Random Historical Facts

[JHG]

20. Erik XIV almost married Elizabeth I but it didn't work out.

[Poppy]

One Hundred Years Ago, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity Baffled the Press and the Public

[Kyng]

One Hundred Years Ago, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity Baffled the Press and the Public

And, 100 years on, I think it still baffles pretty much everyone !!!

Next up:

22) The yo-yo was invented in around 500BC, making it perhaps the second oldest toy in the world (after the doll).

[Kyng]

23) They're not often depicted in 'Western' movies - but, between the 1860s and the 1880s, an estimated 1 in 4 cowboys were black.

Essentially, there are two reasons why so many African-American men decided to move into that line of work:

• While racism still existed in the West, it wasn't nearly as bad as it was in the South (for example, black cowboys were generally paid the same as their white counterparts);
  
• Many of these men were former slaves, or the descendants of former slaves. They already had skills in handling cattle from their time in slavery.
  

[Kyng]

24) Apparently, Margaret Thatcher named her outfits after other world leaders, including Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51676773

[Kyng]

25) Sir Winston Churchill may be one of our most famous and best-remembered Prime Ministers... but, he only ever won one General Election, and he never won the popular vote:

• He was first appointed as Prime Minister in 1940, following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain.
  
• The next election was in July 1945, following the end of World War II. Churchill lost heavily, and Clement Attlee became Prime Minister.
  
• In February 1950, there was another election. Attlee won again - but, he had a very narrow majority.
  
• In October 1951, Attlee called an early election, in the hopes of increasing his majority. But, he didn't: Churchill won, and became Prime Minister again.
  
• The next election was in May 1955 - but, Churchill had resigned a month earlier due to ill health.

This means that the 1951 election was the first, and only, one that Churchill won (and even then, Attlee's Labour Party won the popular vote by 0.8%!)

[JHG]

26. Custer declined to have Gatling guns during his campaign against the Lakota in 1876 arguing that they'd get in his way.

[suezenek]

insteresting reading these historical facts

susan

[JHG]

27. Pirates hardly ever killed their hostages.

[Kyng]

28) A lot of people believe that George Stephenson's Rocket, built in 1829, was the world's first steam railway locomotive. However, this is not the case; that honour goes to one of Richard Trevithick's locomotives, which made its first recorded journey at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in 1804:



In spite of this, Rocket does occupy a massively important place in railway history. While it wasn't the first steam locomotive to be built, it was the first to prove that steam locomotives 'worked', i.e. they were a practical means of inter-city travel. It achieved this by bringing together a series of innovations to improve efficiency (such as a multi-tube boiler, a separate firebox, and pistons directly connected to the driving wheels). All of these featured on all subsequent steam locomotives (so, in a sense, all of the locomotives that came after Rocket were basically just bigger Rockets )