The more I dig into the deep recesses of the internet, the more I discover that being a history teach is tough. I mean, you have all these great stories about historical events and people and they’re all shocking, dirty and NSFW but you can’t tell your students any of it! It’s like there’s this global conspiracy to make history boring.
So I turn to the internet, Reddit specifically and here’s what the brilliant posters had to say about the awesome parts of history.
If this gets your blood pumping, you can find more of these NSFW facts HERE!
“The Roman god of masturbation, Priapus, was commonly placed in doorways and on lawns in the form of a little statue with a pointed hat and fully erect penis. To the Greeks, he was the equivalent of their god of boundaries. So it was common to see a statue of Priapus in the doorway of a home or on the lawn of a Roman manor. Today, some scholars believe we still continue this tradition, by placing little statues on our lawns or in front of doorways, with a pointed hat but minus the erect penis. However, we now refer to it as a Garden Gnome.” – VulcanHobo
“The famous Victorian-era art critic John Ruskin spurned his new bride on their wedding night because, unlike the nude statues he was used to seeing, this lady had pubic hair and he thought she was deformed.” – anaconda_cuddles
“Thomas Granger was the first juvenile (by modern use of the word) to be executed in (what would become) the United States. On 7 September 1642 in Plymouth Colony, he was convicted of “buggery with a mare, a cow, two goats, divers sheepe, two calves, and a turkey,” and sentenced to death. He was hanged the following day, at the age of 16 or 17 (sources are unclear on his year of birth). Barnyard animals of the time breathed a collective sigh of relief.” – Rose-Thorn
“When you see “he made her his wife” in history books, it is often a euphemism for “he raped her in front of his troops and any of her family that he hadn’t killed.” – mutant_anomaly
“The infamous poisoner Locusta who, among other victims, was responsible for the death of Emperor Claudius, at the behest of Agrippina, and Nero’s younger brother Brittanicus, at Nero’s behest. After the latter she was rewarded with a nice estate. Post Nero, Emperor Galba had a bunch of Nero’s flunkies executed. Locusta was executed, not for a bunch of murders, but for being in cahoots with Nero, by being raped to death by a specially trained Giraffe.” – Doomscrye
“The ancient Greeks associated smaller penises with higher intelligence.” – rowaanbladex
“Apparently when the British empire was in charge of “Australia: Penal Colony!” in the 1800s, the men who worked there (and thus, lived there) were tired of native women being the only ones “available” for “companionship”. So enough of them complained to the powers that be and the Empire essentially rounded up girls in the Irish orphanages (and other places, I’m sure) between the ages of ~10 or 12 to 18, shipped them off to Australia, and essentially unloaded them and just told the men to pick one and be happy.” – akblonde907
“Ragnarr Loðbrok, of History Channel’s “Vikings”, was a heroic figure in the Norse tales, but his nickname (Loðbrok), has been debated.
Usually it is translated as “hairy breeches”, because he supposedly survived an assassination attempt via viper pit by wearing thick, hairy trousers.
But there’s an argument that it refers to another Ragnarr, who helped invade Paris in the 9th century, and whose nickname is “shitty breeches”. This Ragnarr caught dysentery. When he was kneeling before a man of the church, he refused to convert, and ended up explosively shitting himself to death, thereby proving the omnipotence of God.” – LoptrCyning
“Mary, Queen of Scots is to be executed by beheading. On the day of, the she pays the executioner to make sure his aim is true. Its not. The executioner hits the back of the ladies head, knocking her semi-unconscious. She begins to moan horribly and loudly. The executioner then wrenches free the axe and swings again. This time, his aim is true, but unfortunately, being of made of the more base iron of the time, and thus softer, the blade of the ax was significantly dulled when it struck the lady’s head. A third swing is needed to complete the job. But the calamity was not over yet. The head of lady missed the basket intended to catch it, bounced off the raised platform and then rolled into the crowd of witnesses.
Did you know that during that time period, small lapdogs where used to help ladies keep warm in the cold. Hand-muffs are a fashion decedent of the pouches used to hold the dogs. The pouch was often on the inside of lady’s coat. Why is this relevant? Just after the lady’s head went in the crowd, her hand-warmer dog, whom everyone including the lady had forgotten about, tired of being somewhat squished under her body. It proceeded to wriggle upward past the neck-stump of the lady (which was still a tight squeeze), becoming covered in blood in the process. It then leap off the platform and went running through the crowd of witnesses, again thoroughly covered in blood.” – DNC_8675309
“King Richard the Lionheart was good “friends” with King Philip II of France. While on crusade, Richard and Philip had an argument, and Philip went home. When returning to England later, Richard detoured through his rival HRE Henry VI’s lands to avoid going through his “friend’s” France.
He was captured, and we get Robin Hood from the burden of his ransom.
If that’s not a lover’s quarrel, I don’t know what is.” – byzantinedavid
“US President Warren Harding wrote over a thousand pages of erotic correspondence to his mistress, Carrie Fulton Phillips, for a period of 15 years. Highlights include:
“Wouldn’t you like to get sopping wet out on Superior – not the lake – for the joy of fevered fondling and melting kisses? Wouldn’t you like to make the suspected occupant of the next room jealous of the joys he could not know, as we did in morning communion at Richmond?”
“Honestly, I hurt with the insatiate longing, until I feel that there will never be any relief until I take a long, deep, wild draught on your lips and then bury my face on your pillowing breasts.”
“Wish I could take you to Mount Jerry. Wonderful spot.”
He called his penis, “Jerry” – nonababu
“During the Civil War, General Joseph Hooker had brought in so many prostitutes to follow his division that they were called “General Hooker’s Army” or “Hooker’s Legion”.” – nonababu
“For centuries, a marriage was not considered valid until it had been consummated. This method of legitimising a marriage held such import that until the 17th Century in certain parts of Europe, it was perfectly legal to indulge in necrophilia – if a bride had passed away before the wedding day could be celebrated, the ceremony could still be performed and the marriage consummated (and therefore legitimised) by the groom having sexual relations with her corpse.” – Taleya
“The English explorer James Cook sailed to Hawaii in 1779. The Hawaiians thought he was their sex/fertility god Lono because he arrived while they were celebrating a festival, which he didn’t try to prove otherwise. He used that mistake to get laid by the natives.” – nonababu
“In the 18th century, it was common for soldiers quartered outside the barracks to just poop in the corner of the house, because it was safer than going out to the outhouse. If you’ve ever wondered why the Bill of Rights has the Third Amendment against soldiers being quartered in civilian homes, that should help explain it.” – Chamale
“There was an ancient Greek prostitute named Phryne, who was put on trial for impiety, and when it looked like she would lose the case, she stripped down, and basically said “Why would you want to destroy these breasts?” and then was acquitted.” – phonethe
“The Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria were not the names of the three ships in Columbus’ infamous fleet. They were actually the Santa Clara (nicknamed by her crew the “Niña” (little girl) after her owner Juan Niño), a caravel who’s original name is now lost and is only known by her crew nickname of “The painted one” (whore) and of course the Santa Maria, who was also known by her original name of La Gallega, (so named after the province in which she was built, later renamed by Columbus) although the crew nickname she earned was far less grand – Marigalante (Dirty Mary)
So a little girl, a whore and dirty mary sailed into the new world….” – Taleya
That makes my brain hurt…
Via Reddit
