6. From user TheAnchored:
Pope/Saint Leo met alone with the Hunnic armies just about to sack Rome, nobody knows what he said to Attila, but it made him take his massive army and turn it around, leaving the Roman Empire for the time being, saving Rome and it’s inhabitants from god knows what
7. From user Andromeda321:
Astronomer here! In 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers recorded a “guest star” in the sky. Said guest star was insanely bright- you could read by its light at night, and it was even visible during the DAY for about a month! However it faded, and disappeared from vision almost two years after it was first spotted.
What everyone had witnessed was a supernova- a massive star dying in a fiery explosion at the end of its life. They’re pretty rare- a galaxy our size has one about a century, but we haven’t seen one in our own since 1604, before the invention of the telescope. (We suspect that there were supernovae since then, just hidden by dust clouds.) What’s even more amazing, in the 1920s astronomers rediscovered this supernova, when they realized the Crab Nebulais actually the remnants of said exploring star.
Of all the things in the history of astronomy, that’s the one I hope I get to see for myself someday! Seeing a supernova in our sky would be incredible! Fingers crossed.
8. From user mycateatscorn:
The ancient romans used to fill the entire colosseum up with water and stage naval wars for entertainment.
9. From user DawnOfTheDad2:
By the end of his reign, Genghis Khan had killed up to 11% of the world population (roughly 40 million people).
10. From user TheDoctorSchrimp:
The personal accounts of the first world war.
Out in no-man’s-land, ‘the sun swelled up the dead with gas and often turned them blue, almost navy blue. Then, when the gas escaped, the bodies dried up like mummies and were frozen in their death positions… sitting bodies, kneeling bodies, bodies in almost every position, though most lay on their bellies or on their backs.
‘The crows pecked out the eyes and rats lived on bodies that lay in abandoned dugouts. These rats were very large and quite fearless, their familiarity with the dead having made them contemptuous of the living. One night one fell on my face in a dugout and bit me.
‘Where we fought several times over the same ground bodies became incorporated in the material of the trenches themselves.’
‘They were putrid, with the consistency of Camembert cheese. I once fell and put my hand right through the belly of a man. It was days before I got the smell out of my nails.’