23 Insanely Creepy Historical Facts They Never Taught You in School

1.

Witch-trials have a long, dark history.You’ve probably heard of the Salem witch trials, but the hunt for witches goes back much further than that. One anthropologist has estimated that, in medieval times, as many as 600,000 “witches” lost their lives.

2.

Animals were also regularly put on trial in the medieval ages—and given a death sentence.

3.

A real-life vampire scare took place in New England.The “New England Vampire Panic” was an event in the 19th century where people thought that “consumption” (i.e. Tuberculosis) was actually the result of vampires. It got to the point where people would dig up those who died of Tuberculosis and stake them through the heart

4.

Human sacrifice was a common practice among the Aztecs.Over 20,000 people were sacrificed at the ancient temple of Tenochtitlán.

5.

Flour-print dresses?During America’s Dust Bowl (in the early 1930s), sewing flour sacks into clothing became quite popular. So popular, in fact, that flour companies began selling flour in decorative bags intended for future repurposing into clothing.

6.

The supposed un-death of Rasputin:Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, a Russian mystic, survived several simultaneous murder attempts. He was shot, stabbed multiple times, and poisoned…before finally drowning in in the the Volga river.

7.

This historical figure was the gruesome inspiration behind Dracula.15th century Romanian ruler Vlad the Impaler consumed the blood of his enemies with meals. He was born in Transylvania; combined with his disturbing habits and the family name ‘Dracula,’ Vlad provided the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s gothic vampire novel.

8.

Joseph Stalin’s pre-Photoshop retouches.Stalin ordered photographs to be revised, editing out people who forcibly went missing (were murdered).

9.

Coffins used to need built-in safety nets.In the 19th century, before medical professionals had the tools to discern comas or paralysis from death, the fear of being buried alive was very real. Patented ‘safety coffins’ were invented so that mistakenly buried people could alert those above ground to their predicament.

10.

The most ineffective senator ever:Roman emperor Gaius (also known as Caligula) went out of his way to humiliate the Roman senate by making one of his favorite horses a senator.

11.

This Papal decree backfired horribly.During Pope Gregory IX’s term, he declared that cats were associated with devil worship, resulting in their mass extermination.

12.

Ironically, it is believed that this large-scale expunging of felines helped to spread the Bubonic Plague, which ravaged Europe in the 1300s and killed over a hundred million people. No cats meant the rat population (which carried the plague) ran wild.

13.

The horrifying extent of Europeans’ Native American decimation.The Europeans’ arrival in the Americas caused the Native American population to drastically decline from approximately 12 million in 1500 to roughly 237,000 in 1900.

14.

Cannibalism was a health fad once upon a time.Wealthy Europeans in the 1500s and 1600s ate parts of corpses, believing them to have medicinal properties. Blood, power ground up from the human skull, and human fat were all used to cure various ailments.

15.

Tomb raiders even desecrated Ancient Egyptian tombs to steal the remains of mummies, which the aforementioned wealthy Europeans proceeded to consume.

16.

The shortest war on record lasted for 38-45 minutes in total. The Anglo-Zanzibar War began and ended on August 27th, 1896.

17.

An unfortunate lineage:King Tut’s parents were recently confirmed to be siblings. DNA from the mummified remains of Tut’s mother revealed her to be both mother to Tut, and sister of his father Akhenaten.

18.

During World War I, Jackie the baboon was awarded a medal and promoted to the rank of corporal.

19.

This funeral was extremely unconventional.Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna held an entire state funeral for his leg after it was amputated.

20.

This woman may be Lady Luck in the flesh.Anna Mae Dickinson is quite possibly the luckiest woman ever. She survived the sinking of both the Titanic and Lusitania, the Hindenburg explosion, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and, when she was 97, the destruction of her apartment during the 9/11 terror attack.

21.

Medicine has come a long way.From 1898 to 1910, the Bayer pharmaceutical company marketed and sold heroin as cough medicine and non-addictive substitute for morphine.

22.

Another children’s medicine, Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, did contain morphine.

23.

Dentures have a disturbing history.Before proper dentures came about in the mid-1800s, dentures were crafted using teeth taken from the mouths of deceased soldiers.