I definitely consider myself a history lover, but even I was pretty blown away by the facts that people threw out here in the article you’re about to read.
Are you ready to see a side of the past that you don’t usually get to check out?
It’s time to get some naughty history lessons from folks on AskReddit.
1. Iceland.
“There is a legal p*nis size in Iceland.
It’s an old law from the Middle Ages after a woman was married off to a man and on her wedding night was so disappointed with how small his p*nis was that she took him back to the church to have an annulment.
Because of her a law was made that a man must be at least three inches while hard to marry.
There is a wonderful documentary called “The Final Member” in which this is an actual problem.”
2. A carving.
“There is a carving on the side of the belfry in Ghent that depicts a man suckling the breast of a woman.
The story is that the man was condemned to die unless he could prove his innocence by surviving imprisonment without food for 40 days. He could have visitors during his imprisonment but they of course were checked for food.
His daughter visited him everyday. She was a wet nurse ….
He was let go after 40 days having survived.”
3. Yikes.
“In ancient Egypt, soldiers proved their battle prowess by presenting the severed p*nises of their slaughtered enemies.
Traditionally, severed hands were presented, but in 1182 B.C. Libyans, and other allies invaded Egypt and were defeated by the army of Ramesses III, and Ramesses suspected that some soldiers were claiming extra credit by presenting the hands of women as well as the male soldiers.
So he demanded p*nises instead. His victory inscriptions mention 12,535 foreskins and hands, and has images of the piles of the body parts at the Medinet Habu mortuary temple.”
4. Whoa.
“Shi Pei Pu was a Chinese opera singer turned spy active during the 1960s. He pretended to be a woman for 20 years to seduce a French embassy employee and obtain classified documents.
His charade went so far as to fake a pregnancy and purchase a child and pretend it was theirs. He managed to fool everyone, including his lover, for over two decades before finally being exposed to the world.”
5. The high seas.
“Back during the age of sail, sailors would go months and months without any women or any privacy. When they’d get to port, hundreds of prostitutes would take boats out to the ships to greet the sailors, who would almost all have s*x with at least one.
This included the ship’s boys. Like I said, there was no privacy at all – the crew would share one huge room, dozens or hundreds of men sleeping in hammocks slung 28” apart. So the ensuing copulation took place in the wide open, hundreds of people having s*x all over the ship in plain sight.
This wasn’t a rare thing. It was almost universal, though some more religious captains wouldn’t let the prostitutes on board. STDs were therefore incredibly common.”
6. The Bad Pope.
“Pope John XII was interesting. He became Pope in 955. His high points are.:
Turned the sacred palace into a whorehouse
Fornicated with, among others, his father’s concubine, various widows and even his own niece
Castrated and then murdered a cardinal
Blinded and then murdered his confessor
Took payment for ordaining bishops and even ordained a 10-year-old boy as a bishop
Ordained a deacon in a stable
Refused to make the sign of the cross
Toasted the Devil
Invoked the names of pagan gods while playing dice and when he lost, used money from the papal treasury to pay off his debts
Granted, he was a teenager when he became Pope, thanks to his dad buying the office, but still…”
7. Harsh times.
“When the Roman statesman Sejanus, the Emperor Tiberius’ right-hand man, fell from grace and was executed, The Roman people were eager to take their revenge on his family as well for all the tyranny he had put them through.
So they decided to kill his young son and daughter as well. There was no real issue about killing the boy, but when it came to the young girl there was a sudden outcry.
It was against all precedent to execute an innocent young girl, and above that, deeply impious to put to death a virgin maid.
So they had the executioner r*pe her first.”
8. Well, that’s different.
“Mary Toft put baby rabbits in her v*gina and then pretended to give birth to them to confuse doctors.”
9. What a way to go.
“The actual death of Ratcliffe (you know, the oddly proportioned villain from Pocahontas?).
From the Encyclopedia Virginia:
The colonists, led by Captain John Ratcliffe, walked into an ambush; about thirty-three men, or two-thirds of their number, were killed.
The Indians captured Ratcliffe, and their women skinned him alive using mussel shells.”
10. Big boy.
“Ferdinand VII of Spain had a huge d*ck, so much in fact that its rumored that one of his wives died of a hemorrhage derived from having s*x with the monarch.
He almost died without a heir bc he couldn’t have s*x with the queen consorts without any damage (he only had a daughter, and he had to go through hell to change some old laws that prevented his daughter from reigning).”
11. Wrap it up.
“Roman troops were provided cow intestine condoms, as STD epidemics could decide the fate of entire wars.”
12. Messed up.
“At the temple of Aphrodite in Cyprus, overlooking the legendary birthplace of Aphrodite, young virgin girls would tie a bow string around their head and await a man to come along and throw a silver coin of any value into their lap.
The man would say ” I demand thee in the name of the goddess”. The girl then had to have s*x with the man. In this way the girl would make her “first fruit” offering to Aphrodite.
It is said that some girls had to come back for many days before they were chosen.”
Okay, history buffs, now it’s your turn.
In the comments, tell us some more crazy history facts that most people don’t know.
Thanks a lot!
