Random History Facts

    107 facts tagged with History Facts

    Before WWI, German Was the Second Most Widely Spoken Language in the United States
    Before it was repressed during World War I, German was the second most widely spoken language in the United States and many local governments, schools, and newspapers operated in German.
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    Pierre Jaquet-Droz, a watchmaker, 240 years ago invented a robot that could write, and the parts could be interchanged to say whatever you want.
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    50 years ago Cheerios were called Cheerioats.
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    '⸮' is a punctuation mark that was first proposed in the 1580s to denote sarcasm or irony.
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    Rocket Mail
    Rocket Mail
    In 1959, the USPS attempted to deliver mail via cruise missile and successfully shipped 3,000 pieces of mail from Virginia to Florida in 22 minutes.
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    In 1770, the British Parliament passed a law condemning lipstick, stating that “women found guilty of seducing men into matrimony by a cosmetic means could be tried for witchcraft.”
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    In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
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    In 1518, a "dancing plague" struck Strasbourg, Alsace, whereby hundreds of people danced fervently in the streets over the period of a month. Some suffered heart attacks or strokes, and many others died from sheer exhaustion. It remains unexplained.
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