There are some historical events that everyone has heard of, but there are many that most people know nothing about. This is a small portion of the latter. Some are funny and some are heartbreaking, but they are all part of human history. Below are 10 historical events that you’ve probably never heard about.
1. The Pequot Wars
In 1637, the Puritan settlers and the Pequot engaged in a war over territory. The Puritans essentially committed genocide, and wiped out the entire Pequot tribe. At one point, the settlers attacked a Pequot village near New Haven, Connecticut and slaughtered over 500 men, women, and children, by burning them alive. Burning. Them. Alive. How Christian of them. Then, once the war was over and the Pequot accepted defeat, the survivors were either killed or sold into slavery.
2. Pope Gregory IX and the Bubonic Plague
In the 1200’s, Pope Gregory IX declared that cats were satanic. He issued a screed saying that Pagans were devil worshipers and needed to be converted. In explaining how to spot a Pagan, Gregory IX said that they used cats in their initiation ceremonies. Following this declaration, cats were killed throughout Europe by the thousands in an effort to get rid of the creatures for good. This practice continued on even after Pope Gregory IX’s death. A century later, in the middle of the 14th century, the bubonic plague hit Europe. With no cats to keep the rat population in check, the disease spread like wildfire, and between 1347 and 1352, 25 million people died.
3. Andrew Jackson was a Jackass
In 1828, when Andrew Jackson was running for president, he was so stubborn that friends and foes alike called him a jackass. Jackson was not offended by this, and instead felt that being strong-willed was a positive character trait. He began using the image of a donkey on his campaign posters, and the image stuck.
4. The Zimmermann Telegram
At the start of WWI, the United States had an isolationist mindset. President Woodrow Wilson had no interest in becoming involved in Europe’s war. That is, until Britain revealed the Zimmermann Telegram. In it, German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann offered to help Mexico regain territory taken by the United States in return for Mexico joining the German cause. Interestingly, Britain intercepted the telegram months before telling the United States about it, hoping to cash in on the growing anti-German sentiment. Their gamble worked, and the U.S. declared war on Germany a month later.
5. Boston Corbett was a Eunuch
Boston Corbett, the man who shot and killed John Wilkes Boothe (who, if you remember, shot and killed Abraham Lincoln), was completely insane from years of handling mercury. In July 1858, as either a tribute to his late wife or perhaps to resist the temptation of prostitutes, Corbett calmly took a pair of scissors and castrated himself. He then went to a prayer meeting, had a bite to eat, and took a walk.
6. The Vermont Eugenics Program
In the mid-1900’s, many states had Eugenics programs that called for the sterilization of people deemed insane, idiotic, feeble minded, or imbecilic. Vermont, however, went a few steps further. High society residents of Vermont viewed two specific ethnic groups as insidious, believing they were invading the state. It’s not the ethnic groups you might be thinking of, either. No, Vermont targeted the Abanaki Native Americans and the French Canadians. While most sterilization programs stopped after the 1940’s, Abanakis continued to be sterilized until the 1970’s.
7. The Ivanov Experiments
In the 1920’s, Russian professor Professor Ilya Ivanov tried to make human-ape hybrids. Ivanov first tried with human males and female chimpanzees via artificial insemination, but all three experiments failed. He then attempted to impregnate human females using chimpanzee sperm, but again failed. Five of the women died.
8. The Tuskegee Study
In 1932, the American Public Health Institute, in conjunction with the Tuskegee Institute, conducted a syphilis experiment on 600 African American men. 399 of the men had syphilis and the other 201 did not. They were told they were being treated for “bad blood” but in reality they were simply being studied to find out the effects of leaving the disease untreated, and were never informed of the experiment. While it was originally planned to only last 6 months, the experiment went on for over 40 years. Even when penicillin became the go-to treatment for syphilis in 1947, the researchers withheld that information and did not offer it to the test subjects.
9. Vibrators were invented to treat “Hysteria”
Vibrators were not invented for the purpose one might imagine. No, doctors actually invented them more than 100 years ago as a treatment for hysteria. Hysteria at the time was vaguely defined as sexual frustration. At the time, women were believed to have no sexual desire and were meant to simply put up with the sexual intercourse their husbands desired. But some “hysterical” women wanted their own orgasms, and since men just couldn’t figure that nonsense out, doctors came to the rescue. After years of cramped fingers, doctors invented the vibrator, and the rest is history.
10. American Soldiers’ “War Trophies” in WWII
In WWII, the anti-Japanese sentiment was so strong that American soldiers serving in the South Pacific kept mutilated body parts of Japanese soldiers as trophies. Yes, you read that right. American soldiers would mutilate the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers and would keep bits and pieces. The practice came to light when a photograph was printed in Life magazine depicted a woman in Arizona gazing lovingly at the skull of a Japanese soldier that her boyfriend had mailed to her from overseas.
