I've started this thread to get interesting stories from history that people have come across, I don't mean like great battles or anything like that, i mean interesting things that other forum users are highly unlikely to know. Stuff that has been found by individual investigation rather than standard history textbook stuff. This includes local history.

To get it started, I'll give one of my own.

When I was studying Homer, I came a few lines in the beginning of book 3 which said:

"the Trojans came on with clamour and with a cry like birds, even as the clamour of cranes ariseth before the face of heaven, when they flee from wintry storms and measureless rain, [5] and with clamour fly toward the streams of Ocean, bearing slaughter and death to Pigmy men, and in the early dawn they offer evil battle"

At the time I found this highly amusing :lol:.

Later, when I was browsing through a website on sources for Medieval Chinese history, I came across the following:

"The Dwarfs. These are in the south of Ta-ts'in (Byzantine Empire). They are scarcely three ch'ih [four feet] large. When they work in the fields they are afraid of being devoured by cranes. Whenever Ta-ts'in has rendered them any assistance, the Dwarfs give them all they can afford in the way of precious stones to show their gratitude"

(from Ma Tuan-lin, Wen-hsien-t'ung-k'ao, ch. 330 (written late 13th Century A.D.)).

So, by accident I discovered that such an ancient and obscure myth had been remembered in medieval times in China. The pygmies, in case someone doesn't know, where believed to be little blach men who lived in Africa beyond Egypt and the Sahara desert (they did!).
The Chinese probably got the story from Greek travellers or traders; or, it may have been left as a legend of the west by Hellenistic Greek settlers in Bactria; or told by captured Roman soldiers, like the soldiers of Crassus captured by the Parthians after Carrhae who ended up in China.

Whatever, I find this kind of thing fascinating (as I'm sure many people do).

A while ago I wrote something here about a Persian discovery expedition that ended up in what I believe to be Cameroon, because Pygmies are also mentioned.
There are a lot of funny, amusing, strange and entertaining things I've come across, but I can't remember all of them now (It's 12.00 AM here right now).

One very intersting passage in the works of Herodotus though describes the traditions of a people I think are called Neurians (Could also be the Agathyrsians, I'm not sure, the former lived in todays Moldavia, the latter in Romania). Herodotus describes how their shamans turn into (Were)wolves in certain time frames.

Such things are often simply mentioned as anecdotes or excursions in the works of great historians, but they are sometimes worth much more than entire chapters or books they wrote as well.

IIRC the first german bomb that landed in Stalingrad killed the only elephant in the city's zoo

well i liked it..

Originally posted by CrazyDuck
IIRC the first german bomb that landed in Stalingrad killed the only elephant in the city's zoo

well i liked it..

That's not very nice. And probably not even true.

A joint U.S. - European mission to land automated probes on Mars failed spectacularly a couple of years ago. It seems that the distance calculations were a long way off and the probe overshot Mars. The reason for the errors was the fact that the American team did its calculations in miles and footpounds while the Europeans used kilometers and Newtons, and they failed to account for the conversion. Good thing it wasn't a manned mission. :lol:

There is another werewolf story from Greece. Common opinion had it that at the Mount Lykaios in Arcadia there was a ritual that included human sacrifice and that one chosen man had to eat parts of the victim, becoming a wolf after this for several years. Plutarch (I think) said, that "in his time" an olympic champion had become a wolf.

But my favorite anecdote treats with the Huns: Once, it is said, they wanted to pillage the province of Moesia. Right at the border they found a nun-monastery. After having had fun for some hours with the poor women, they decided not to pillage Moesia but rather go to the governor of the province, thanking him for his kindness to deliver a bunch of virgins to the border, so they didn't have to search for them...

Originally posted by Primeval Dragon


That's not very nice. And probably not even true.

