wow that one looks so awesome! Yeah I think I was in elementary school when they were big, or becoming big. I just know when I saw a girl with one attached to her backpack I was so jealous!

Heroin was once a perfectly acceptable medicine prescribed by doctors for everything from coughs to headaches.

Before Abraham Lincoln became a politician, he was a champion wrestler. With more than 300 bouts under his belt, Lincoln only lost one match in his career and was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall Of Fame in 1992.

Something I didn't even really know myself a while ago is that the Olympics used to award medals for art. From 1912 to 1948, the Olympic Games held competitions in the fine arts. Medals were given for literature, architecture, sculpture, painting, and music. The art created was required to be Olympic-themed. Before the art events were eventually removed, 151 medals were awarded.

Cleopatra Was Not Egyptian! She was actually Greek, a descendent of Alexander the Great's Macedonian general Ptolemy. Also, Roman propaganda painted Cleopatra as a debauched temptress who used her sex appeal as a political weapon, but she may have been more renowned for her intellect than her appearance. She spoke as many as a dozen languages and was educated in mathematics, philosophy, oratory and astronomy.

All British tanks since 1945 have included equipment to make tea.

I like this fact. I love a good cup of tea.

Lots of people used to think tomatoes were poisonous! A lot of people would get really sick after eating them, but it was actually because their acidity would cause tin (popular for plates at the time) to leach lead, which would cause lead poisoning. It was actually debunked by Thomas Jefferson, who ate one at a dinner (without the plate of course.) Everyone freaked out, he was fine, and now we don’t use tin for plates anymore.

Beard tax used to be a legit thing, at least in 1500's England (introduced by Henry VIII) and in 1700's Russia (introduced by Peter I).

The existence of the English beard tax is debated and the amount paid supposedly depended on the length of the beard.

Peter I, however, wanted everyone to go clean shaven and Russia even had a beard token you had to carry to prove you had already paid if you insisted on growing a beard.

I like castles and have fond memories of visiting Warwick Castle when I was little, so take some castle trivia!

"In 1153, the wife of Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick, mistakenly handed the castle over to the invading army of Henry of Anjou (later Henry II) after she was tricked into believing her husband was dead. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Roger de Beaumont actually did collapse and die when he heard what she had done." (link; I'm too brain-dead to think of anything myself atm, but I can at least cite my sources)

Personal fact: I got to see a flaming projectile fired from the trebuchet and it was awesome.

The nursery rhyme "Mary Had A Little Lamb" is actually based on a true story! A young Bostonian girl named Mary Sawyer was followed to school by her pet lamb, and later whet on to raise money for an old church by selling the lambs wool.

Who knew?! :o

Pizza! "The pizza marinara method has a topping of tomato, oregano, garlic, and extra virgin olive oil. It is named "marinara" because it was traditionally the food prepared by "la marinara", the seaman's wife, for her seafaring husband when he returned from fishing trips in the Bay of Naples."

Do this!!

The last guillotine execution was only 42 years ago! The execution was performed on a man named Hamida Djandoubi, who is also the last person to have been executed by beheading anywhere in the Western world. The execution took place on September 10, 1977. However, capital punishment was not abolished in France until 1981.

- Oh I know about that... inserts tasteless bad joke about the leg he lost in a work accident At least we abolished the death penalty 42 years ago.

And... gifts sent up to post 273

In 536AD there was a world wide dust cloud that blocked out the sun for a year!

Thank you for doing this giveaway! ^^

There is an interesting origins of the names of Greenland as it doesn't seem live up to its name. When Erik the Red discovered and settled in Greenland and gave it that name to attract more people to settle there. However some say that at the time of 800AD-1300AD its weather would've been warmer than it is today.

Everything about the 1920s Chinese warlord Zhang Zongchang, nicknamed "China's based basest warlord":

He was nicknamed 'The Three Don't-knows' because he he didn't know how large his army, treasury, or harem was.

He started assigning numbers to his concubines because he couldn't be bothered to remember his names.

Brought his elderly mother along in parades and consulted her for campaign advice.

He 'accidentally' shot the cousin of former Chinese emperor Puyi while cleaning his rifle. It was most likely because the cousin was banging one of his concubines.

Before a battle, he promised that he would either come home victorious or in a coffin. He lost the battle, so he returned being paraded in a coffin, smoking a large cigar.

When there was a drought, he went to the storm god (coincidentally named Zhang)'s temple to pray for rain. When he entered the temple, he went up to the statue of Zhang and slapped it, saying "Fuck your sister! How dare you make Shangdong's people suffer by not giving us rain!" The next day, he ordered his artillerymen to fire into the sky until it rained. It rained the next day.

After seeing a basketball game for the first time, he asked "Why the hell are they fighting over a single ball? We're the hosts, are we seriously this poor?" He ordered all the players be given a basketball.

After a battle, there wasn't enough gold and silver to make medals for the officers, so he had makeshift insignia fashioned from the colored foil paper lining the insides of cigarette packs.

He found out one of his officers was having sex with a concubine of his; when he confronted them, he found out they loved each other and let them marry.

His penis was allegedly as long as a stack of 86 silver dollars.

- I was not expecting that last bit of information !

Gifts sent up to post 277

XD Nor was I! But I chuckled.

In honour of this evening being Guy Fawkes (Bonfire) Night in the UK, I have a fact about fireworks. They were invented by accident. Way back in the 10th century, a Chinese cook accidentally mixed three common cooking ingredients (sulphur, charcoal and a saltpeter) and set it alight, which resulted in colourful flames. This resulted in a black flakey powder, an early form of gun powder. This idea was developed and the powder put in paper tubes with fuses and the first fire crackers were produced.