10 Surprising History Facts That Will Warp Your Sense of Time

weather.com ^

[chessplayer]

1. Cleopatra lived closer in time to the moon landing than the construction of the pyramids.

[cripplecreek]

Cleopatra also lived closer to the moon.

[MUDDOG]

She walked like an Egyptian.

[Telepathic Intruder]

It’s not really known exactly how long ago the pyramids were constructed, how long it took, if they were slaves or just workers, what method was used, or all that other stuff.

[SoCal Pubbie]

But when asked to read hieroglyphics, she famously said “It's all Greek to me!”

[Senator_Blutarski]

America was still a free country when I was a child.

[Fresh Wind]

Flying saucers with tractor beams built the pyramids, of course.

[MUDDOG]

LOL!

A poster a few days ago said Cleo was accepted by the natives because she did know the native language, but whether she could read hieroglyphics, I don't know.

[morphing libertarian]

The hero of Benghazi was born in Kenya when I got my drivers license

[JimSEA]

Kamikaze! Typhoon saves Japan from the Mongols. Of course, the suicide bombers of WWII, took the name but didn’t have the success of the real thing. Fortunately.

[EternalVigilance]

"One year after Shakespeare wrote "Macbeth," in 1606, English colonists in Virginia established Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America. Events at the time later inspired his work on "The Tempest," a tale about shipwrecked Europeans colonizing an American island."

My forebear, John Proctor, was aboard that ship, the Sea Venture, which was wrecked on Bermuda.

[AnAmericanMother]

That any of these are a surprise is a testament to the 'dumbing down' of our schools and the substitution of 'social studies' and 'current events' for actual, real, history (which is hard work if done right).

There's also some political correctness at work here, since it is fashionable to portray Cleopatra as an "African". She wasn't even of Egyptian heritage, let alone sub-Saharan African - she was Macedonian Greek, one of the Ptolemies who came in to rule Egypt after Alexander the Great's conquest. They did not mingle with the common people.

[AnAmericanMother]

She learned Egyptian and set herself up as the reincarnation of the Goddess Isis in order to consolidate her rule.

Her native language was Greek.

The ruling classes had scribes to read and write for them. That was probably just as true in ancient Egypt as it was in western Europe in medieval times. Literacy did not have the attraction for the upper classes that it did for the middle class!

[Balding_Eagle]

10 pages to get all 10.

It’s a trap, everyone.

[wetphoenix]

To be honest, all of the above is a common knowledge and not surprising at all.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Hence my post number 5. Also, her first husband was her brother. THAT might warp people too!

[Beagle8U]

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=walk+like+an+egyptian&FORM=VIRE2#view=detail&mid=CA4905D99EE7E2E54F84CA4905D99EE7E2E54F84

[MUDDOG]

I guess that’s what makes Anna Comnena such a standout, albeit a thousand years later.

[MUDDOG]

Did they have a hieroglyphic for “va-va-va-voom”?