A joint U.S. - European mission to land automated probes on Mars failed spectacularly a couple of years ago. It seems that the distance calculations were a long way off and the probe overshot Mars. The reason for the errors was the fact that the American team did its calculations in miles and footpounds while the Europeans used kilometers and Newtons, and they failed to account for the conversion. Good thing it wasn't a manned mission. :lol:

Not true. The scientific community here in the U.S. (including NASA I'm quite sure) uses the metric system just like all the sane countries in the world. It's only those stubborn laypeople that refuse to swap over. :p

I'm afraid it was true... ;)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_514000/514763.stm

Everyone remembers the grand invasion of Soamlia by the US Marines.... only to be assaulted in the beaches by hordes.....of reporters.:lol::rotfl:

It did'nt get funnier in the Mog tho':(

Sorry, DamnCommie, but it's true. At least one part of the US team used English units. The bigger failure was on the part of managment and integration that didn't catch this grievious error.

You are right, though, when you say the scientific community uses metric units. Trouble is, some things are "traditionally" not metric, like altitude. In the US, a craft's altitude is almost always referred to in feet. I develop mission planning software for the U.S. military, and my inputs are in a wide variety of units: feet, nautical miles, meters, etc. Internally, I convert everything to metric. But to output, I often have to convert back. (Pilots expect to fly at xx thousand feet, not meters.)

Here's one of my favorite quotes, from Caesar's De Bello Gallico about some weird animals in Germania:

"There is a cow that looks like a stag; in the middle of its forehead between the ears it has a horn that grows out more strongly and straighter than those horns we know. At its peak, it divides as leaves do, and grow far out from each other. Male and female animals look alike, and their horns also have the same size and shape (...) Apart from tht, there are animals called mooses. They look similar to goats, and have a colourful fur. But they are a little (a little!) larger than goats, have blunt horns and legs without joint bones. They don't lie to rest and can't get back on their legs or at least rise from the ground if they accidentaly fall down. Thus, they use trees as resting places. They lean on them and can rest that way."

oops. guess I spoke too soon. sorry.

In 280 BC Pyrrhus the Great of Epirus (a Macedonian general who won most of his battles with such losses to himself that we today get the phrase "a pyrric victory") invaded Italy and brought a bunch of elephants with him. The Romans had never seen elephants before and so quite natrually said to themselves "....what the hell is that!? It's got a tail at both ends!" as they were trampled at the battles of Heraclea and Ausculum. But one bright Roman (whos name we don't know) had a cunning plan to beat these strange monsters.....

Get a bunch of pigs, smear their backs with pitch and tar, aim them at the elephants, then....er....set fire to them! The pigs would run in a straight line trying to get away from the flames, all the time squealing in pain and terror. The noise and fire should cause the elephants to stampede back into their own troops :goodjob: ....

It was not what you would call "a war winning weapon" as it was only tried once.

(If this seems a bit cruel, it was nothing compared to what the Romans did to human beings in the arena, and that was just for entertainment!)

:lol::lol:

That guy must get either the "Worlds Cruelest treater of Animals" award or the "Greatest Tactician of History" award.;)

C'mon, there must be more stories out there.

I don't remember it exactly, but I read a while back about Cathrine (I think that was her name) who was ruling Russia at the time (before Constantinople fell; ruling in her son's stead since he was too young) who's husband was killed by some tribe.

Cathrine wasn't happy about her husband being killed. But the leader of that tribe or whatever it was had the tenacity to ask her to marry him so he could be the ruler of Russia. :eek: She wasn't too pleased with this.
So he sent over some emissaries who came by boat. Catherine told them to sleep in their boat for the night; she'd talk to them in the morning. During the night, she had her servents dig a big hole in the ground. Then they went over to the boat, picked it up out of the water, put it in the hole, and burried the people alive.

But that didn't stop the leader of the tribe from trying to woo Cathrine (obviously, he must not have known what happened to his emissaries) so he sent a few more. When they arrivedd, Cathrine insisted that they go to the bathouse to wash up from their trip. They even made a nice little bathouse just for them! How sweet...!

