Historical oddities: 467 answers from a thread of unusual facts

Historical oddities: from F-104 vs. F1 to the 'second best prostitute' plaque

In 1981, the Italian Ministry of Defense organized a 1,000-meter standing start drag race at an airbase. On one track, Formula 1 cars; on the parallel track, F-104 Starfighter jets from the Aeronautica Militare—an aircraft notorious for its accident rate. This quirky event, documented in a history thread that has amassed 467 replies over 935 days, captures the essence of the matter: history is full of decisions that no one would sign off on today, yet were made with full institutional solemnity.

The thread, titled "The second thread of oddities," acts as a curiosity machine. One entry describes a mixed-faith couple—she Catholic, he Protestant—buried in different cemeteries but united by a funeral engineering trick. Another antiestéticatures a blue plaque in Islington commemorating Priss Fotheringham, described in 1660 as "the second best prostitute in all of London." The immediate question trinc: what about the first? Does she have a plaque, or does she live in Buckingham Palace?

From the Amish to unexpected demographics

The Amish community has grown from 5,000 members in 1920 to 383,565 in 2023, with annual growth rates exceeding 4% for several decades without significant outside conversions. This detailed year-by-year series prompts uncomfortable reflection: while much of the West debates birth policies, a group rejecting modern technology has multiplied its population 76-fold in a century. One user summarizes it ironically: they might seem like geeks, but they may be the only ones who aren't crazy.

The thread also dismantles myths with archaeological patience. Atreus's tholos was empty when Schliemann arrived; it had likely been looted in antiquity, possibly as early as the Bronze Age. The Mycenaeans weren't foolish; they knew those tombs held treasures. Similarly, Romans didn't clean themselves with a shared sponge: water channels ran alongside latrine holes, and the sponge on a stick was a latrine brush, not a personal hygiene tool. A civilization that brought water from springs over 100 kilometers away was not going to skimp on that.

Fokker D.XXI: wood, fabric, and 100 kills

A Dutch family, driven by what they call "warbirditis irreversibilis," has rebuilt and flown a Fokker D.XXI. The aircraft, with fixed landing gear, a tubular fuselage, and fabric-covered wooden wings, was about 100 km/h slower than a Me-109E. Even so, it shot down over 100 German planes in 1940, and the Finns squeezed even more value out of it during their exchanges with the Soviets. The grandfather explains the wing structure using an original demonstration model salvaged from a museum, while the grandmother assembles the fuselage. Providing technical context: at speeds around 500 km/h, wheel fairings mattered little aerodynamically, and the Fokker performed like a Curtiss Hawk 75 at half the price.

World War II offers other striking images: the German battleship Tirpitz camouflaged as a block of houses during its commissioning in 1940; the Dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen, disguised as a jungle island to escape Japanese aircraft in Java in February 1942; the Swedish cruiser Göta Lejon, which was practically invisible; and a Sherman tank captured in Tunisia, photographed at the Kummersdorf proving grounds in 1943 with its markings clearly visible.

Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Seven Up: when soft drinks were medicine

Coca-Cola was born as a stimulating pharmaceutical product—containing coca leaf—useful against migraines. Pepsi was sold as a digestive tonic and contained pepsin. Seven Up was advertised as a remedy for low spirits and contained lithium citrate, an active ingredient still used in psychiatry. The "Up!" referred to lifting one's mood. Three global soft drinks that began as apothecary items ended up as sugar machines. The history of the food industry is full of such twists.

In the chapter on names and brands, Jaguar began as Swallow Sidecars and dropped the name during the Second World War because its logo was, shall we say, awkward. Additionally, one of the largest confectionery companies in the US was originally named Herman Göelitz, using a rooster as a mascot because its star product was a Christmas candy called "candy corn." They were responsible for introducing gummy bears to the US, which were viewed as a European oddity for decades. Over time, they changed the name to something more American. Now, they are more American than apple pie.

Chernobyl, Artemis, and the AZ-5 button

A recent visit to the Chernobyl nuclear plant documents the state of the control room for reactor 3—a twin to the one that exploded—with the AZ-5 (SCRAM) button well-preserved, and the control rods that began to jump due to pressure just before the reactor 4 accident. At the 24:55 mark of the video, there is a moment where reality surpasses fiction. Meanwhile, NASA uses RB-57F aircraft flying at high altitudes to document the ascent and reentry of Artemis. The RB-57F is a highly modified American version of the British English Electric Canberra bomber, whose prototype first flew in 1949.

The thread also recovers Operation Sandy from 1947: the first US missile launch from a ship at sea. They used the aircraft carrier USS Midway CV-41, their largest vessel, with an armored deck to withstand the rocket's blast. The "missile" was a captured German V-2 mounted on a precarious structure at the stern. This makeshift setup was forced by the rush to have shipborne nuclear deterrent capability before the enemy could advance. Of course, the enemy was not just the Russians, but also the US Army and the USAAF.

The mind-bending fact

Among the most highly rated messages is a rarity no one expected: scientists studying a meteorite that fell in Australia in 1969 found grains of stardust inside, expelled by dying stars before the formation of the Sun. The oldest grains, dated by the Field Museum in Chicago by measuring cosmic ray exposure, are about 7 billion years old. The Sun is 4.6 billion. In other words, there is matter on Earth older than the solar system itself, and likely older than anything we have touched today without knowing it.