HISTORY FACTS AND MORE

By Kaja Ramšak

History. What defines it? What’s the meaning of it? If we look in the dictionary it’s defined as the study of past events, particularly in human affairs. But if we are not so narrow-minded it has a wider meaning. It’s not just some kind of study but it’s something actually really important. Everything that once happened has a big influence in the present. For example, if James Watt hadn’t invented steam machine industrial revolution would never have happened…or because the World Wars took so many victims they finally brought us some peace, because the fear of bigger costs is always in the back of the country leaders’ minds… Or, let us consider the Arabians in early middle age; they started algebra, invented first travelling hospitals, they also invested a lot in astronomy. Well, we could say that they started the development of our world. So, now you see that history is defining our present and that’s why we also decided to have a special section for it in our newspaper.

I didn’t really think of another way to start with mine history input, but to explain the meaning of it. I think that’s the segment I will write in most, but for the start I am just going to tell you a few interesting history facts:

Josef Stalin once studied to become a priest.
When photographer Yousef Karsh took a photo of Winston Churchill, Yousef took the cigar straight from
Churchill’s mouth, so here’s the result:
The shortest war ever was the Anglo-Zanzibar war which lasted only 38 minutes making it the shortest war in history.
Albert Einstein was offered a position as second president of Israel in 1952 but he declined.

Kim Jong Il allegedly wrote six operas.

In 1912, a Paris orphanage held a raffle to raise money—the prizes were live babies.

A New Orleans man hired a pirate to rescue Napoleon from his prison on St. Helena.

At the start of World War I, the US Air force had only 18 pilots and 5 – 12 airplane

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
Ancient Egyptians used slabs of stones as pillows.

This is the woman that survived the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania, the Hindenburg explosion, the bombing of Pearl Harbour, and the terrorist attacks on 9/11, at which point her apartment was destroyed by the collapse of the World Trade Center.