NOT! They emissaries went in, the door was locked and the bathouse set on fire.

Well eventually they go to war (Cathrine declared war I think; must've run out of ways to kill emessaries).
The Russians are in the middle of sieging a city of this tribe. The people in the city are pretty desperate. Cathrine tells them she'll leave if they give her however-many (don't remember how many) doves and sparrows in tribute. They agree and give her the birds. The Russians take the birds, tie burning bits of burning debris on the birds, and let them go. The birds fly back to their nests in the eaves and over hangs of buildings in the city, which catch fire from the burning debris, and the city burns to the ground.



It may not all be true, and I may have gotten some of the story wrong, but it was interesting nonetheless.

I just came across a map of Skåne (the most suthern part of sweden)
and found that the village i live in is over 350 years old.
This map whas from the 1650s, so I don't know when it whas
founded.
This maby is not that old, but when you walk trow the
village it dosen't lock that old.
Before this I thout that the village whas founded
around the mines in the mid to late 1800s.
The whole area around the village has big
hills. A specaly big pyramid like hill dominates the
land. These hills are from the old mines, but now days
nothing is mined any more. Now we have a big smelly
factory in the center of the village.
It unfortunly is the life bred of the village.

On the map the village is referd to as Bilholm, but
today we cal it Billesholm.
At first i whas unsure of it actuly being my village, but
as i loked closer at the map the surounding villages
had the same names as they do today.
On a modern map of Sweden you might find a small
town named Bjuv or Bjuf, just East of Helsingborg.
Billesholm is lokated just south of it, thes are smal
towns, Bjuv hase around 6000 and Billesholm around
3500 inhabitans. Helsingborg is the 9th lagest city in
Sweden whith its around 100000 inhabitans.
Not big comperd to New York or Tokyo but then agin
Sweden onley have a popelation of 9 milion.

That whas alot of blabering about a town no one knows about.
But it still is my home and i am proud of it, even if it
has the second badest high school in Sweden. ;)

Gerry R Andersson

Ops Duble posts, wernt allowd to delate it.

These are quite funny and interesting

Here is a rather amusing one, a British scienctist in WWII tricked the German Navy into repainting it's entire U-Boat fleet by planting a false intelligence report in radio trafic he knew the Germans were monitoring!

Of course, it wasn't really important, but it did cause the Germans considerable worry, they thought the British could detect their boats by color! (The Brits were actually using aborne radar)

How England was unified.

"It's the little things you've got watch out for. The famous example of Chaos Theory in action is how a butterfly beating it's wings starts a chain of eddies that eventually result in hurricanes on the other side of the world. History is the best example of this in practice.

Let's set the scene. The setting is Kingston, in what we now call England, but was then called Wessex. Wessex was the dominant kingdom in Anglo-Saxon "Engle-lond"- and the time is 956 AD. King Eadred has died without heirs, so the people to watch are his nephews- the 15-year old Eadwig and the 12-year old Edgar. The powerbrokers of the land have chosen Eadwig as king of Wessex (making him the big cheese of this sceptred isle) whilst Edgar has been elected as the king of the lesser kingdom of Mercia.

Things are looking just plain groovy for young Eadwig, but he's not entirely happy. The previous four kings of Wessex had also ruled Mercia, but this time the King's council has acknowledged local feelings and elected joint kings as a gesture to regional tradition. Still, Eadred had terrorised the unruly Northumbrian Danes into a sullen silence and so Eadwig's reign looks secure. Surely nothing can go wrong, can it?

It's at Eadwig's coronation feast that the **** hits the fan. Now young Eadwig's a good-looking kid, known as "The All-Fair", but like most 15-year olds he's got an itch he can't scratch. You remember the feeling- a set of genitals so unruly that it's like having a pack of puppies in your pants, but no action in sight. At that age, we all feel like the rest of the world are thrashing themselves ragged in a semen-drenched orgy of titanic proportions while we, as individuals, will have less chance of taking liberties with a lady's rude bits than we have of splitting the atom with a haddock.

