Hey Pandas, What's The Craziest Fact You've Ever Come Across? (Closed)

Ancient inhabitants of what is now Somerset, England, practiced ritualistic cannibalism.

I make no comment about today's residents of Somerset indulging in cannibalism.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-cannibals-of-goughs-cave.html#:~:text=14%2C700%20years%20ago%2C%20in%20a,as%20part%20of%20a%20ritual.

• In Japan, there's a museum dedicated to rocks that look like faces.- The museum is called the "Chinsekikan" or "Hall of Curious Rocks," and it is located in Chichibu, Japan.

• The shortest war in history was between Britain and Zanzibar on August 27, 1896, lasting only 38 minutes. - The British had superior forces, and with warships positioned to bombard Zanzibar's palace, the Sultan surrendered in 38 minutes to prevent further damage.

I found out that a humpback whale is so big, that if you laid one out across a professional basketball court, they would cancel the game!

I've been reading a lot of history again lately..

Just how absolutely tragic the life of Queen Anne (1665 - 1714) was!

Just a short summary: Her Uncle was King Charles II, and his brother, the Duke of York (later King James II) was her father. He was Catholic, which the country didn't appreciate. King Charles had mandated that James's kids were to be raised Protestants, and he wasn't at all close to his kids.

From the time she was very little, Anne suffered from various painful health issues and illnesses that would last her whole life and get worse at the end.

Before Anne reached 18 years old (was 4th born, 2nd daughter)...

--6 of her siblings all died
--she was sent to her grandmother, within a year, grandmother died
--she was then sent to an aunt, within a year, aunt died
--she was then sent back home to her mother, within a year, mother died
--her favorite nanny/governess died

--her best friend since about age 6 (Sarah Jennings, later Churchhill, Duchess of Marlborough) would later turn out (decades later) to be nothing more than a power hungry, manipulative POS.

--her remaining sibling Mary (future Queen Mary II), who she was really close to, married and moved away to the Netherlands before Anne could recover from smallpox so she missed the wedding, etc.

--the guardians she and Mary had been in the care of also contracted smallpox and the mother-figure she'd known died

At age 18, Anne married George of Denmark, who was considered a hottie/hunk for his time and by all accounts, they were quite happy together.

Unfortunately...

They were married from 1683 (Anne was 18) until George's death in 1708 (He was 55, Anne was 43) they'd lost 17 kids!

Most were miscarriages/stillbirths, a couple lived for a few minutes or hours, a couple were thought to have been dead in the womb for up to a month, but they had 3 kids who lived longer.

2 daughters (Mary, about 1.5 yrs old and Sophia, 9 months) died within 6 days of each other from smallpox in 1687 (Anne was 22 yrs old).

1 son, William, who lived to be 11 yrs old and died in 1700 from unclear causes. Anne was 35. This one was particular rough, because in January of 1700 Anne had a stillborn (last time she'd ever get pregnant) and 7 months later in July, William died.

In 1788, her sister Mary and her husband William of Orange (Netherlands) invaded England, kicked their father James II off the throne and took over. The sisters were happy together for a time, then a huge falling out.

By the time Mary died in 1694 (smallpox again), the sisters hated each other.

Anne got the throne in 1702, her health issues were worsening.

She lost her husband, George, in 1708. People tried to "manage" her, push her around, etc. while she's trying to reign and grieve. They wanted her to leave the palace, removed portraits of George, etc. to "help her". Good ol' "Sarah Jennings", now Sarah Churchhill, Duchess of Marlborough.

Her health got worse and worse, so she developed a bad public image as being obese, slovenly in dirty clothes, etc. Guess who helped those rumors? Good ol' Sarah!

She finally died in 1714, aged 49. She had a bad stroke, and died 2 days later. One of her doctors saw her death as a much needed mercy, writing, "I believe sleep was never more welcome to a weary traveller than death was to her."

Despite TONS of deaths and grief and drama, Anne had a pretty good reign during her 12 years on the throne but guess who started slamming her the loudest? Yups, good 'ol Sarah!

I have so much respect for Anne, look her up online. There's a lot of good books about her too. If I had to go through all of that, I'd need a straitjacket and a padded cell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain#Pregnancies_and_issue (This is the section about her maternity woes, it's just awful)

In Scotland, a unicorn is there national animal.

Some cats are also allergic to people.

A few other actors were offered the role of the Terminator before Arnold Schwarzenegger ultimately got it.

Among the some of the notable actors who declined the role were Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson. The third actor, who was rejected by James Cameron, was O.J. Simpson.

I couldn't find anything as to why Stallone and Gibson declined, but O.J.'s reasoning was really ironic... Cameron felt that, at the time, Simpson was not believable as a killer.

How poorly that statement would age a decade after The Terminator's release.

Another fun history one..

George III (the Mad King), had a great relationship with his wife, Charlotte (German princess) - he was 23 and Charlotte was 17. He never took any mistresses, and they had 15 kids! 2 kids died young, the 3rd (a daughter) was 27. They had an interesting household..

The heir (1st born, 1st son), future Prince Regent and later George IV, especially didn't get on well with his father. All hopes were on him and his marriage to his wife, Caroline (German) to cement the succession but the 2 HATED each other. They only had 1 kid, Princess Charlotte.

