17 Curious History Facts

Harry Truman was the first US president to have secret service protection after his presidency. He wasn’t happy about it and had them do his yard work so they weren’t just sitting around doing nothing.

He was also known to sneak away and go to the bank and by the time they realized he was gone he was on his way back home.

Mexico City is technically an artificial island. It was built by filling up a lake with dirt to create an island, and then making a city on top of that. The Spaniards then built a city on top of that city.

This is why the earthquakes are so severe, because the soil is basically the shlurpy stuff at the bottom of a lake.

The Soviets trained dogs strapped with Bombs to run under tanks in WWII. The Soviets mistakenly trained them on their own tanks which run on diesel whereas the German tanks ran on gasoline.

When they field tested the dogs they ran under their own tanks and that ended that insane piece of history.

The Netherlands has a city or town named Turkey. The story behind it is that way back in the day Spain claimed to go to war with the Netherlands.

The Netherlands not being that powerful asked the Ottoman Empire for their support. The Ottoman empire gave the Netherlands one Ottoman flag and one soldier uniform and told them to have someone walk around in that with the flag near it’s shores for the Spaniards to see as they arrive (cause they told the Netherlands that they’d attack from sea).

The Ottoman empire also sent a message to the king or duke of Spain (idk who the leader was and what he was called at the time) stating that the Netherlands is under their protection and so attacking them ment declaring war on the Ottoman Empire, as the fleet saw the soldier uniform and flag, and got word of the letter they fled before a single shot even occurred.

As a thanks they named a city after the empire and as the empire then became Turkey of today they change the name of the city too. Not many people know this

The eagle on U.S. coinage has a name; Peter.

In the 1830’s the mint in Philadelphia was very rural. The eagle would watch the minting of coins and hung out in the open windows of the mint.

One day he suddenly flew into one of the presses and was mortally wounded. He later died and was stuffed and placed in the mint as a sort of mascot. He was later used as a model for the eagle on coinage.

A lot of people know that during the crusades of Ghengis Khan, he wiped out 10% of the worlds population. What many don’t know is that he and his army sexually assaulted so many women and had so many babies that the 10% was actually restored.

This is the reason that a decent percentage of East Asian people descended from Ghengis Khan (and his army).

During the 1936 Olympics games. Haiti and Lichtenstein both came in with the exact same flag which was blue on top and red in bottom. Up until now both countries weren’t aware that they both had the same flag.

So to stop confusion between the two countries, Lichtenstein added a crown to their flag while Haiti put a white square with their coat of arms inside.

French fries are from Belgium.

Fortune cookies are from San Francisco.

Danishes are from Austria.

Salmon sushi is from Norway.

The first car made available to to general public (not just rich people) was the Ford Model T. It was mass produced, keeping it cheap enough for the average working man (and in the process perfecting the assembly line), and it’s why everyone has a car nowadays, when it used to be a luxury.

The catch? Every single Model T was painted black because black was the cheapest paint that dried fastest, so they could get Model Ts off the line faster.Every. Single. Car.

Part of why other car manufacturers eventually became more popular was because they offered a color OTHER than black.

Aaron Burr, former Vice President of the United States and the guy who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, was preparing to invade Mexico (New Spain at the time), and then annex Texas and a bunch of other Southwestern territories in an attempt to form his own empire to rival the United States.

This was all after he was essentially blackballed from U.S. politics in the early 19th century when he killed Hamilton in the illegal duel.

It’s reported that one of the many reasons the Vikings were driven out of what is now Canada was the inadvertent poisoning of many of the Native people by trading dairy with them, which they could not digest due to cattle not yet being introduced to North America.

Maybe not super niche, but I’m sure most people have not thought of it in this way.

The bikini became a brilliant marketing strategy for the US military to deflect from the impact of it’s nuclear testing. The very first bikini was named after the nuclear testing in Bikini Atol, that devastated the island chain and displaced its indigenous people.

To those saying the U.S. has never been invaded/had war on U.S. soil: parts of Alaska were invaded by the Japanese during World War 2.

All British tanks since 1945 have included equipment to make tea.

The only docked ship to survive the attack on Pearl harbour was the USS Phoenix.

In 1951 it was sold to Argentina and in 1956 renamed the General Belgrano. It was subsequently sunk by the British submarine HMS Conqueror during the Falklands war.

It remains the only ship to be sunk by a nuclear submarine during a time of war.

Not sure if this is a history fact but Jeep was the first manufacturer to drive its cars on all 7 continents. That’s why jeeps have 7 slot grilles