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What ridiculous history fact is your favorite?

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TehBamski@lemmy.world
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asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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cynar@lemmy.world
37 points

One of Sir Issac Newton’s famous phrases is

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”

This sounds very nobal and humbling. However, its meaning totally changes with a few facts. It was written in an open letter to Robert Hooke. Hooke was apparently quite short, and EXTREMELY sensitive about this. Newton was basically dissing Hooke. Nobody will be standing on your shoulders, shortie!

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Xanis@lemmy.world
28 points
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There are lots of great answers here so I want to post something entirely silly and much much more recent:

About 8-9 years ago someone on Reddit transcribed and revised the entirety of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven to instead be about an Emu.

For the life of me I have never been able to find it again.

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tamal3@lemmy.world
8 points

Upvoted bc i want someone to find and share it.

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Xanis@lemmy.world
3 points

Good luck. It wasn’t a post, it was a top level comment and I have a dim memory of it only being slightly related to the post topic.

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TehBamski@lemmy.worldOP
12 points

Oh great. First, the Emus won a war against Australia, greatly boosting their egos. And later on, they started censoring their mention online.

In other news… there seems to be a bird in my backyard that keeps taping on my backdoor window.

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Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
8 points

This is a great thread

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Martin@lemmy.ml
35 points

The fact that they dug up Oliver Cromwell’s body for a posthumous execution. It’s just insane on so many levels

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Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee
7 points

Did they not just dig it up so they could put his head on a spike for all to see?

Ask anyone from Ireland or Scotland at that time if it was justified and your head would be on a feckin spike for even questioning it 😂

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Martin@lemmy.ml
3 points

No it was by trial and meant as punishment. Quite common even, but I first heard of it in relation to Cromwell c.s.

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RandomVideos@programming.dev
34 points
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cynar@lemmy.world
12 points

The fact they passed on legit information on d day, is still mind blowing. They relied on delays on the German side to make the information out of date by the time it would arrive. The German radio operator not being on station to receive it just made it funnier.

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