Random Most Surprising Things We Learned In 2022 (17 items)

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  (#5) France

  • Country

  "'Til death do us part" doesn't have to be the final word for every couple in France: The country's Civil Code permits marriage to someone who is deceased.

  The law became especially popular after WWI due to the high number of men who were slain during the conflict and left behind fiancees. The most current form of the law goes back to 1959, after the Malpasset Dam in Fréjus burst and 423 people lost their lives. The pregnant fiancee of one of the deceased petitioned to be allowed to marry her deceased fiance to ensure her child’s legitimacy. France's National Assembly then passed a law allowing the president to authorize such marriages if certain conditions are met, such as evidence of a couple’s intention to marry before the passing of one of the parties, and a serious need for establishing such a partnership. 

  The law is used about a few dozen times each year. In 2017, for example, a French citizen asked to marry his partner who was slain in a terrorist incident. The marriage date was recorded as the day before the partner perished. 
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  (#2) Abraham Lincoln

  • US President

  The name "Fido" for a dog may have been popularized by Abraham Lincoln, but the President's canine by that name met a tragic fate similar to that of his owner. With a moniker that means "fidelity" in Latin, Fido was a yellow-haired mutt the Lincoln family took in about 1855.

  Fido was a companion to Lincoln in Springfield, IL, but remained in the Midwest when the Lincoln family went to Washington, DC. Carpenter John Eddy Roll watched Fido during that time, and according to a letter he sent Lincoln in 1862, the dog was "doing well."

  The faithful canine attended Lincoln's April 1865 funeral in Springfield and spent the rest of his days there. His life was cut short at some point in 1866:

  One day the dog, in a playful manner, put his dirty paws upon a drunken man sitting on the street curbing [who] in his drunken rage, thrust a knife into the body of poor old Fido... So Fido, just a poor yellow dog, met the same fate as his illustrious master - assassination.

  The drunken man was Charlie Planck, and in the immediate aftermath of the event, Fido went behind a nearby church, where the Rolls found him. They carried him home, buried him, and covered his grave with flowers.
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  (#8) Squirrels Can't Die From Falling

  Many squirrel species are tree dwellers, so it's easy to assume that falling from their high-branched abodes would be an inherent danger. However, the fluffy-tailed rodents, which usually weigh from 1 to 1 ½ pounds, are genetically designed to survive an unexpected plunge toward the earth - no matter the elevation. 

  Squirrels are small and light, and their stretchy bodies and bushy tails create a significant drag in the air, allowing them to glide (to a degree) before they safely land on the ground after a leap or fall. Because squirrels reach a low terminal velocity after just a few seconds and maintain the fall speed regardless of their initial height, they can safely drop out of the stratosphere or a local oak tree at roughly the same rate. 
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  (#6) Benjamin Franklin

  • Notable Figure

  Books were incredibly expensive in the 18th century. Consequently, British publishers often combined helpful information regarding numerous subjects - including math, recipes, the alphabet, history, and other topics useful for the typical family. Recognizing a clever, practical idea when he saw one, Benjamin Franklin decided to pen an American version of the popular texts for colonial households. 

  To create the perfect publication, the inventor looked to British author George Fisher's The Instructor for inspiration. While Franklin made a few tweaks to some of the information - like changing city lists to reflect the map of the American colonies and providing a brief history of the nation - he added an entirely new collection from a 1734 Virginia medical handbook. Called Every Man His Own Doctor: The Poor Planter's Physician, the content walked readers through home remedies for numerous ailments, including "the suppression of the courses" (menstruation).

  The text gave detailed instructions for the application and uses of herbs known to have abortifacient and contraceptive properties. After reading it, Ohio State University professor Molly Farrell, who specializes in early American literature, noted:

  It's just sort of a greatest hits of what 18th-century herbalists would have given a woman who wanted to end a pregnancy early… It's very explicit, very detailed, [and] also very accurate for the time in terms of what was known at the time….
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  (#14) A 97-Year-Old Former Nazi Secretary Was Convicted For Her Role In 10,000 Murders During WWII

  In late 2022, 97-year-old Irmgard Furchner received a criminal conviction for her role as a secretary at the Stutthof concentration camp during World War II. Prosecutors alleged she was an accessory to the murder of 10,505 people at Stutthof, where she “aided and abetted those in charge of the camp in the systematic killing of those imprisoned there between June 1943 and April 1945 in her function as a stenographer and typist in the camp commandant’s office.”

  The Washington Post notes that Furchner was tried in a juvenile court, since she was 18 and 19 when she worked at the camp. The nonagenarian received a two-year suspended sentence.

  Though nicknamed "the secretary of evil," Furchner has claimed that she did not know the details of what occurred at the concentration camp. “I’m sorry for what happened, and I regret that I was at Stutthof at the time,” she said in her closing statement. “I can’t say any more.”

  During the trial, prosecutor Maxi Wantzen argued that Furchner could not have been ignorant of what was happening at Stutthof. “If the defendant looked out of the window, she could see the new prisoners who were being selected,” he said. “Nobody could miss the smoke from the crematorium or not notice the smell of burned corpses.”

  According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, more than 60,000 people perished at Stutthof during the war. 
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  (#1) An 'I've Got A Secret' Contestant Witnessed The Assassination Of Abraham Lincoln

  Born in 1860, Samuel J. Seymour of Maryland was a guest on I've Got a Secret in 1956 at the age of 96, when he told the panel and audience that he witnessed the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. 

  In 1865, at the age of 5, Seymour, his nurse Sarah Cook, and his godmother Mrs. George S. Goldsborough went to see Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre. He recalled sitting in balcony seats across from the Presidential Box when he witnessed John Wilkes Booth leap from the box, and President Lincoln fall over.

  Seymour was one of around 1,500 people present during Lincoln's assassination. 

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