I Love Weird Facts
I've found that I'm quite famed for my ability to roll off facts that are weird, or at least odd or useless. As a bit of a joke; my unofficial middle name is, "That's-a-Fact" and my housemates ask me every morning for a new one. I haven't read every single fact that's already been posted but I'm almost sure these are some totally new ones for you all.
1) Because of him being like, really really good at taking over neighboring territories and making Mongolia a super duper empire; it was decided that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to let the Mongol's enemies know exactly where Genghis Khan was buried (just in case one of the thousands of orphans he left behind wanted some pay back). All the slaves who dug the tomb were executed, in case they let slip where Mr. Khan was buried, and then all of the soldiers who executed the slaves were themselves executed; you can't build an empire like the Mongol's without checking everything twice. But, in order for the top brass of the Mongol's to know where he was buried, they took a camel and it's new born calf (that's what baby camels are called) and killed the calf in front of its mother (yeh, lives were quite cheap back then, but that's inflation for you.) They then buried the calf next to Genghis Khan and led the mother away. But, because camels have in-built navigation (for some reason) the mother would return to the same spot once a year and mourn its calf; therefore letting those who knew about this clever marking system know where their great leader was buried. Obviously, camels don't live forever (approximately 40 years) so when the mother died they had no way of knowing the exact spot and over the centuries all knowledge of the burial site has disappeared.
2) Just before the Soviet Union got Soviet divorced, the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, did one of the first 'democratic' things in Russia for quite some time; he put it to a public vote as to wether or not the people wanted to abolish socialism or keep the existing system. When all the votes were counted the results showed that an overwhelming 90% of people wanted to keep the current system instead of changing to democracy. Despite this, Mr. Gorbachev did the second democratic thing in Russia for quite some time and totally ignored the results.
3) The 46th Roman Catholic Pope should probably hold the title of 'most comically named Pontiff' as he was called, funnily enough, Pope Hilarius I. Sadly, his six year stretch as head of the Catholic church didn't involve as many theological U-turns, questionable private habits (no pun intended) or orders for his followers to murder Jews/Muslims/each other/all of the above as other early (and slightly later) Popes. But at least being called Hilarius is a bit softer on the ego than being known as Pope Simplicius I; Hilarius' successor.
If you've read this far then I hope you've enjoyed my small contribution and if you learnt something; all the better. I'm completely new to EP, and this is my first ever story thingamy jig, so I guess I'll have to learn what's done from here. And that's a fact