So....the great and good of Wessex are sinking the mead with gay abandon, whilst Eadwig's at the head of the table, bored out his skull, and sporting an erection that could carve glass. Suddenly his eye catches sight of a severely nubile noble nymphette called Aelfgifu, and he's on point instantly. Aelfgifu's a sweet and innocent(ish) young thing, but her mother is a social climber who could wind the Pope around her finger, and she's only too keen to wring the last few miles of seduction out of her still-impressive flesh. So she takes her daughter over to young Eadwig (who has started to drool and has steam visibly rising off him) and all three sneak quietly away from the feasting hall.

After a short interval, even the most bladdered of guests has noticed a significant absentee at the head of the table, and this is considered an insulting faux pas of the highest order. Enter Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury, a man who managed to become Archbishop of Canterbury and a Saint despite facing serious charges of witchcraft and probably having at least one English king killed. Religion was a lot livelier in those days. Now Dunstan is noted for many virtues, but subtlety and a steady temper aren't among them. In fact, he's a grumpy old headcase, and when he's told of Eadwig's vanishing act he goes impressively psycho. Dunstan storms into the royal hall and physically kicks down the door to the king's bedchambers. There he is met by the sight of Eadwig partaking in an extremely energetic bout of shagging with Aelfgifu and her mother simultaneously.

At this point Eadwig's hips are moving faster than an epileptic breakdancer's in an earthquake and he's happy as a pig in slurry in this abundance of female flesh and folds. His sunny good mood is destroyed in seconds as the morally-enraged monk hauls him off the sweaty and squealing mound of womanhood and drags him back to the feast by his hair. The earls of Wessex are presented with the reappearance of their king, red-faced and breathing heavily with the regal love truncheon still dripping on the carpet.

Here's where it hots up. Eadwig is deeply pissed off and exiles Dunstan. However, Dunstan's a powerful man and Eadwig's position becomes precarious as the earls start to propose uniting the kingdoms under one banner. In a panic, he seizes land to give to his own supporters, but sparks off a civil war in the process. Within two years, all the most powerful earls have given up on the randy little tyke and united behind the more biddable young Edgar. Eadwig loses his kingdom, and dies shortly after (shagged to death by his ladies? Let's hope so.) whilst in 959 Edgar is consecrated as King of a united Wessex and Mercia.

......and that, my children, is how England came to exist. The final unity was achieved by Edgar, which means that 1000 years of colonial exploitation, sexual repression and the drinking of milky tea is entirely due to one boy's throbbing dobber. Know your history, and be proud."

Here's one I read in Seneca's "Letters to Lucilius". He talks about a fellow that became very wealthy, although he wasn't very cult, probably a son of former slaves or something. To impress his friends in his parties, he bought and trained one slave that knew everything about Homer, one that knew everything about Hesiod, etc. During dinners they would whisper the verses to him, so that he would look to be a connoisseur. However, his short memory was a disgrace and he could never finish the verse to the great amusement of the commensals, who were only there because the host was very rich.
One of the guests told him that he should buy two slaves for the same writer, and he said: "Do you know how much did these cost him?", and the reply: "For less money you could buy a library."
In another day, this same guest tried to convince the rich man to practice athletics. "What? With my age and my problems?". And the witty reply was: "Oh, please, with all these healthy slaves you have!"...

Originally posted by CrazyDuck
IIRC the first german bomb that landed in Stalingrad killed the only elephant in the city's zoo

well i liked it..

Conflicting anecdotes... - I've heard it was both Leningrad and Berlin, but never Stalingrad.

......and that, my children, is how England came to exist. The final unity was achieved by Edgar, which means that 1000 years of colonial exploitation, sexual repression and the drinking of milky tea is entirely due to one boy's throbbing dobber. Know your history, and be proud."

:lol: :lol: :lol:
:rotfl: :rotfl:

:goodjob: