1,001 Facts That Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader (96 page)

722

FACT :
After victory in battle,
Vikings drank the blood
of vanquished enemies from human skulls, hence the Scandinavian toast, “Skol!”
Is there really any other way to drink blood?

Bruce Felton and Mark Fowler, Felton & Fowler’s More Best, Worst, and Most Unusual (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976).

723

FACT :
Pope John XII was deposed by Roman Emperor Otto I in 963 for
raping female pilgrims to St. Peter’s
, stealing church offerings, drinking toasts to the devil, and invoking the aid of pagan gods when playing dice. John XII reportedly died from a stroke while in bed with a married woman.
Pope John XII: “What?! You’re firing me? What’d I do?” That’s what fired people always say. Like it’s a surprise.

Simon Adams and Lesley Riley, eds., Reader’s Digest Facts & Fallacies (Pleasantville, NY: Reader’s Digest Association 1988).

Eamon Duffy, Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes, 3rd ed. (Yale University Press, 2006).

724

FACT :
After the French town of Beziers fell during the bloody Albigensian Crusade in 1209, the victorious Church-sanctioned army was faced with the problem of how to distinguish the town’s heretics from Christians. One of their leaders reportedly said, “Kill them all, for the Lord will know his own,” and
thousands of citizens were slaughtered
.
And you thought the Marines came up with that saying.

Isaac Asimov, ed., Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts (Hastings House, 1979).

“Beziers,” France And Beyond,
www.franceandbeyond.co.uk
.

725

FACT :
When red precipitation fell on Paris on Easter Sunday in 582,
terrified French believed that it was raining blood
, a sign of divine displeasure. Theories suggest that the “rain” was red sand particles stirred by strong windstorms in the Sahara and blown across the Mediterranean Sea into Europe.
At least it wasn’t raining men. That would have been worse.

Randy Cerveny, Freaks of the Storm: From Flying Cows to Stealing Thunder, the World’s Strangest True Weather Stories (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2005).

726

FACT :
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew
marijuana on their plantations
.
George called his “Mt. Burnin’” and Tom’s was known as “Monticello Mellow.”

North American Industrial Hemp Council,
www.naihc.org
.

727

FACT :
Patrick Henry, the colonial American leader famous for saying, “Give me liberty, or give me death,” owned
sixty-five slaves
when he died in 1799.
“Or give me just a second to come up with a new line.”

David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace, and Amy Wallace, The Book of Lists (New York: Bantam Books, 1977).

728

FACT :
In 1732, England’s King George II gave General James Oglethorpe a charter to create a new colony in America where
imprisoned British debtors could be relocated
so that they might start new lives and become self-sufficient. That colony became the state of Georgia.
They should’ve stayed in prison.

Alexander Hewatt, An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia (BiblioBazaar, 2007), 24.

729

FACT :
By 1837,
the Andrew Jackson administration removed 46,000 Native Americans
from the Eastern United States, freeing up to 25 million acres for white settlement.
The whiteys immediately built an Olive Garden, a Crate & Barrel, three golf courses, and eighteen Starbucks.

“Indian removal,” PBS.org,
www.pbs.org
.