40 Cool Historical Facts You Definitely Weren’t Taught In Schools

About 112 people died during the construction of Hoover Dam. The first was J. G. Tierney, a surveyor who drowned on December 20, 1922, while looking for an ideal spot for the dam. His son, Patrick W. Tierney, was the last man to die working on the dam, 13 years to the day later, in 1935. So yeah a father and son died on the same day, 14 years apart while working on Hoover Dam.

In Monza, Italy, King Umberto I, went to a small restaurant for dinner, accompanied by his aide-de-camp, General Emilio Ponzia-Vaglia. When the owner took King Umberto’s order, the King noticed that he and the restaurant owner were virtual doubles, in the face and in build. Both men began discussing the striking resemblances between each other and found many more similarities. Both men were born on the same day, of the same year, (March 14th, 1844). Both men had been born in the same town. Both men married a woman with the same name, Margherita. The restaurateur opened his restaurant on the same day that King Umberto was crowned King of Italy. On the 29th of July 1900, King Umberto was informed that the restaurateur had died that day in a mysterious shooting accident, and as he expressed his regret, he was then assassinated by an anarchist in the crowd.

The stories of identical twins' nearly identical lives are often astonishing, but perhaps none more so than those of these identical twins born in Ohio. A set of twin boys separated at birth were adopted by different families. Unknown to each other, both families named the boys Jim. The coincidences had just begun. Both James grew up not even knowing of the other, yet both sought law-enforcement training, both had abilities in mechanical drawing and carpentry, and each had married women named Linda. They both had sons whom one named James Alan and the other named James Allan. The twin brothers also divorced their wives and married other women both named Betty. They both owned dogs which they named Toy. Jim Lewis and Jim Springer finally met on February 9, 1979, after 39 years of being separated.

The three Olympic-class ocean liners were each involved in accidents: RMS Olympic was damaged in a collision with HMS Hawke, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, and HMHS Britannic struck an underwater mine during World War I and sank. One woman named Violet Jessop survived all three accidents.

In 1869 during the Paraguayan War 90% of the male population of Paraguay had already died at the hands of the invading Brazilian, Argentinian and Uruguayan armies. The Paraguayans went to make a last stand at Campo Grande but they didn't have enough men so they assembled a 6,000 strong army composed mainly by children. The children anywhere from 6 to 15 painted beards on their faces to look like grown men. A 20,000 strong Brazilian army charged and slaughtered them and by the end of the day, there were 3,500 Paraguayan children dead and 46 Brazilian deaths. To this day on August 16th, the day of the battle, Paraguay celebrates Children's Day.

In the USA, the record for the most criminals killed by the electric chair in a single day is six. They were all German saboteurs who invaded the USA during World War 2 as part of Operation Pastorius. Also, most people hanged in a single day is 38, a record held by Mankato, Minnesota for hanging Dakota Natives for their uprising following the Dakota War of 1862. This number is in spite of the fact that Lincoln commuted the sentences of 264 others who would have also been hanged for participating in the uprising.

If you look up Edward Russell in history books or even Wikipedia, you learn about his military service, including Admiral of the Royal Fleet for some famous battles. What they don't teach is that he threw a party so epic it's still being talked about 300 years later. In 1694, he threw a party for officers, and with 6,000 guests coming, he wanted to make it special. So, he made the world's largest cocktail. He drained the garden fountain and used that as a giant punch bowl with hundreds of gallons of liquor, over a half-ton of sugar, thousands of lemons, etc. He hired bartenders to paddle around in boats, scoop it up, and serve it to attendees. At some point, it began to rain, so they put a tent up over the fountain to prevent it from getting watered down. About a week after they started, they had drunk every last drop, the fountain was dry, and the party was over.

The first person who was sentenced to the electric chair died horribly. Someone forgot to wet an essential part of the machine and he ended up with bubbling skin, melting eyes and a foaming mouth among other things. The amount of electricity was so strong that he began to convulse violently, so much so that he weakened straps. He twitched so erratically that his index finger dug through the palm of his hand. The entire room smelled of burning flesh, and the stench even permeated some clothes. Many people who came to see had fainted during the execution. But do you know what's even more horrible? They heard him wheezing after they turned the electricity off.

At the Battle of Agincourt, most of the English archers fought without pants because they had serious diarrhea and were literally shi*ting themselves as they fought. They won too. It is thought that the archers also dipped their arrows in their diarrhea as a form of biological warfare and also for psychological impact.

Flamethrowers weren’t banned in warfare because it’s bad to be let on fire. They were banned because when sprayed into enclosed spaces (bunkers, caves, and tunnel complexes) you are essentially gassing everyone inside with carbon monoxide. There were caves in the Pacific theater of World War 2 where dozens of Japanese soldiers were killed by a single flame thrower operator. Many if not most wouldn’t even have burns, some never even seeing the flames. Apparently the Americans didn’t actually learn how they'd been killing them until after the war.