Here Are 35 Of The Most Ridiculous Facts In History, Shared In This Online Thread

The idea for the post had been sitting in Aquatax's head for some time and when the Redditor finally sat down to submit it, it didn't materialize itself in a heartbeat, either.

"It took me half an hour to think of how to word it," Aquatax told Bored Panda. "The other thing I was thinking of was some event in history ... (it was most likely Teddy Roosevelt, who has his own share of stories), and I had recently began trying to share with others some strange stories, and thought the worldwideweb might know a thing or two."

After going through the comments, Aquatax thinks that people were mostly interested in stuff that has happened in the past two hundred years or so.

However, history as a subject is having a major(s) problem. The number of students earning degrees in the field fell precipitously after the Great Recession of 2008, and while the decline became a bit more gradual before the pandemic (especially when including double majors), the situation has continued to get worse.

New US Department of Education data for the 2018–19 academic year shows the annual number of bachelor's degrees awarded in history, history teacher education, and historic preservation and conservation fell to 23,923—down more than a third from 2012 and the smallest number awarded since the late 1980s.

And these numbers carry a lot of weight; they not only offer a key measure of the health of the discipline in academia, but can also have a more tangible effect at many institutions, as administrators often use majors to allocate resources and faculty lines.

"Unfortunately, many don’t find history that enjoyable, and I mean, I don't know the kings and queens of Russia or the accomplishments of each and every president of the US, but many feel that is what history is taught as in school and in my opinion in sours the subject," Aquatax said.

As simple as it sounds, maybe it's more posts like this (and media's attention to history as a whole) that can revive it?

"There is the phrase that truth is stranger than fiction, which is what I based my comment on. The bad guy always loses, or if someone is shot, they immediately die, but in both cases, that's not fully true. In my opinion, a lot of the Cold War info was from Germany, and presidents have been shot and survived, like Teddy. The Spanish took out a major empire with 600 men, while in Central America businessmen regularly overthrew national governments and then fought each other. (Also, apparently, it is illegal for American citizens to overthrow allied governments, that’s a real law.) Then there was that one comment that mentioned Napoleon being overrun by rabbits, that was hilarious."

"Theodore Roosevelt... He's fantastic," the Redditor added. "He is the definition of a Mary Sue but real life. If the late 19th and early 20th century United States was a story, he would be the main protagonist!"