History isn’t just a sequence of years and battles—between the marginal notes of chroniclers lie saucy details, legends, and even scientifically documented curiosities that turn the textbook picture of the past into a far more unruly story. The following fifteen examples show just how much reality—or at least what people once believed—differs from dry dates.
1. St Bernard’s vision of milk
The medieval mystic Bernard of Clairvaux described an ecstatic scene in which the Virgin Mary, during prayer, sprayed a stream of milk onto his lips. In iconography, this strange motif caught on as a symbol of the “pouring out of divine wisdom,” and it was depicted, for example, by the Baroque painter Gioacchino Assereto in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Vittoria.
2. Cleopatra and a bee vibrator
The legend that the Egyptian queen put live bees into hollow gourds so their vibrations could replace modern devices appears in the anonymous Greco-Roman treatise De rerum venereis. No Egyptian papyri directly confirm it, but ancient texts do describe the use of insects for cosmetic or medicinal purposes.
3. An erotic bestseller by a future pope
In 1444 the humanist Enea Silvio Piccolomini—later Pope Pius II—published the novella Historia de duobus amantibus. The story of passionate lovers became a hit in Italian printing houses, and after his election to the Chair of St Peter, the author tried in vain to withdraw it from circulation.
4. Syphilis in Napoleon’s Egyptian army
From the port of Alexandria the infection spread so quickly that surgeon Dominique-Jean Larrey had to set up the first field medical tents, strictly isolate the sick, and introduce disinfection of instruments. After returning to Europe, soldiers carried the disease into other garrisons.
5. Queen Victoria’s laudanum
The British monarch had an alcoholic tincture of opium prescribed to her regularly for menstrual cramps and postnatal anxiety. In the 19th century it was a fully legal remedy sold in pharmacies without a prescription.
6. The travels of Napoleon’s penis
During the autopsy on St Helena, the chaplain Vignali allegedly cut off the emperor’s genitals. The relic passed through several collectors until it reached the American urologist John J. Lattimer, where shortly after 1977 reporters from Time magazine examined it.
7. Vikings as bleached blondes
Analyses of hair remains from graves in Birka confirmed traces of calcium hydroxide. The lye-like paste bleached beards white, helped against lice, and gave warriors a more ominous look.
8. Maya “comics”
The Dresden Codex contains picture sequences in which a zoomorphic rabbit steals a person’s clothes and mockingly scolds them. Anthropologists speak of a proto-ancestor of today’s comic-strip panel.
9. Leeuwenhoek and microscopic “little animals”
In 1677 the Dutch cloth merchant sent a letter to the Royal Society describing “animalcules” swimming in his own ejaculate. It was the first scientific record of sperm and it opened the road to microbiology.
10. Invisible ink made from ejaculate
British intelligence chief Mansfield Cumming tested human semen as invisible ink during the First World War; when heated with iodine vapour, the fluid’s pH shifted and it turned into brown stains. The project was halted because of the impractical smell.
11. Joséphine de Beauharnais’s mysterious “zig-zag”
The memoirs of the Marquise de Rémusat suggest that the empress preferred a lovemaking manoeuvre involving rapid changes of direction to keep Napoleon’s attention—a detail that also inspired 19th-century French erotic literature.
12. President Félix Faure and the “orgasm of the Republic”
The French president collapsed in 1899 during oral sex with Marguerite Steinheil, right in the Élysée Palace. At the time, the press described it as dying “in the arms of beauty,” and the opposition couldn’t resist political jokes about a “minor state incident.”
13. The dispute over Jesus’s foreskin
Medieval churches from Tuscany to Chartres claimed they possessed the sanctum praeputium. Chroniclers counted the most relics in the 14th century—up to eighteen. In 1900 the Vatican ordered that these objects not be displayed to the public, and in 1983 removed them from the list of recognised relics.
14. Piercing as a Victorian fashion shock
In 1894 the journal The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine ran a report on “bosom rings”: London ladies of high society had their nipples pierced with platinum jewellery from Tiffany & Co.—supposedly to help keep the bust firm under a corset.
15. Peter I and the executions of courtier-lovers
The Russian tsar was known for swift punishment for “lèse-majesté.” The chronicler Alexander Nevsky recorded that Prince Matvey Golitsyn was beheaded for alleged intimacy with Empress Catherine. Peter often attended executions conspicuously, to intimidate the nobility.
Some stories come from contemporary reports and are supported by archival material (Napoleon, Leeuwenhoek); others live on more as legend (Cleopatra’s bees, the foreskin in reliquaries). Either way, they show that human curiosity, desire, and the marketing of the clergy shaped history just as powerfully as military campaigns.
Verified links
- Smithsonian Magazine: “The Strange Journey of Napoleon’s Penis” – https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/strange-journey-napoleons-penis-84398024/
- Microbiology Society Blog: “Antonie van Leeuwenhoek and the discovery of spermatozoa” – https://microbiologysociety.org/blog/antonie-van-leeuwenhoek-and-the-discovery-of-sperm.html
- BBC History Extra: “The spy chief who wrote in invisible ink” – https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/first-world-war-spies-invisible-ink-semen-mansfield-cumming/
Robert
I’m interested in technology and history, especially true crime stories. For three years I ran a fact-based portal about modern history, and for a year I co-built a blogging platform where I published dozens of analytical articles. I founded offpitch so that quality content wouldn’t be hidden behind a paywall.
