26Decimation
The word decimation comes from the Roman practice of killing every 10th man as a form of maintaining discipline.
27. The term “Freelancer” used to refer to a knight in the Middle Ages who was not under any feudal oaths and who sold his services to the highest bidder. Since a knight’s primary weapon was a lance, he was a “free” “lancer.”
28. In medieval times it was common to have “2” sleeps per night. You would fall asleep for 4 to 5 hours, wake up for 2 hours or so and fall back to sleep for another 3 to 4. It’s been suggested that we may have evolved this way to tend to the fire in order to keep us warm and safe.
29. In France in the 1500s, women could charge their husbands with impotence. He would have to become erect and show that he could ejaculate in a courtroom. If he failed, he could demand a trial by Congress and attempt to have sex with his wife in front of the experts.
30. The concept of the “rap battle” has existed since the 5th century. Poets often engaged in “flyting,” a spoken word event where poets would insult one another in verse. The Norse god Loki is noted as having insulted other gods in verse. It is said flyting has similarities to slam poetry and rap battles of today.
Latest FactRepublic Video:
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
31Murder-Suicide
In 18th-century Denmark, people were afraid to take their own lives because they believed it would send them to hell. Instead, they resorted to killing other people to receive the death penalty and repented before execution, believing that doing so would send them to heaven.
32. During the middle ages there was a legal category called “enbrotherment” that allowed two men to share living quarters, pool their resources, and effectively live as a married couple. The couple shared “one bread, one wine, one purse.”
33. The word “orient” comes from the Latin word “oriens”, meaning East because in the Middle Ages many maps were drawn with East at the top, for religious reasons because the Garden of Eden was supposed to be there.
34. Krypteia was a special secret police unit in ancient Sparta, who was given the dubious task of controlling their slave population by annual massacres. Even more messed up was the fact that they had to do the killings in secrecy and were punished by whipping if anyone caught them.
35. In the middle ages, some kings had clothes made from "Salamander fur" which were completely fire-proof and bright white. The name likely comes from the common belief that Salamanders were “born from fire”. The clothes were actually made out of asbestos.
