25 Historical Facts That You Might Find Interesting

History is full of fascinating tales, surprising details, and little-known facts that can change the way we see the world. The Instagram page History Uncovered is dedicated to bringing these intriguing snippets of history to light.

#1 A Postman In Texas Just Found Undelivered Letters From A World War II Soldier In His Truck-Then Hand Delivered Them To His Sister In Arkansas

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A postman in Texas named Alvin Gauthier was recently looking through the parcel bin in his truck when he came across a Christmas card sent in 1944. Soon, he discovered a series of other undelivered letters sent between 1942 and 1944, all written by the same man, a soldier named Marion Lamb who was stationed overseas during World War II. A Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War, Gauthier immediately knew that he had to track down Lamb’s family and put these letters in their hands.⁠
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On his day off and using his own money, Gauthier then spent five hours making the 379-mile drive to the home of Lamb’s sister, Jo Ann Smith, in Jacksonville, Arkansas. Soon after Gauthier arrived at Smith’s front door, she hugged him, broke down in tears, and read the words her brother had written 80 years before. “I could have stuck them in the mail, but it’s kinda like sometimes you have to go above and beyond,” Gauthier said. “Just go the extra mile … or 379 miles.”⁠

#2 “I Went To This Site Aiming To Find At Least One Nice Dinosaur Skeleton. We Ended Up With 80 Skeletons And More Than 100 Eggs.”⁠

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During an exploration of a dinosaur graveyard in southern Patagonia, paleontologists found over 100 eggs in a massive nest — and some still had embryos inside. Furthermore, this discovery offers the first indisputable evidence pointing to the fact that some dinosaurs lived in herds. These 193-million-year-old findings prove that dinosaurs had a complex social structure and even shared in raising the whole community.

#3 A 19-Year-Old Steve Buscemi When He Was A New York City Firefighter In 1976

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#4 Archivists In The UK Just Opened An Unsealed Package From 1807 And Found A Sweater In Pristine Condition Inside

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A carpenter from the Faroe Islands sent the sweater, hand-knit by his wife with a black and white floral pattern on a red backdrop, to a friend in Denmark. However, the British Royal Navy seized the parcel amid ongoing wars between the two nations and it sat unopened in the UK National Archives until now. This package is one of more than 160,000 unopened letters and parcels seized by the British Royal Navy between 1652 and 1815 that are now being unsealed as part of a massive project that’s expected to take 20 years.

#5 Drought In The Amazon Reveals Dozens Of Carvings Of Human Faces That Had Been Hidden For 1,000 Years

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As extreme drought in Brazil causes the Amazon’s water levels to drop to historic lows, dozens of ancient rock carvings have been revealed on previously submerged rocks along the river’s banks. Carved between 1,000 and 2,000 years ago, these haunting engravings of anthropomorphic faces vary in shape, size, and expression, while their original purpose and meaning remain shrouded in mystery.

#6 A Guidance Counselor Once Told Judith Love Cohen To Go To Finishing School And Become A “Lady.” Instead, She Earned Degrees From Usc, Became An Aerospace Engineer, Worked With Nasa, And Designed A Computer That Helped Save The Apollo 13 Astronauts

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Meanwhile, she raised a family — including a son who grew up to be actor Jack Black — and wrote children’s books encouraging young girls to aspire to careers in STEM

#7 A Man Willed His $2.4 Million Fortune To The French Village That Saved Him From The Holocaust

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The small French village of Chambon-sur-Lignon has just received a surprise $2.4 million gift in the will of a 90-year-old Austrian man named Eric Schwam who passed away on Christmas Day. Shocked officials soon learned that Schwam was paying the town back for saving him and his family 80 years earlier. He’s asked that the town use the money to fund education initiatives and scholarships for the local children

#8 Leonard Matlovich Was A Decorated Vietnam War Veteran With A Purple Heart And A Bronze Star — And He Was Also The First Gay American Service Member To Purposely Out Himself To The Military To Fight Their Ban On Gay People

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But despite his impeccable record, the United States Air Force still discharged him after he came out to his officers. Not to be deterred, Matlovich became a fierce advocate for the rights of the LGBTQ community and was featured on the cover of a 1975 issue of “TIME” magazine, making him a symbol for gay service members and gay Americans at large. And when Matlovich died of HIV/AIDS complications in 1988, he had this inscribed on his headstone: “When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for k*lling two men and a discharge for loving one.”⁠ ⁠

#9 Seven Baby Tasmanian Devils Were Just Born In The Wild On Mainland Australia For The First Time In 3,000 Years

