*DOUBLED FACTS* The Book of Random Facts

Part 8 - History

#1 - Humans have been hunter-gatherers for 99% of their history.

#2 - Humans are 50% heavier and four inches taller in the past 100 years than they have been throughout most of human history.

#3 - In 5,000 years of human history, only one disease has been eradicated: smallpox.

#4 - When Columbus "discovered" the Americas, the continent was already inhabited by 90 million people which was a third of the world's population.

#5 - Leif Erikson is regarded as the first European to land in North America, nearly 500 years before Columbus.

#6 - We're living In the most peaceful time In human history.

#7 - WW1 was the sixth deadliest conflict in world history.

#8 - The Afghan War is the longest war in U.S. history.

#9 - Napoleon wasn't short. He was actually above the average Frenchman.

#10 - In 536 A.D., there was a worldwide dust cloud that blocked out the sun for a year, resulting in widespread famine and disease.

#11 - About 100 billion people have died in all human history.

#12 - The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 was the loudest sound in recorded history, heard 3,000 miles (4800 KM) away.

#13 - Interracial marriage was banned in the U.S. for much of its history: from 1776 to 1967.

#14 - Armageddon (Har Megiddo) has already been the site of several historical battles, the last in 1918.

#15 - The pyramids were built by paid laborers. Not slaves. That's a myth by Herodotus, the Greek historian.

#16 - Mexican General Santa Anna had an elaborate state funeral for his amputated leg.

#17 - The first car accident occurred in 1891, in Ohio.

#18 - Ancient Greek democracy, the world's first, lasted for only 185 years.

#19 - The Catholic Church once put a dead Pope on trial.

#20 - From 1814 to 1830, the flag of the Kingdom of France was plain white.

#21 - Life expectancy in Ancient Rome was from 20 to 30 years.

#22 - Christmas was illegal in the U.S. until 1836 as it was considered an Ancient Pagan Holiday.

#23 - Over a million Europeans were captured and sold as slaves to North Africa between 1530 and 1780.

#24 - 30,000 children took part of a "Children's Crusade" to capture Jerusalem in 1212 AD. Most died in the journey or were sold into slavery.

#25 - Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8% of recorded history.

#26 - The Aztecs sacrificed 1% of their population every year, or about 250,000 people.

#27 - Proportionally speaking, the most destructive war in modern history was the War of the Triple Alliance, which took the lives of over 60% of Paraguay's population, leaving a woman/man ratio of 4 to 1.

#28 - Estimates for the total number of people killed in wars throughout all of human history range from 150 million to 1 billion.

#29 - In the 16th and 17th centuries, Europeans including royalty, priests and scientists, routinely ingested remedies containing human bones, blood and fat as medicine for everything from headaches to epilepsy.

#30 - If Earth's history were condensed into 24 hours, life would've appeared at 4am, land plants at 10:24pm, dinosaur extinction at 11:41pm and human history would've begun at 11:58:43pm.