned them a higher rank in society
The practice of foot binding began to die out in the 1920s, but didn't stop completely until the late 1950s
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