20 Lesser Known History Facts That Captured Attention

1. Mary Seacole Used to Be As Famous as Florence Nightingale

Mary Seacole (1805 – 1881), a businesswoman and adventurer, set up a convalescence home for British officers during the Crimean War, that came to be known as the “British Hotel”, and cared for wounded soldiers on the battlefield. A black woman from Kingston, Jamaica, Seacole learned about African and Caribbean herbal remedies from her mother, who ran ran a boarding house for invalid soldiers. The guests’ precarious health gave Seacole firsthand knowledge of dealing with ailments and physical crises.

She was in Britain during the Crimean War, and approached the War Office, asking to be sent as a nurse to Crimea, where medical facilities were scandalously abysmal. Her request was rejected. Undaunted, Seacole funded her own way to Crimea, where she established the “British Hotel” near Balaclava to provide “A mess table and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers“. She also trekked to the battlefields, sometimes under fire, to nurse the wounded. Her courage in the face of mortal danger earned her the affectionate nickname “Mother Seacole” from soldiers. History records Florence Nightingale as the Crimean War’s foremost nurse, but during the conflict, and especially among the soldiers on the ground, Seacole’s fame rivaled that of Nightingale.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Air & Space Magazine, July, 2015 – How the Korean War Almost Went Nuclear

All That’s Interesting – Gavrilo Princip: The Serbian Nationalist Who Assassinated Franz Ferdinand

Ancient History Encyclopedia – Draco‘s Law Code

AV Club – The Young Pope John XII Dies as He Lived: Fornicating

Battles of the Ancients – Why Did Marcus Crassus Lose the Battle of Carrhae?

Cracked – These 47 Facts Will Make You a Walking History Channel

Encyclopedia Britannica – Johan De Witt

Forczyk, Robert – Red Christmas: The Tatsinskaya Airfield Raid, 1942 (2012)

Governing – Why Are Salt Lake City‘s Blocks So Long?

History Extra, November 1^st, 2013 – Where the Pulverized Bones of Soldiers and Horses Who Died at the Battle of Waterloo Sold as Soil Fertilizer?