Page 10 - History Facts

The US Military has a cemetery where the 'dishonored dead' are buried!

There is a cemetery where over 6,000 American soldiers are buried located in Fere-en-Tardenois in France. This cemetery has monuments dedicated to soldiers that lost their lives during World War II and is often viewed by visitors to pay their respects. However, there is one section of the cemetery that is almost completely unknown to guests.

Known as "Plot E", this graveyard is home to 91 deceased U.S soldiers who were discharged and then executed, for committing acts of either rape, murder, or sometimes both. The 'tombstones' are just pieces of stone laid down flat in the ground.

The tombstones feature don't feature any names on them, just the serial number of the tombstone. This made the occupants of the graves unknown until 2009, when the U.S. Government released a document stating who was located where in the cemetery.

The cemetery is seen as a 'perfect anti-memorial' and 'a house of shame'. Want to see the list of names of the deceased? Click the source.

(Source)

An ancient Buddha statue recovered by the Nazis was carved from a meteorite.

An ancient statue that was recovered by a Nazi expedition in the 1930s was originally carved from a highly valuable meteorite. Researchers say the 1,000-year-old object with a swastika on it's stomach is made from a rare form of iron with a high content of nickel. They believe it is part of the Chinga meteorite, which crashed about 15,000 years ago.

The findings appear in the Journal, Meteoritics and Planetary Science. The 9-inch tall statue is 22lb and is called the Iron Man. The story of this priceless object owes more perhaps to an Indiana Jones film script than sober scientific research.

It was discovered in Tibet in 1938 by German scientist Ernst Schafer. His expedition was supported by the Nazis, in particular by Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS. Himmler was said to believe the Aryan race originated in Tibet and was keen to recover objects from the area. It was brought back to Germany and disappeared to a private collector until 2007.

(Source)

Hurricanes in Australia were originally named after local politicians that the weather man did not like.

Talk about professionalism. The pioneering Australian weatherman Clement Wragge began assigning names to tropical cyclones in the late 19th century. Initially, he used the Greek alphabet and characters from Greek and Roman mythology.

But that just wasn’t quirky enough for this renowned nut job. One day, he decided to get all passive aggressive and started to name cyclones after local politicians that he did not like. Thus, he was able to proclaim that the “officials” were “causing great distress” or “wandering aimlessly around the Pacific.” The practice was initially widespread but soon blew over.

(Source)

Asparagus used to be included in emergency pilot kits. When you eat it, your urine attracts fish that they could catch and eat.

Asparagus has always been popular, but it did go out of favor for a while during the Middle Ages and was popular again during the 1600s. It was known to many ancient peoples including Romans, Egyptians and Greeks who cooked and ate it during the summer months and dried the stems to keep them for use during the winter.

Asparagus has very few calories and contains anti-oxidants, but is also full of vitamins A, B6, C, E and K. There is some evidence that it may be beneficial to those with heart disease and that the high levels of potassium in asparagus actually slow down the loss of calcium from the body. Asparagus was included as part of the emergency ration kit given to American pilots.

The idea of the pilots eating asparagus was that it was a very valuable way of feeding themselves. Asparagus contains mercaptans which are powerful chemical attractants, and when the vegetable is eaten, these chemicals pass into the urine.

The pilots were told to urinate into the water, so that the chemicals would spread through the water and attract fish to the area, making them much easier to catch. This was of course, a valuable food source and the smell of asparagus is present in the urine after just fifteen minutes in many people, or thirty minutes at most.

(Source)

When Spartans got married, a bridesmaid would kidnap her, shave her hair and dress her as a man!

When it came to marriage, the Spartans had some very interesting customs. One particularly odd one was associated with the wedding night. The bride would be "captured" by a bridesmaid.

The bridesmaid would then shave the bride's hair and dress her in a man's cloak and sandals. She would then lay on the mattress in the dark until her groom came to find her. The husband would continue to visit his new wife in secret for some time after the marriage. Some experts say this "abduction" tradition was to ward off the evil eye and that shaving her head signified her transition into a new life.

(Source)