The other sons ran around in debauchery, doing whatever they wanted, mostly. Tons of mistresses and bastards, and most had no interest in marriage. I guess they were just content that the heir would take care of it.

The daughters were kept quite sheltered and close to home.

Princess Charlotte was 3rd in line for the throne, behind her grandfather George III and her father, who by the time of her marriage, was the Prince Regent and 2nd in line to become George IV.

Charlotte's marriage (1816) by all accounts, was a good and happy one to Prince Leopold I of Belgium, but it was short lived. In late 1817, after a very difficult pregnancy and labor, she delivered a very large stillborn son and died a few hours later from post-labor complications. She was 21, he was 26.

Suddenly everyone starts panicking. George III was on his last legs, the Prince Regent would get the throne, but he was 55 and his VERY estranged wife was 49 - there would be no more kids. Sure, there were a ton more brothers in line, but they were unmarried and up there in age too.

Suddenly there was this absolutely MAD scramble of the remaining sons to get a bride and produce legitimate kids, ASAP.

George III died in 1820, and the Prince Regent suddenly became King George IV. His health wasn't the greatest, either, thanks to a live of extreme excess. He was very obese, probably an alcoholic, and suffered from a lot of health issues. He'd only reign as King until 1830, so his brothers had about 12 years to try and reproduce like bunny rabbits with their speedily acquired wives.

King George IV died in 1830. 2nd in line should have been his brother, Frederick, but he died in 1827. And despite being married for 36 years to his wife Princess Frederica of Prussia, they never had kids.

Next in line was William, who took the throne in 1830 as King William IV. After the death of Princess Charlotte and her son (Nov 1817), he was one of the sons in the mad marriage/reproduction scramble. He married in 1818 to Princess Adelaide of Germany. He was 53, she was 26.

They didn't have any children that survived, unfortunately. Yet he had a boatload of bastard kids with an Irish actress and courtesan (10 of them) he'd been heavily and happily involved with until his marriage to Adelaide.

His backstory is a whole other kettle of fish.

Next up should have been Princess Charlotte, 4th born of George III but while she'd been married for 31 years, she died in 1828 and had no surviving kids.

This leads us to a bit of a miracle. 5th born, Prince Edward. He too, did the mad scramble to marry and breed. He married in 1818 when he was 51 to Princess Victoria (German), she was 32, a widow with 2 kids already.

In 1819, Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent was born, future Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (1837 - 1901 reign).

Sadly, 8 months later her father Edward would die in 1820.

King William IV died in 1837 (he was 71) and Queen Victoria took the throne (she was 18) and lived until she was 81.

Crazy, man, crazy.

The fact that I'm married and have children. Never saw that coming.

Braces in a way dissolve your jawbone

.so while researching dogs I learned a lot here’s just some things to know about your dog:

Pugs are dogs most likely prone to health issues due to their deformed face , same with French bulldogs . Humans bred these dogs to look like that :(

Chihuahuas were (possibly) bred for hunting rodents or to be eaten as food , although their history is pretty unkown

Pomeranians (yes those fluffy doges) were bred as guard dogs (Sorry if this dupes)

That all bell pepper colors are the same pepper from the same plant! The pepper starts out as green and then turns yellow, orange then red. It’s the same for most other peppers too making green the spiciest and red the sweetest because of the different stages of ripeness. 🤯

John Tyler (1790 – 1862), our tenth President (serving from 1841 to 1845), and the first President born in the United States (all previous Presidents were born before the U.S. was a country, has a living grandchild!

John Tyler had 15 children by two wives. (Mary, (b. 1815), Robert (b. 1816), John (b. 1819), Letitia (b. 1821), Elizabeth (b. 1823), Anne Contesse (1825-1825), Alice (b. 1827), David (b. 1846), John (b. 1848), Julia (b. 1849), Lachlan (b. 1851), Lyon (b. 1853), Robert Fitzwalter, called “Fitz” (b. 1856), Pearl (b. 1860), and finally Tazewell, who was born in 1860 when Tyler was 70.) (Love those names!) His tenth child Lyon (1853 – 1935), had (at age 75!) a son Harrison Rufflin Tyler (born 1928) who is still with us, and maintains the family home, Sherwood Forest Plantation, in Charles City County, Virginia. Thus, John Tyler is the earliest former president with a living grandchild.

That the D-Day invasion plan was written on a single side of A4. Useful if your teacher/professor/boss demands a longer plan. (Also apologies I haven't used a fact about my username or a joke about a meme as seems to be the majority).

That a perfect a*****e and incompetent like Donald Trump managed to be POTUS. I've laughed out loud when he first announced his candidacy for the republicans then, and thought he'd never had a chance. How wrong was I...

Milk is 87% water? Rubbish. It's a liquid in its own right. Like Ethanol. What? it is? Mainly water? In my fifties and only found out about this a few years ago.

That if you had your head cut off by the guillotine your head would blink for a few seconds after it was cut off. I think the guillotine was the most effective method of execution, it’s quick, precise, and painless, you wouldn’t feel a thing.

You can visit Lake Superior State in Michigan and obtain a unicorn hunting license.

penuts are not nuts and avacodos are fruit

Anatidaephobia Is the fear of being watched by a duck or goose 😱🦆🪿

One I learnt from a meme is that the Japanese word 'Kuchi zamishi' is the act of eating when you're not hungry because your mouth is lonely. Now don't lie - I know you do this.