World War I Facts
Hey everybody!
I know we’ve learned about World War I before in previous history classes, but I hope these are a few new facts about the war. Sometimes I find it’s more fun to learn about history when you know some random, interesting facts. I compiled a short list from a couple of websites I found. Feel free to add to it! :)
- Because of food shortages, the British public was banned from feeding pets and birds human food
One woman was fined ten pounds (I think this is about $50) because her servant was caught feeding the birds. Apparently she did this every day because she couldn’t bear to see the birds starve.
- Tanks had genders
Female tanks were lighter with many machine guns (as opposed the males’ cannons). One of the first prototypes was named “Little Willie.”
- Britons in London heard explosions in France
In Belgium more than 900,000 pounds of explosives, planted by miners, went off at the same time. One hundred forty miles away, the Prime Minister of Britain heard the noise.
- Archduke Ferdinand had an...interesting license plate
This is kind of crazy, but on the day Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, his license plate was “A 111 118.” If the spaces are put in different places, it can be interpreted as “A 11 11 18,” or “Armistice 11 November ‘18” which is the date that the armistice was signed.
- Anti-Camouflage
Norman Wilkinson designed the exterior of merchant ships to be completely the opposite of camouflage. He used bright, bold colors and patterns to throw off enemy torpedoes. The designs created the illusion of waves where there were none and patterns that made it difficult to tell the difference between the front and back of the ship. Check out this webpage http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zty8tfr for more information.
- Women’s skin turned yellow
Not all of them, of course. But women who worked with TNT experienced toxic jaundice as a result of the chemicals.
Hey Julia! Thanks for these fun facts; they actually do help make learning about WWI a little bit more exciting. I wanted to see if I could find any other cool WWI trivia, and this is what I found:
ReplyDelete1) Germans were the first to use flamethrowers in WWI. Their flamethrowers could fire jets of flame as far as 130 feet (40 m).
2)The Pool of Peace is a 40-ft (12-m) deep lake near Messines, Belgium. It fills a crater made in 1917 when the British detonated a mine containing 45 tons of explosives.
3)During WWI, dogs were used as messengers and carried orders to the front lines in capsules attached to their bodies. Dogs were also used to lay down telegraph wires.
4)Margaretha Zelle (1876-1917), also known as Mata Hari, was a Dutch exotic dancer accused of being a double agent. Though she always denied being a spy, the French executed her in 1917.
5)French Second Lieutenant Alfred Joubaire wrote in his diary about WWI just before he died that “Humanity is mad! It must be mad to do what it is doing. What a massacre. What scenes of horror and carnage! I cannot find words to translate my impressions. Hell cannot be so terrible! Men are mad!”
There are a ton of other cool ones on this website if anyone wants to check them out!
http://facts.randomhistory.com/world-war-i-facts.html