30 Wacky Pieces of History That We Wish Someone Would Prune Out of Our Family Trees

Turns out that great-great-great grandpa was a real nut job
30 Wacky Pieces of History That We Wish Someone Would Prune Out of Our Family Trees

Well, we finally got our Ancestry.com results, and we’re not quite sure how to feel. On one hand, it’s pretty neat that we’ve had so many interesting people in our family tree, but on the other, we’re a little embarrassed that all this insanity is genetically swimming around in us somewhere.

We’d really like to keep these results to ourselves, but the Cracked higher-ups insist that they’re too interesting to not share. Don’t poke too much fun at us, okay?

Parachuting Beavers

30 Wacky Pieces of History That We Wish Someone Would Prune Out of Our Family Trees

Whipping Tom

Whipping Tom was London's serial spanker. 200 years before Jack the Ripper, London's Fleet Street was stalked by Whipping Tom-not a serial killer, but a serial spanker. Tom would lift women's dresses and spank them on the buttocks, yelling Spanko! Another, more violent Whipping Tom started assaulting women years later. CRACKED.COM

Women's Bathrooms

CRACKED.COM Women's restrooms weren't always bathrooms. In Victorian England, women were thought of as delicate creatures that would crumble at the drop of a hat-so public rooms were set up, with chairs and couches, for the ladies to seek shelter from the scary outside. Once toilets became a thing, those were just added OMEN to existing restrooms.

Frogs As Pregnancy Tests

FROGS WERE USED AS PREGNANCY TESTS. Your grandmother didn't have cheap sticks to pee on to find out if she was pregnant. But she had frogs. Between the '30s and the '50s, doctors would inject African clawed frogs with urine and wait. The human pregnancy hormone would trigger ovulation if present, causing the frogs to lay eggs. Immunological testing kits left them without a job. CRACKED.COM

Cars

CARS ARE BANNED IN MACKINAC, MICHIGAN. Back in the 1890s, the residents of Mackinac Island didn't care for those newfangled horseless carriages, so cars were banned. The ban still stands today. If you try to drive around Mackinac, you will get in serious trouble. Horse-drawn buggies are still used to ferry things around. And they like it that way, thank you very much. CRACKED.COM

Pineapples

CRACKED.COM Pineapples used to be a status symbol. For centuries, pineapples in Europe were rare, exotic, and above all expensive, as they were imported from across the ocean. The rich would often get one-not to eat it, but to show off their wealth by parading the fruit in front of other people.

Death Row

A death row prisoner tried to get too fat for the electric chair. In 1952, Donald Snyder was sentenced to death for killing a 9-year- old girl. Resolved to grow too big to be executed, he put on 150 pounds in less than one year. It didn't work- when the time came, he fit the chair just fine. CRACKED.COM

Zhou Dynasty

Several kingdoms in China during the Zhou dynasty used knives as a currency rather than coins. The large, bronze knives circulated in China be- tween 600 and 200 В.С. They even cast larger knives with exquisite Chi- nese calligraphy as com- memorative coins. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

The Soviets

The Soviets put out a huge gas fire by nuking it. A gas well was on fire for three years before the bomb blew it out like a birthday candle. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Paul Revere

Paul Revere III is the great-great-great-great grandson of the original. Не currently serves as legal counsel for a copper manufacturing company founded by Paul Revere in 1801. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Winston Churchill

When Winston Churchill sold the family estate to the National Trust, he had a specific requirement. A marmalade cat named Jock must always be in comfortable residence. Meet Jock VII. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Spiral Staircases

In the 1850s, American fire departments started outfitting their stations with spiral staircases. Seems the horses who pulled the engines kept climbing the stairs when they smelled food. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

The White House

As many as three U.S. presidents may have died because of contaminated water at the White House. Before 1850, there was a night soil depository (read: a field of human poop) upstream from the White House's water supply. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro was obsessed with ice cream, and once ate 18 scoops in one sitting. Не even opened his own ice cream parlor. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Stalin

Joseph's Stalin's physician was not available as he lay dying. Because he was being tortured by the KGB for suggesting the Soviet leader required more rest. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Thomas Patrick

In 1956, Thomas Patrick stole a plane in New Jersey and landed it in front of a New York City bar. TRUCK RENTAL Two years later, he repeated the feat after a patron didn't believe the original story. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Meth

Methamphetamine was used as an antidepressant from the 1930s to the 1950s. Gordon Alles patented the drug after being injected with it. Не said it made him more talkative and imparted a sense of well-being. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Einstein

In lieu of a tip, Albert Einstein gave a Japanese courier a handwritten note. It sold in 2017 for $1.56 million. Hiller Liber gift mehr glick als enfolyrishes Straben verbunden mist Unrelle Albert LT 7922. Tokyo The note read, A calm and humble life will bring more happiness than the pursuit of success and the constant restlessness that comes with it. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Football

In 1896, the train carrying Georgia Tech's football team to play Auburn skidded all the way through town and didn't stop until it was five miles away. GT players walked back and lost 45-0. SHELL AKLE GREASE SHELL AXLE GREASE Auburn fans had greased the tracks. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway survived two plane crashes 24 hours apart. Presumed dead after the second, he emerged from the jungle with a bottle of gin & some bananas. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Clint Eastwood

In 1986, Clint Eastwood was elected mayor of tiny Carmel, California. One of his first official acts was to repeal a city ban on selling ice cream cones. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Snails

1846: A snail from Egypt was thought dead so it was glued to an index card and put on display in a British museum. 1850: The snail starts moving and is found to be alive. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Napoleon

It is possible to know in 2020 what Napoleon smelled like. A truly prodigious of cologne, his preferred formula is available today and unchanged from 1819. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Bathrooms

School bathrooms were invented In the early 1900s. CRACKED.COM They helped teach children to bathe regularly and to promote the idea of regu- lar bathing to their par- ents. During this time peri- od, people usually only bathed once a week.

Louis XIV of

The table knife has a rounded tip thanks to Louis XIV of . GRAGKED.COM In 1669, Louis XIV de- creed that all pointed knives be dulled down to reduce vio- lence in courts and the streets.

Lady Bird Johnson

A former First Lady had a lake named after her against her will. CRACKED.COM Lady Bird Johnson repeat- edly declined the dubious honor of having Austin Town Lake named after her, so the City Council waited until she died and named it after her anyway.

I Am the Walrus

John Lennon wrote I am The Walrus as an F-You to anyone trying to analyze The Beatles. CRACKED.COM After receiving a letter from a student telling him his teacher made them an- alyze their lyrics, Lennon composed the song with intentionally confusing and meaningless lyrics.

Keg Chillin’

Spitfire mechanics and pilots worked together to modify pylons to carry beer kegs. CA GRACKED COM British breweries donated free beer to soldiers during WWII, but after D-Day, there was no room for it on the ships going across the English Channel. The kegs delivered to the sol- diers were chilled from the high altitude.

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