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You might associate history with excessive homework and endless hours in class, but it can offer windows to earlier times.
These short nuggets, below, tell some of the most extraordinary stories of all time.
Read on to and impress your friends with some history facts even weirder than fiction.
Alexander the Great was likely buried alive
Alexander the Great has gone down in history after establishing the ancient world's largest empire by his mid 25s.
Historians now believed the warmonger succumbed to a rare disease in 323 BC, leaving him progressively more paralyzed over six days.
A likely autoimmune disease meant the 32-year-old's muscles were almost totally unmovable to the point that doctors may not have seen that he was still breathing.
Ancient Greek scholars recorded how Alexander's body did not decompose after his premature cremation proved the man was a god, but scientists now suspect this has meant he was still alive.
Cleopatra married two of her brothers
Cleopatra, the queen of ancient Egypt, was married to her co-ruler and brother Ptolemy XIII in approximately 51 BC, when she was 18 years old and he was a mere 10.
Then—just four years later—Ptolemy XIII drowned while trying to escape a battle. Cleopatra then married his younger brother, Ptolemy XIV, when he was aged 12.
Cleopatra's reign was closer to now than Great Pyramid's construction
The longevity of the Egyptian Empire is rarely appreciated properly.
Egyptian Queen Cleopatra's reign lasted from 51 BC to 30 BC, approximately 2,500 years after the Great Pyramid of Giza was built (between c.2580 BC to 2560 BC).
In comparison, her rule was roughly 2,000 years before the first lunar landings in 1969.
The longest year
Despite years having a basic in the celestial calendar, 46 BC technically lasted 445 days, making it the longest "year" in human history.
This period, dubbed the year of confusion, included an additional two leap months by order of Roman emperor Julius Caesar.
Caesar's misguided aim was to make his newly formed Julian Calendar match-up with the seasonal year.
A Roman Emperor once made his horse a Senator
Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus was just 24 years old when he became emperor of Rome in 37 AD and history will remember Gaius as one of the city's worst rulers.
Caligula (his nickname translates as "Little Boots") was guilty of blasphemy, incest and state-sanctioned murder, torture and robbery.
However, in between the sadism were moments of audacious—and possibly insane—ridiculousness, including the time he made his favorite horse a Senator.
The oldest parliament
Iceland has the world's oldest parliament.
The Althing was established in 930 and has remained the acting parliament of the small Scandinavian island country ever since.
The Vikings discovered America
Vikings landed on America approximately 500 years before Christopher Columbus stepped onto the continent.
Viking chief Leif Eriksson of Greenland made landfall on the Island of Newfoundland in the year 1,000 AD. Under his rule, Vikings settled in Newfoundland and discovered Labrador.
Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire
Founded in 1096, Oxford University is 200 years older than the Aztec civilization, 300 years older than Machu Picchu and 150 years older than Easter Island's gnomic stone heads.
The university has in that time educated numerous world-famous men and women, including 28 prime ministers of the United Kingdom.
A Pope once ordered a Medieval purge of black cats
Cats are thought to have been brought to Europe from Egypt by the Romans, and initially enjoyed a good relationship with humans.
Things changed in the 1230s, when then-head of the Roman Catholic Church Pope Gregory IX published a papal bull called Vox in Rama.
This infamous edict declared felines as the instruments of the devil, initiating a notorious Europe cat purge, with particular venom reserved for black cats, described as the most Satanic of them all.
The all-time richest person lived in the 13th century
Mansa Musa (1280-1337) was emperor of the gold-rich West African Mali Empire,who had what history experts estimate was worth approximately $400bn, accounting for inflation today.
For context, Mansa Musa was twice as wealthy as Amazon head Jeff Bezos, who is currently the richest person alive.
He was reportedly so rich, when he donated some to poor people while visiting Cairo, the gold entering Egypt almost toppled the country's economy.
Wealthy Europeans committed cannibalism 500 years ago
For hundreds of years and until the 17th century, the European elite, including royalty and scientists, regularly ate human body parts.
The revolting vogue for cannibalism was due to a dubious rumor cadavers could cure disease.
This resulted in gravediggers habitually raiding burial sites and even mummified remains being excavated from Egyptian tombs.
Pocahontas is buried in the UK
Pocahontas, the Native American princess, was famously characterized in the 1995 Disney animation.
In real-life, Englishman John Rolfe trafficked the real Pocahontas to the U.K. and transformed her image into a living advert for his tobacco company.
