History Facts

Do you hate pants? You can blame horses for that!

It's wrong to make assumptions, but it's safe to assume that you, the reader of this article, owns at least one pair of pants. You probably think that the reason you wear pants is because they are comfortable and trendy, but do you know WHY they have become to trendy? As it turns out, it dates back to the Ancient Romans.

The Romans had a laughable cavalry unit, and this lead them to keep getting whooped by a man by the name of Hannibal. The problem was that the Romans were trying to ride horses while wearing their little skirts, which made for an unpleasant experience and often distracted the rider. The Romans decided to wear long pants, that covered their legs, which made the riding experience more enjoyable!

It wasn't just the Romans that were wearing pants because of horses. In fact, if you look all around the world, the initial reason for the creation of pants, was to make horseback riding more tolerable. The Japanese started wearing pants to ride horses, and the Native Americans didn't wear pants...until they were introduced to horses by the Europeans! Since men with horses were seen wearing pants, pants themselves became a sign of honor and royalty!

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The Baker's Dozen has really morbid origins!

A Baker's Dozen isn't actually a dozen, it's actually 13. While you might think that this is just bakers being generous and giving you an extra donut or piece of bread. However, the reason it exists is because bakers were trying to protect themselves.

During the reign of Henry III, the Assize of Bread and Ale statute was enacted. According to this statute, bakers who were found to shortchange their customers could be severely punished; up to and including having their hands chopped off!

As a result, they started baking bread in 13s, so that they wouldn't be known as cheats. This also protected them in case they lost, burnt or ruined one of the pieces of bread they had baked, leaving them with a legal dozen.

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Buses got their names after a hat shop in France!

Besides having the greatest band of electronic music ever (If “Daft Punk” didn’t come to your mind you need some serious help), the French also have the credit of being the ones who named the “bus”.

The word “bus” itself comes from the Latin word “Omnibus”, in other words is a clipped form of this word. The bus is also called multibus or autobus, depending in which country you are at.

This was actually a reference to “Omnes Omnibus,” which was the name of the hatter shop located next to the first bus station in Nantes, France back in 1823, whch was in turn a Latin pun on the name of the owner, “Omnès”.

Another fun fact is that the bus is still called “omnibus” in several countries throughout the world! An example would include Argentina.

The bus is in fact one of the greatest inventions ever, however, there are some evil bus drivers out there that no matter how fast they see you chasing them across the street, they’ll just step the gas pedal deeper, and deeper and share an evil laugh as you are falling behind.

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The USS Arizona holds a place for the Pearl Harbor survivors' ashes!

The USS Arizona was a battleship built by the U.S Navy back in the mid-1910s. This ship participated in many important events, such as WWI, escorting President Woodrow Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference, going to Turkey to represent American interests during the Greco-Turkish war, and finally it was laid to rest after being transferred to the Pacific Fleet.

In April 1940, however, the USS Arizona and the Pacific Fleet were transferred from California to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as a deterrent to Japanese imperialism. Sadly, the ship was bombed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and hence killing 1,177 officers and crewmen. And what’s more incredible is that even though most of the ships sunk that day, the USS Arizona could not be fully salvaged!

The wreck still lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona memorial, dedicated on May 30th, 1962 to all those who died during the attack, straddles the ship’s hull. This memorial is visited by more than one million people annually and it is only accessible by boat.

The USS Arizona is an active U.S. Military cemetery, and therefore if any of the survivors want their ashes to be among the ones of their fallen mates the USS Arizona holds a special place for them.

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A 13-year-old sacrificed himself to destroy a tank!

Mohammad Hossein Fahmideh was born on May 6th of 1967 and died on October 30th of 1980 as a true war hero. At the age of 13 in 1980, during the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war he made the decision of leaving home and joining the war.

He was fighting along the Iran army, and at one point the Iraqi troops pushed the Iranian troops back as they were passing through a very narrow canal. Many of the Iranian soldiers were either dead or wounded at this point by the Iraqi troops.

Therefore, Hossein took a grenade from a nearby body, pulled the pin out, jumped right underneath an enemy’s tank, and by blowing himself up he was able to disable the tank! This made the enemies think that the area was mined and therefore decided to stop their advancement.

Until today, Mohammad Hossein Fahmideh is considered a true national Iranian hero, and one of the boys with bigger guts that have ever lived.

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