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At the time, they were hunted to extinction by dingoes. But today, they are still at risk. Tasmanian devils are endangered on the island of Tasmania, having lost 90 percent of their population since 1996 due to a contagious form of cancer. Only about 25,000 remain. Their reintroduction to the Australian mainland hopes to counteract the drastic population decline of the past 25 years

#10 “Jules, This Is Brian. Listen, I’m On An Airplane That’s Been Hijacked. If Things Don’t Go Well, And It’s Not Looking Good, I Just Want You To Know I Absolutely Love You. I Want You To Do Good, Go Have Good Times. Same To My Parents And Everybody, And I Just Totally Love You, And I’ll See You When You Get There.”⁠

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Three minutes before United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11, passenger Brian Sweeney used an Airfone to leave a heartbreaking final voicemail message to his wife Julie. At the time, she was in the middle of teaching a high school class, so she missed his call. Though Julie was soon pulled away from her students to learn that her husband had died in the attacks, she didn’t realize that he had left her a message until she got home. ⁠

#11 Advice On Marriage From A Suffragette Pamphlet In The 1910s

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#12 A Whopping 4,000 Years Ago, Ancient Egyptians Were Performing Sophisticated Dental Work That Remains Astounding Even Today

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Meanwhile, the Egyptians are also believed to have invented toothpaste, although their formulation consisted of rock salt, pepper, and mint.

#13 In 1908, Bertha Boronda Was Charged With “Mayhem” — For Slicing Off Her Husband’s P*nis With A Straight Razor

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She was sentenced to five years in San Quentin, which still housed female inmates at the time. Despite Boronda’s gruesome crime, her incarceration was reportedly a “quiet” one.

#14 In 1925, Residents Of The Small Town Of Nome, Alaska Faced A Potentially Fatal Epidemic And Very Few Options To Save Them From Death. ⁠that Is, Until Balto Showed Up, A Sled Dog Who Rose To The Occasion And Saved The Small Town From Certain Death

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#15 “I Never Knew Marilyn Monroe… I Knew And Loved Norma Jeane.”⁠

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James Dougherty was 21 years old when he married a teenage Norma Jeane Baker — who would go on to become one of the most famous women in modern history. At the time, however, Baker was just 16 and set to return to an orphanage unless she found a husband quickly. Her foster mother set her up with Dougherty, but though their relationship began as one of convenience, the pair soon “loved each other madly.” Just two years after they wed on June 19, 1942, Dougherty was deployed to the Pacific Theater of World War II. While he was gone, a photographer discovered Norma Jeane Baker working in a factory — and soon, Marilyn Monroe was born. ⁠
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Dougherty was on a ship in the Yangtze River outside of Shanghai when he was served with divorce papers. Monroe wanted to sign a contract with 20th Century Fox, and it stipulated that she couldn’t be married, because the executives didn’t want her to get pregnant. Their divorce was finalized in 1946, and Dougherty remarried shortly after to a woman who wouldn’t let him watch any of his ex-wife’s films. Although Monroe moved on as well, famously marrying Joe DiMaggio and then Arthur Miller, Dougherty was still devastated when she died in 1962. “She was too gentle to be an actress,” he later lamented. “She wasn’t tough enough for Hollywood.” ⁠

#16 On July 17, 1967, A Florida Lineman Named Randall Champion Accidentally Touched A High-Voltage Line — Which Sent 4,000 Volts Of Electricity Through His Body And Stopped His Heart

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Luckily, his friend and fellow lineman J.D. Thompson was close enough to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until paramedics arrived. Thanks to Thompson’s quick thinking, Champion survived the incident, and even reported to work the following week.⁠
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Unbeknownst to Champion and Thompson, a photographer for the Jacksonville Journal was standing just below them to capture this daring rescue. From the ground, Rocco Morabito snapped one of the most moving images in history — “The Kiss of Life.”⁠

#17 “Let The People See What They Did To My Boy.”⁠ ⁠ That’s What Emmett Till’s Mother Said After She Saw Her 14-Year-Old Son’s Mutilated Body In 1955

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Mamie Till-Mobley had never intended to become an activist, but she knew that her child was far from the only victim of lynching in Jim Crow America. And she felt that a public funeral would force people to confront the ugly reality of racially-motivated m*rders. Over Labor Day weekend, nearly 100,000 mourners viewed the boy’s body in an open-casket service in Chicago. Till-Mobley also permitted a photographer to take pictures of Emmett’s face and distribute them to African American magazines and newspapers so people across America could see him as well.⁠