Soon after being allowed to return home in 1617 she suddenly became very ill on board a ship. She was taken ashore at Gravesend, Kent, where she soon died and was buried in the town's churchyard.
Byron once kept a pet bear while at university
The eccentric English poet Lord Byron kept a bear while still a student at Trinity College Cambridge in the early 1800s.
The Romantic movement's leading figure reportedly bought the bear at Stourbridge Fair, in defiance of the rules not allowing students from keeping pet dogs in college.
Napoleon was once attacked by rabbits
After signing 1807's Treaties of Tilsit, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte suggested a rabbit hunt.
Possibly thousands of rabbits were then collected, before being released from their cages for the hunt.
But instead of turning to flee in fright, the bunnies reportedly ran up the emperor's legs and even climbed his jacket, leading the military genius to hastily beat a retreat.
A Presidential pair die within hours of each other
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third U.S. Presidents respectively, died only hours apart.
Only adding to the coincidence, this occurred on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of American independence.
Tomato ketchup was once sold as a medicine
Tomato ketchup was in the 1830s sold as a medicine, following extraordinary claims the condiment could cure everything from diarrhea, indigestion and even jaundice.
The idea was proposed by Dr John Cook Bennett, who eventually sold his own brand of tomato pills.
Krakatoa created the loudest sound in recorded history
On August 27, 1883, just after 10am, the eruption of Indonesia's Krakatoa volcano made the loudest sound ever heard.
The Krakatoa explosion registered 172 decibels at 100 miles from the source, powerful enough to rupture eardrums 40 miles.
The resulting sound wave eventually traveled around the world four times and was clearly audible 3,000 miles away.
The shortest-known war in history lasted a little more than half an hour
The Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 is widely believed to be the shortest war in history.
This conflict conducted between the U.K. and the Zanzibar Sultanate, triggered by the death of the leader of latter's nation, lasted no longer than 38 minutes on August 27.
However, despite ending almost as soon as it started, the casualty rate was appalling, with more than 500 of Khalid's fighters killed or wounded.
An author "predicted" the sinking of the Titanic
The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility is a novella written by Morgan Robertson in 1898.
In the novella, the author imagines a calamity bearing an almost-uncanny resemblance to the tragedy that befell the doomed Titanic 14 years later.
His work of fiction describes a British ocean liner Titan that sinks in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg, while there is also a lack of lifeboats onboard.
Rasputin somehow "survived" an assassination
Rasputin apparently survived an assassination attempt involving being poisoned, shot and stabbed several times.
The Russian mystic and self-professed holy man is best-known for dealing with the Russian royal family, the Romanovs.
A rabble of nobles suspected Rasputin's sway over the Tsar and Tsarina posed a threat to the monarchy, so invoted the self-proclaimed Christ in miniature to the palace in December 1916.
Rasputin was then poisoned with cyanide-laced cakes and drinks and then shot three times, including once in the head.
But that was reportedly ineffective as he was also stabbed several times before he was finally found drowned in Russia's Volga River.
Tug of war once was an Olympic sport
The tug of war occurred at the Olympics between 1900 to 1920, although the event was also part of the Ancient Olympics, first being held in 500 BC.
The sport pitting a pair of teams against each other was always contested as a part of the track and field athletics program, although the tug of war is now considered a separate sport.
A dead jockey once won a horse race
Jockey Frank Hayes won a 1923 race at New York's Belmont Park despite being dead.
Hayes had a heart attack shortly after the start, but his body remained in the saddle until his horse crossed the line for a 20-1 outsider victory.
A man has survived two nuclear bomb blasts
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima when the first atom bomb was dropped in an attempt to bring about a rapid end to World War 2.
The misfortunate man then returned home to Nagasaki only hours before the second atom bomb was dropped.
However, he miraculously survived both blasts and lived to be 93.
Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein, the originator of the E = mc2 equation, was in 1952 described by Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann as "the greatest Jew alive."
So, when Weizmann died a few months later, some may not have been surprised when the Embassy of Israel offered Einstein the presidency.
However, the physics genius turned down the offer and modestly described himself as too unqualified, too old (he was 73-years-old) and lacking the people skills for the honour.
Buzz Aldrin was the first to pee on the Moon
July 1969's historic NASA Apollo 11 mission resulted in humans walking on the Moon for the first time.
And after Buzz Aldrin's urine collection sheath in his spacesuit broke, the astronaut became the first man to have a wee on the Moon.
The spaceman told gatherers on the 40th anniversary of the Moon landings: "It's lonely as hell out there. I peed in my pants."
