Category: History

If you ever saw Violet Jessop (the lady pictured above) as a passenger on a ship with you, you’d probably want to disembark and get your money back.  Ms. Jessop was on board three ships that suffered major accidents (two which sank and resulted in many fatalities).

In 1911, Ms. Jessop was working as a stewardess on the RMS Olympic which was the longest ship in the world.  On September 20th the Olympic collided with the HMS Hawke.  Despite major damage and the flooding of two compartments the Olympic made it back to port.

In 1912, Ms. Jessop was again working as a stewardess, this time on the RMS Titantic‘s initial and ill-fated voyage. As the Titanic was sinking after hitting an iceberg,  Ms. Jessop was ordered into a life boat and given a small child to hold. Both Ms. Jessop and the child survived when the lifeboat occupants were picked up by the RMS Carpathia.  The child was claimed by a woman who also survived.

In 1916, Ms. Jessop was working as a stewardess for the British Red Cross on the ship Britannic.  On November 21st, the Britannic either struck a sea mine or was torpedoed by a German sub.  There are conflicting theories but no one disputes that the Britannic quickly sank with the loss of thirty souls.  Ms. Jessop survived by jumping from a lifeboat that was being sucked into the ship’s propellers.

Violet Jessop – was she the luckiest unlucky person or the unluckiest lucky person?

When I was a little kid we were taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America… that he was a hero who went against conventional wisdom in his belief that the world wasn’t flat… and so many other things that were just not true!

Johanna and Top10zen present 10 Interesting Facts About Christopher Columbus That You Weren’t Taught in Class.  Here are three of my favorites…

His real name was not Christopher Columbus

The name Christopher Columbus is actually an Anglicized version of the actual name, Cristoforo Colombo, which he acquired in Genoa, his birthplace. The name has also been translated to other languages, and hence we have instances like the Spanish version Cristóbal Colón and the Swedish version Kristoffer Kolumbus. Strikingly, even the name given to him in Genoa is not definite, as supporting historical credentials are rare.

Columbus was a cheapskate

While embarking on his voyage in 1492, Columbus pledged an award of gold to the person who would be the first to see land. Rodrigo de Triana, a sailor, was the first one to view land on 12th October, 1492. He actually sighted what is presently an island in Bahamas named San Salvador by Columbus. Unfortunately, Rodrigo was never given the reward, because Columbus cleverly kept the gold to himself, telling the others that the previous night, he could see some blurred light but had not revealed it because the light was hazy.

Nobody knows where Columbus’ remains are

Columbus’ death occurred in Spain in the year 1506 where his remains were placed until 1527 when they were moved to Santo Domingo. There his remains were kept until 1795 after which they were allegedly sent to Havana. In the year 1898, the remains were believed to have returned to Spain, but astonishingly, a box bearing the name of Columbus and filled with bones was uncovered in Santo Domingo. Ever since then both Santo Domingo and Seville in Spain claim to possess Columbus’ remains. Interestingly, in each of the cities, the concerned bones have been kept in highly structured mausoleums.

Final wills are interesting because they give insight into what a dying person finds important.  Usually the person plans out their final will with the hope that it won’t be used any time soon.

That is not what Alan Boyle’s 10 Final Messages From People Facing Certain Death  is about.  Instead, his piece looks at, well, here’s how he describes it…

Death can take us at any time. But when you realize you have only hours or minutes left to live, you get a chance to deliver a final message to the world. Perhaps it’ll be a phone call or a text message or even just a note scratched into a nearby surface. They’ll be your last words. Make them count.

Source: Listverse.com

Eddie Deezen at Neatorama posts A Few More Things About Abraham Lincoln.  Here are three of my favorites…

• When Lincoln was nine, a horse kicked him in the forehead while he was in the middle of a sentence. He fell unconscious for several hours and when he awoke, his first words were the completion of the sentence he had been saying when the horse kicked him.

• The tall, black stovepipe hat that Lincoln used to wear was more than just a hat. Lincoln used it as a portable filing cabinet and kept notes, money and letters in it.

• Lincoln once left the stage during a political rally because he spotted one of his supporters being beaten. He picked up the assailant by his trousers and physically hurled him twelve feet away.

Joseph Stromberg presents The 8 Weirdest Things We’ve Left on the Moon.

I knew about six of the eight.

Mental Floss presents: 15 Quirks of U.S. Presidents You Didn’t Learn in School.

From their list here are three of my favorites…

3. CHESTER A. ARTHUR’S RUMMAGE SALE

You couldn’t call Chester A. Arthur the sentimental type. The 21st president was happy to hand over wagonloads of White House furniture—the former belongings of his long line of esteemed predecessors dating all the way back to John Adams’s term—to the highest bidder. Rumor has it he only snagged $8,000 for the priceless haul.

6. MARTIN VAN BUREN’S LOADED ARGUMENTS

Seemingly of Monroe’s school of thought, Martin Van Buren was known to bring a pair of loaded pistols to Senatorial assemblies, just in case an argument became too heated.

7. BENJAMIN HARRISON’S LIGHT TRAUMA

Benjamin Harrison, whose presidency was the first to oversee a White House wired with electricity, might be commended for embracing scientific progress … if it weren’t for the desperate fear of light switches that kept him from ever actually utilizing this new technology.