#18 The Pizza Chain Founder Paid Rosa Parks Rent From 1994 Until Her Death In 2005

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#19 In December 1997, Julia “Butterfly” Hill Climbed A 1,000-Year-Old California Redwood Tree As Part Of Efforts To Keep It From Being Knocked Down By Loggers

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Initially, she only intended to stay there for a couple of weeks. But instead, Hill didn’t touch the ground for 738 days, far surpassing the previous record for the longest tree sit of 90 days. During her protest, she lived on platforms 180 feet above the ground, surviving off of food and water brought up by other environmental activists and enduring the freezing rain and winds of a particularly brutal El Niño season. Hill also faced near-constant harassment and threats from employees of Pacific Lumber Co., the logging company trying to cut the tree down. But despite the many setbacks she faced, her protest was ultimately successful and she was able to save the tree.⁠

#20 A Megalithic Monument In Spain That’s Older Than The Pyramids Was Uncovered From Its Watery Hiding Place By A Drought. At 7,000 Years Old, The “Spanish Stonehenge” Is Actually Some 2,000 Years Older Than Stonehenge Itself

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#21 On This Day In 1947, Norwegian Adventurer Thor Heyerdahl Came Ashore In French Polynesia

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He’d sailed all the way across the Pacific, setting out from Peru by himself on a 4,300-mile journey — in a homemade raft made only with balsa logs and hemp rope. Heyerdahl’s intent was to prove that pre-Columbian South Americans could have made this same journey using their own primitive seafaring technology several centuries before, allowing them to spread their culture to the remote islands of the Pacific. After 101 days alone at sea, Heyerdahl completed his so-called Kon-Tiki expedition, leaving the world in awe.⁠

#22 Norwegian Farmer Øyvind Tveitane Lovra And His Son Were Recently Cleaning Up A Field On Their Property In Rogaland When Lovra Picked Up What He Thought Was A Scrap Of Metal From A Piece Of Farm Equipment

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Upon closer inspection, he realized it was actually the hilt of a sword. The weapon is 15 inches long — about half its original size — has a T-shaped handle, and dates to between 900 and 1050 C.E. What’s more, X-rays revealed an inscription on the blade that suggests it may be a famed Ulfberht sword, a weapon of exceptionally high quality that has never been seen in the Rogaland area before.

#23 “My Name Is Ralph C. Lincoln And I Am Honored To Be An 11th Generation Lincoln Who Also Shares The Same Great-Grandfather As One Of America’s Greatest Presidents.”

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“If you visit Fayette County in Pennsylvania, you will find a small, obscure cemetery where members of the Lincoln family are buried, including Abraham Lincoln’s great uncle Mordecai, who served in the Revolutionary War, and his son Benjamin. Mordecai Lincoln is my 5th generation great-grandfather, which makes me a third cousin of the President.”⁠

#24 A Now-Infamous Photo From 1948 Shows A Chicago Mother Hiding Her Face In Shame As Her Young Children Huddle Near Her⁠

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At the forefront of the picture, in large, bold letters, a sign reads: “4 Children For Sale: Inquire Within.” When this image was first published in the Vidette-Messenger, a newspaper based in Valparaiso, Indiana, it sparked shock, outrage, and even skepticism, with some wondering if the photo had been staged. But unfortunately, the snapshot depicted a very real situation. The children were actually sold off by their parents, and some of them ended up in even worse homes than the house that they once shared with their biological family. ⁠
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For instance, young RaeAnn and Milton were both sold off to an abusive couple, John and Ruth Zoeteman, in 1950. RaeAnn and Milton later said that their adoptive parents chained them up, beat them, and treated them like slaves. In fact, Milton claimed that John told him that he was expected to work as a slave on the family’s farm on his first day in the home. “I said I’d go along with that,” Milton remembered. “I didn’t know what a slave was. I was only a kid.” The abuse Milton suffered eventually led to violent bouts of rage in his teenage years. And at one point, he was brought before a judge, deemed a menace to society, and sent to a mental hospital.⁠

#25 Employees From Kazakhstan’s Emergency Situations Department Were Recently Performing Routine Inspections In The Country’s Akmola Region When They Stumbled Upon A Bizarre Sight

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A human face carved into a granite boulder. The carving is about the size of a sheet of paper and dates back at least 3,000 years, but it may be even older. Experts believe that the site was part of a ritual complex during the Bronze Age or early Iron Age, but they’re still uncovering more about this “incredibly rare” discovery