Amazing historical factoids

[Magical Realist]

"No one really knows the exact reason why we use the term, but it was likely adopted by Americans who traveled to France and kissed French women, who were more comfortable with a bit of tongue action, says Kirshenbaum.

Naturally, the term “French kiss” developed.

Still, it took a while for the term – and even the practice – to catch on in the United States.

It wasn’t until after World War II that Americans felt comfortable enough to French kiss each other, says Kirshenbaum. She credits American servicemen who served in Europe with bringing the kissing style home.

Remember that iconic photo of a US sailor kissing a woman in Times Square? Exactly.

Of course, it wasn’t called a “French kiss” in France. It was just a kiss.

The French didn’t even have a word for the style of kissing until 2014, when the Petit Robert dictionary added a new verb: “Galocher.” It literally means “to kiss with tongues.”

Even with the addition, the Academie Francaise, which regulates French and guards against foreign words intruding on the language, has yet to accept the word.

Clearly, the French are more uptight about their prose than their pecks."--- https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/06/us/french...index.html

[Magical Realist]

"When the Titanic sank, it carried millionaire John Jacob Astor IV. The money in his bank account was enough to build 30 Titanics. However, faced with mortal danger, he chose what he deemed morally right and gave up his spot in a lifeboat to save two frightened children.

Millionaire Isidor Straus, co-owner of the largest American chain of department stores, "Macy's," who was also on the Titanic, said:

"I will never enter a lifeboat before other men."

His wife, Ida Straus, also refused to board the lifeboat, giving her spot to her newly appointed maid, Ellen Bird. She decided to spend her last moments of life with her husband.

These wealthy individuals preferred to part with their wealth, and even their lives, rather than compromise their moral principles. Their choice in favor of moral values highlighted the brilliance of human civilization and human nature."

[Magical Realist]

The Haunted Genius Who Could Remember Everything..

https://youtu.be/PQvy0qoXQsY

[Magical Realist]

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[Magical Realist]

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[Magical Realist]

The Radium Girls

"An estimated 4,000 workers were hired by corporations in the U.S. and Canada to paint watch faces with radium. At USRC, each of the painters mixed her own paint in a small crucible, and then used camel hair brushes to apply the glowing paint onto dials. The rate of pay was about a penny and a half per dial (equivalent to $0.357 in 2023[9]), earning the girls $3.75 (equivalent to $89.18 in 2023[9]) for painting 250 dials per shift.

The brushes would lose shape after a few strokes, so the USRC supervisors encouraged their workers to point the brushes with their lips ("lip, dip, paint"), or use their tongues to keep them sharp. Because the true nature of the radium had been kept from them, the Radium Girls also painted their nails, teeth, and faces for fun with the deadly paint produced at the factory.[10] Many of the workers became sick; over 30 died from exposure to radiation by 1927.[citation needed] Several are buried in Orange's Rosedale Cemetery."--- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls

[Magical Realist]

Mummy Mania

"Why did people think cannibalism was good for their health? The answer offers a glimpse into the zaniest crannies of European history, at a time when Europeans were obsessed with Egyptian mummies.

Driven first by the belief that ground-up and tinctured human remains could cure anything from bubonic plague to a headache, and then by the macabre ideas Victorian people had about after-dinner entertainment, the bandaged corpses of ancient Egyptians were the subject of fascination from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.

Faith that mummies could cure illness drove people for centuries to ingest something that tasted awful.

Mumia, the product created from mummified bodies, was a medicinal substance consumed for centuries by rich and poor, available in apothecaries’ shops, and created from the remains of mummies brought from Egyptian tombs back to Europe.

By the 12th century apothecaries were using ground up mummies for their otherworldly medicinal properties. Mummies were a prescribed medicine for the next 500 years.

In a world without antibiotics, physicians prescribed ground up skulls, bones and flesh to treat illnesses from headaches to reducing swelling or curing the plague.

Not everyone was convinced. Guy de la Fontaine, a royal doctor, doubted mumia was a useful medicine and saw forged mummies made from dead peasants in Alexandria in 1564. He realised people could be conned. They were not always consuming genuine ancient mummies.

But the forgeries illustrate an important point: there was constant demand for dead flesh to be used in medicine and the supply of real Egyptian mummies could not meet this.

Apothecaries and herbalists were still dispensing mummy medicines into the 18th century."---- https://theconversation.com/why-did-peop...Feuq0Jr5tv

[Magical Realist]

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[Magical Realist]

How the equal sign was invented..

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+equa...LhguA,st:0