Fun Historical Facts

To kill the leader of our country, yes.

And an illegal immigrant you are smuggling into the country apparently.

Nintendo, the company known today for making video games and consoles, was founded in 1889. They began as manufacturers of playing cards, and between then and their electronic entertainment era, ran various businesses ranging from novelty toys to sex hotels.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the technology to make concrete of a comparable quality was lost for a thousand years.

Upon the premiere of his 9th Symphony, Beethoven received so much applause that it was considered indecent, and had to be curbed by police at the hall.
Al Capone owned a Cadillac that was fitted with bullet-proof glass, run-flat tires and a police siren. After it was seized by treasury agents, it was later used as President Roosevelt's personal limousine.

The work "apron" used to be "napron", but people so frequently misheard 'a napron' as 'an apron' that it changed.

The Soviet Union liberated far more concentration camps than all of the other Allies combined.

Neil Armstrong was very lucky to be the first man on the moon, in more ways than one. His application for the Apollo program missed the deadline by a week, but he had a friend at NASA who slipped it into the pile for him.

There is zero archeological evidence of ancient Jews being enslaved by, and later escaping, Egyptian rule.

The official website for the 90's classic "Space Jam" is still up. It hasn't been updated since release. Enjoy it in all it's glory:
http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm

Believe it or not, the photographs of Russia in the following link are over 100 years old. Their incredible detail and colour (for the time) was achieved with a specialized camera.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html

LEVEL UP: Geekiness +18

Yep, and he was only 16-17 years old at the time. He was also a member of the Hitler Youth, which was basically the official Nazi version of the boy scouts. So they sang praise for Hitler, spat on Jews and trained in weapons.

That Japanies historiens still to this day say that chineas sex-slaves should be honerd to have given happines to japanies soldiors.

A Swedish king hos name was Erik the king once put arsenic in his brothers soup to kill him... and then he cut of his own hand and ran around in the forest for tre days....... fun.

sigmund freud smoked 20 cigars a day.
cigars usually last from 20 minutes to 2 hours depending on the size
he must have been smoking all day long.

An average adult needs about 8 hours of sleep. 24 - 8 = 16 hours awake. Freud spent at least 6 hours and 9 minutes out of 16 hours smoking?

Edit:
6 hours and 9 minutes = 369 minutes
16 hours = 960 minutes

Freud's percentage of time awake whilst smoking = 369 : 960 x 100 = about 38,4 %

Heh, I guess he didn't actually "smoke" all of them if you catch my drift.

And about your question on the photos, I could hardly believe it either, but yes they were taken over a century ago, before WWI and the Russian Revolution. The photographer had to take four shots of the same scene, a normal black and white negative, and a red, yellow and blue one, and combined them to get the almost true colour. Pretty amazing, modern digital cameras produce barely better pictures.

Sadly almost no-one attended his second performance, because of the police crackdown on the applause. It was strongly against social etiquette to give more than light applause to a musician, especially one not employed by the royal family. Beethoven received five rapturous standing ovations, and frankly I'm not surprised. The man had been completely deaf for an entire decade prior, but still managed to create one of the greatest pieces of music, if not the greatest. Music his own ears would never enjoy.
Just listen to the first four minutes or so.

Skip to the three minute mark for this one.

Sigmund freud also hade a jar of cocain for medicinal purposes...... Fun

Adolf Hitler received his Iron Cross from a Jewish lieutenant.

Despite popular perceptions created by admittedly atrocious World War II POW handling, Japan did not have a history of cruelty to captives. From the Sino-Japanese War of the 1890s throught World War I, Japanese POW treatment was exemplary.
A Soviet soldier's daily vodka ration was 100 grams. For a senior lieutenant commanding mortars at Stalingrad, it wasn't enough. The lieutenant pirated his dead troops vodka rations. When a supply clerk reported him to headquarters to cancel the ration, the lieutenant came unglued. He called upon his batteries, gave them coordinates, and three heavy mortor rounds landed on the supply clerks's warehouse. Headquarters was unsympathetic this time- they told the clerk to just give the lieutenant his vodka. After all, he had just been given the Order of the Red Star.