10 Random, Fascinating Historical Facts That Everyone Should Know, But Almost Nobody Does

No matter who you are or what period of history may be your favorite, I know there is more history to learn. So, here are 10 fun history facts I recently learned that I thought were cool enough to share. Enjoy!

1. The recently departed Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of the late Queen Elizabeth II, was not the only male consort in English history. In 1554, King Philip II of Spain married Queen Mary I of England and became King Consort. Mary was a devout Catholic who was eager to undo many of the Protestant changes and undo the damage her father, Henry VIII, had done to England. (He did not succeed.) When Mary died, English law ensured that her half-sister Elizabeth, not Philip, would become King of England.

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After Mary’s death and Elizabeth’s accession, Philip also aimed to marry Elizabeth. Spain’s interest lay in converting England to Catholicism, which was his primary motive for marrying Mary. But Elizabeth was savvy: she led him while supporting other Protestant states.

In 1588, Philip sent an armada of about 130 ships to invade England and depose the Protestant queen. The English had to repel the Spaniards across the Channel. At midnight, the British sent eight ghost ships filled with volcanoes to the armada.

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The Spanish cut their cables and headed to sea, and with their formation broken, they had no choice but to head north, to Scotland – and one of the “worst storms to hit that coast in years”. According to Historic UK, “When the dismembered armada finally returned to Spain, it had lost half its ships and three-quarters of its men.” Philip never regained control of England, and the country’s fateful defeat of his monstrous armada was seen as a divine blessing of the Protestant kingdom.

2. On December 12, 1952, a nuclear reactor exploded in a laboratory. Long before he became president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, a 28-year-old Navy lieutenant and nuclear engineer, volunteered to help dismantle a Canadian nuclear reactor that was beginning to melt down. Carter was part of a team of scientists who each took 90-second shifts inside the radioactive core to carefully deconstruct it.

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3. In Heian- and Kamakura-era Japan, there was a custom called uwanari-uchi, which literally means “second wife beating.” According to author Chieko Irie Mulhern, uwanari-uchi is “the accepted right of the first wife to fight the next wife”—basically, if her husband decided to elope with wife #2, wife #1 had the right to attack the other woman, either for revenge or to protect her husband’s property and investments.

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4. The massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, a volcano in present-day Indonesia, caused a global volcanic winter event that we now call “the year without summer.” According to Smith College, the eruption was “the most destructive eruption on Earth in the last 10,000 years” and “killed 10,000 people living on the island.” The explosion affected the entire planet. In New England, for example, frost destroyed crops, heavy snow fell in June, and lakes and rivers froze over by July. Summer never came.

5. In 1846, a young Abraham Lincoln may have considered joining the ill-fated Donner Party. James F., an organizing member of the group of Lincoln pioneers. Reed had a friend and Reed wanted to come with him. Mary Todd, who already had a child with Lincoln and was pregnant for the second time, opposed joining Lincoln’s campaign. Ultimately, Lincoln decided to stay in Illinois, where he developed his political career.

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6. Luca Pacioli was a 15th-century Franciscan friar, mathematician, and friend of Leonardo da Vinci known as the “Father of Accounting.” He formally published a book on double-entry bookkeeping, which is still an essential system for most businesses today.

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7. In 1579, about a decade before the Spanish Armada became instrumental in England’s defeat, English explorer and privateer Sir Francis Drake traveled to California seeking new trade routes for England. Much like explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo had preceded him, and despite voyages up the California coast, Drake failed to “discover” San Francisco Bay. Because the bay (as well as the land around it) was inhospitable and shrouded in fog, Drake (and Cabrillo before him) missed out entirely and instead sailed farther north, probably where Drake’s Bay is today.

There, he made (by all accounts peaceful) contact with the Coast Miwok people nearly three decades before the founding of the Jamestown colony in Virginia.

8. Lucrezia Borgia had a total of three husbands in her life. The first, Giovanni Sforza, she married when she was 13, when he was 26, and a year after their wedding, her family tried to kill her.

In 1494, Giovanni found himself in a dilemma, politically speaking, when he was forced to choose between loyalty to his uncle Ludovico Sforza and Lurezia’s brothers, Juan and Cesare.

Juan and Cesare tell Lucrezia about the plan to kill Giovanni, which she allegedly warned him about ahead of time. He fled to Milan disguised as a beggar. After that, her family called for an annulment, claiming that the marriage was never consummated because Giovanni was impotent. yes Eventually, Giovanni agreed to an abdication (which involved admitting a lie) after Lucrezia’s father, Pope Alexander VI, said he could keep her dowry.

9. Genghis Khan, the first Khan of the Mongol Empire, is estimated to have killed around 40 million people. 11% of the world’s population. The sheer number of people it killed led to a massive recovery of devastated areas, leading to what ecologists say may be “the first event of successful man-made global cooling”. Reforested areas due to mine carnage have absorbed “an estimated 700 million tons of carbon” from the atmosphere.

According to History.com, Genghis Khan probably “killed three-quarters of the total population of modern-day Iran in his wars with the Khwarezmid Empire” and during his lifetime “the population of China fell by tens of millions.”

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10. And finally, a wholesome story: Bobby the Wonder Dog was a beloved Oregon dog who surprised his owners by showing up at their front door. The almost miraculous part? Bobby was lost on a trip to Indiana, but his owners lived in Silverton, Oregon! According to the Oregon Encyclopedia, research initiated by the Oregon Humane Society “[confirmed] that Bobby traveled 2,800 miles at the end of the winter to return home.” Scrappy and Scratchy, “Bobby, a very popular dog, received medals, keys to cities, and a harness and collar studded with jewels.”

If you have any dramatic, interesting, or just plain cool facts from history that you like, please, please, please leave them in the comments! I always love learning more historical information, and I’m sure other people do too. Or, if you want to share anonymously, fill out the form below!

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Also on Rewind: People are discussing historical facts that are so heartbreaking they’ll stick with them forever, and I think I might cry.

Also on rewind: Gen X and Millennials are sharing experiences that would completely emotionally destroy today’s kids.

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