12678. History Facts

In France in the late 1600s, it was considered a great honour to talk to King Louis XIV while he was on the lavatory.

12679. History Facts

In Anglo-Saxon times, shepherds were given twelve days' worth of cow manure at Christmas.

12680. History Facts

In 896, the rotting body of Pope Formosus was removed from his coffin, dressed in his papal robes and put on trial. Found guilty, his blessing finger was cut off and he was thrown in the river.

12681. History Facts

The body of British philosopher Jeremy Bentham was preserved and kept in an open wooden box which is still on display in University College, London. For many years, Bentham was brought out to attend special functions and meetings.

12682. History Facts

Roman gladiator and slave rebel leader Spartacus had 300 of his followers crucified to show the others what would happen to them if they deserted his army.

12683. History Facts

During the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution, 17,000 people were beheaded using the guillotine.

12684. History Facts

The Scottish bagpipes were originally made from the entire skin or stomach of a dead sheep.

12685. History Facts

Russian leader Peter the Great had a museum in which he kept the stuffed bodies of deformed people and animals, such as a child with two heads and a sheep with five feet. The museum was looked after by a deformed dwarf who knew he would become an exhibit when he died.

12686. History Facts

It took the executioner three blows to behead Mary Queen of Scots in 1567.And he still had to saw through the remaining skin and gristle with a knife.

12687. History Facts

In Ancient Egypt, a flea-catcher would cover himself in milk and stand in the middle of the flea-infested room until all the fleas jumped onto him then he'd leave, taking them all with him.

12688. History Facts

English hatmakers used to soften the straw they plaited into hats by spitting on it.

12689. History Facts

In the 1800s, there were several cases of people being buried when not really dead. Terrible stories about opened coffins with scratch marks on the inside, and corpses with fingernails worn away by trying to escape, led to cautious people being buried with a system of warning bells fitted in the coffin which they could ring if they woke up.

12690. History Facts

During witchcraft trials in Salem, Massachusetts, USA, in 1692, 25 people were condemned to death on the flimsy evidence of a group of hysterical girls.

12691. History Facts

King Kokodo of the Congo ruled for three years after his death. His body was wheeled around in a box during this part of his reign…

12692. History Facts

Leather used to be cured with a mixture of dog and chicken faeces smeared on it for many months. The fat and rotting meat scraps were scraped off with a knife.

12693. History Facts

It is said that the cursed mummy of Egyptian princess Amen-Ra was on board the Titanic when it sank in 1912, killing 1,500 people.The mummy was being sent from the British Museum to the USA; only the lid of the mummy's coffin is still in the British Museum.

12694. History Facts

Bald Romans used to make a paste of mashed up flies and spread it over their heads in the belief that it would make their hair regrow. It didn't…

12695. History Facts

Ivan the Terrible of Russia punished a bishop by having him stitched into the skin of a dead bear and releasing a pack of hounds to hunt and kill him.

12696. History Facts

Instead of a hollow pumpkin with a candle inside, Celtic people are said to have used real human heads cut from defeated enemies to keep away ghosts and ghouls in the autumn.

12697. History Facts

Chimney sweeps used to have three baths a year – one in the spring, one in the autumn and one for Christmas.The rest of the time, they were covered in soot.

Fact
There are 170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ways to play the ten opening moves in a game of chess.      .. More >>