St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was not Irish.

A South African monkey was once awarded a medal and promoted to the rank of corporal during World War I.

Born 4 January 1838, General Tom Thumb's growth slowed at the age of 6 months, at 5 years he was signed to the circus by P.T. Barnum, and at adulthood reached a height of only 1 metre.

The Toltecs, Seventh-century native Mexicans, went into battle with wooden swords so as not to kill their enemies.

Sliced bread was patented by a jeweller, Otto Rohwedder, in 1928. He had been working on it for 16 years, having started in 1912. 

Before it was stopped by the British, it was the not uncommon for women in some areas of India to choose to be burnt alive on their husband's funeral pyre.

Ivan the terrible claimed to have 'deflowered thousands of virgins and butchered a similar number of resulting offspring'.

An American aircraft in Vietnam shot itself down with one of its own missiles.

The Anglo-Saxons believed Friday to be such an unlucky day that they ritually slaughtered any child unfortunate enough to be born on that day.

The Nobel Prize resulted form a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after his death as a propagator of violence - he invented dynamite.

Pogonophobia is the fear of beards.

In 1647 the English Parliament abolished Christmas.

Coffee is the second largest item of international commerce in the world. The largest is petrol.

In Ancient Peru, when a woman found an 'ugly' potato, it was the custom for her to push it into the face of the nearest man.

For Roman Catholics, 5 January is St Simeon Stylites' Day. He was a fifth-century hermit who showed his devotion to God by spending literally years sitting on top of a huge flagpole.

When George I became King of England in 1714, his wife did not become Queen. He placed her under house arrest for 32 years.

Richard II died aged 33 in 1400. A hole was left in the side of his tomb so people could touch his royal head, but 376 years later some took advantage of this and stole his jawbone.

The magic word "Abracadabra" was originally intended for the specific purpose of curing hay fever.

The Puritans forbade the singing of Christmas Carols, judging them to be out of keeping with the true spirit of Christmas.

Albert Einstein was once offered the Presidency of Israel. He declined saying he had no head for problems.

Ralph and Carolyn Cummins had 5 children between 1952 and 1966, all were born on the 20 February.

Only 1 child in 20 are born on the day predicted by the doctor.

In the 1970's, the Rhode Island Legislature in the US entertained a proposal that there be a $2 tax on every act of sexual intercourse in the State.

Admiral Lord Nelson was less than 1.6 metres tall.

Catherine the First of Russia, made a rule that no man was allowed to get drunk at one of her parties before nine o'clock.

Queen Elizabeth I passed a law which forced everyone except for the rich to wear a flat cap on Sundays.

Julius Caesar wore a laurel wreath to cover the onset of baldness.

It is illegal to be a prostitute in Siena, Italy, if your name is Mary.

The Turk's consider it  unlucky to step on a piece of bread.

The authorities do not allow tourists to take pictures of Pygmies in Zambia.

The Dutch in general prefer their french fries with mayonnaise.

Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never phoned his wife or his mother, they were both deaf.

It was considered unfashionable for Venetian women, during the Renaissance to have anything but silvery-blonde hair.

Peter the Great had the head of his wife's lover cut off and put into a jar of preserving alcohol, which he then ordered to be placed by her bed.

Atilla the Hun is thought to have been a dwarf.

The warriors tribes of Ethiopia used to hang the testicles of those they killed in battle on the ends of their spears.

Eau de Cologne was originally marketed as a way of protecting yourself against the plague.

Theodor Herzi, the Zionist leader who was born on May 2 1860, once had the astonishing idea of converting Jews to Christianity as a way of combating anti-Semitism.

Some moral purists in the Middle Ages believed that women's ears ought to be covered up because the Virgin May had conceived a child through them.

It is a criminal offence to drive around in a dirty car in Russia.

The Emperor Caligula once decided to go to war with the Roman God of the sea, Poseidon, and ordered his soldiers to throw their spears into the water at random.

In 1726, at only 7 years old, Charles Sauson inherited the post of official executioner.

Sir Winston Churchill rationed himself to 15 cigars a day.

In parts of Malaya, the women keep harems of men.

The childrens' nursery rhyme 'Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses' actually refers to the Black Death which killed about 30 million people in the fourteenth-century.

The word 'denim' comes from 'de Nimes', Nimes being the town the fabric was originally produced.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, there was a tax put on men's beards.

Custer was the youngest General in US history, he was promoted at the age of 23.

It costs more to send someone to reform school than it does to send them to Eton.

The active ingredient in Chinese Bird's nest soup is saliva.

Marie Currie, who twice won the Nobel Prize, and discovered radium, was not allowed to become a member of the prestigious French Academy because she was a woman.

It was quite common for the men of Ancient Greece to exercise in public .. naked.

John Paul Getty, once the richest man in the world, had a payphone in his mansion.

Iceland is the world's oldest functioning democracy.

Adolf Eichmann (responsible for countless Jewish deaths during World war II), was originally a travelling salesman for the Vacuum Oil Co. of Austria.

The national flag of Italy was designed by Napoleon Bonaparte.

John Winthrop introduced the fork to the American dinner table for the first time on 25 June 1630.

When shipped to the US, the London bridge ( thought by the new owner to be the more famous Tower Bridge ) was classified by US customs to be a 'large antique'.

In 1849, David Atchison became President of the United States for just one day, and he spent most of the day sleeping.

 It was the custom in Ancient Rome for the men to place their right hand on their testicles when taking an oath. The modern term 'testimony' is derived from this tradition.

The study of stupidity is called 'monology'.

Hindu men believe(d) it to be unluckily to marry a third time. They could avoid misfortune by marring a tree first. The tree ( his third wife ) was then burnt, freeing him to marry again.

More money is spent each year on alcohol and cigarettes than on Life insurance.

A firm in Britain sold fall-out shelters for pets.

During the seventeen century , the Sultan of Turkey ordered his entire harem of women drowned, and replaced with new one.

Lady Astor once told Winston Churchill 'if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee'. His reply …' if you were my wife, I would drink it ! '.

Paul Revere was a dentist.

Chop-suey is not a native Chinese dish, it was created in California by Chinese immigrants.

Bonnie Prince Charlie, the leader of the Jacobite rebellion to depose of George II of England, was born 31 December 1720. Considered a great Scottish hero, he spent his final years as a drunkard in Rome.

A parthenophobic has a fear of virgins.

In 1939 the US political party 'The American Nazi Party' had 200,000 members.

Urine was once used to wash clothes.St Nicholas, the original Father Christmas, is the patron saint of thieves, virgins and communist Russia.

Fourteen million people were killed in World War I, twenty million died in a flu epidemic in the years that followed.

Ethelred the Unready, King of England in the Tenth-century, spent his wedding night in bed with his wife and his mother-in-law.

The two highest IQ's ever recorded (on a standard test) both belong to women.

The Tory Prime Minister, Benjamin Disreali, was born 21 December 1804. He was noted for his oratory and had a number of memorable exchanges in the House with his great rival William Gladstone. Asked what the difference between a calamity and a misfortune was Disreali replied: 'If Gladstone fell into the Thames it would be a misfortune, but if someone pulled him out again, it would be a calamity'.

In the seventeenth-century a Boston man was sentenced to two hours in the stocks for obscene behaviour, his crime, kissing his wife in a public place on a Sunday.

Gorgias of Epirus was born during preparation of  his mothers funeral.

The city of Hiroshima left the Industrial Promotion Centre standing as a monument the atomic bombing.

George Washington grew marijuana in his garden.

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Re-Evolution © 1997