Throughout history there have been many things that make us wonder and fill us with emotions ranging from incredulity to pure horror. There were wars, there were theories and experiments, there were affairs and there were strange behaviors. And some of them are the r-rated facts about history and not for the eyes of the fainthearted.

1 Benjamin Franklin frequently took  “air baths” which included sitting naked at open windows for an hour. He believed being naked is good for the health.

The renowned polymath and one of the Founding Fathers of the US was interested in just about anything. He was a scientist, diplomat, inventor, statesman, writer, politician, activist and a freemason. Apart from his scientific adventures mostly revolving around electricity he also invented bifocal lenses and meddled in the field of medicine. Among his many works include writings about treatment for common cold as well as advocated exercise, moderate diet and inoculation for diseases like smallpox.

Franklin suffered from gout since his forties and pain because of bladder stones. He believed that being exposed to fresh air helped keep better health and often slept with his windows open. He used to sit naked in his chambers allowing the air to cleanse his skin. Despite his problems, however, he stayed active and mentally alert even in his seventies.(source)

2 The English explorer James Cook sailed to Hawaii in 1779. The Hawaiians thought he was their sex/fertility god Lono because he arrived while they were celebrating a festival, which he didn’t try to prove otherwise.

When James Cook and his crew arrived on the island the first time, the Hawaiians felt it was a divine event. They traded metal for food and water with the islanders. The second time he arrived on a coast that was thought to be sacred to their god Lono. He and his crew stayed their for more than a month enjoying and looting them. But when one of Cook’s crew members died the Hawaiians realized they were not in fact gods, but mortals. They left the island after the relationships turned sour. When they had to turn back within a week because of rough seas they were pelted with stones. After his crew started shooting things got worse and Cook died in the fight.(source)

3 Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov was a Russian scientist who conducted experiments to create a human-chimpanzee hybrid, “humanzee”, in the 1920s.

During 1910, Ivanov made a presentation about the possibility of creating a human-primate hybrid through artificial insemination. In 1920s he carried out many experiments using human sperm to impregnate female chimpanzees. When his attempts failed he instead tried impregnating human volunteers with ape sperm but had to postpone when his orangutan died. Later he along with many other primate researchers and scientists received political criticism and lost their jobs. In 1930, he was sentenced and exiled to Alma Ata for five years where he died of stroke.(source)

4 During the WWII, the dehumanization and hate of Japanese was so strong that it became a common practice among many from the US military to collect their skulls and other body parts as trophies.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, a popular hatred towards Japanese was propagated. Added to that were the Japanese aggressive ways of war, American racism and a desire for revenge that fueled the practice. However, the act of trophy collecting was condemned by the military though not as much the government. The military ordered that anyone who takes part in the act would face “stern disciplinary action”. Despite that the practice continued and there were many Americans who possessed trophy skulls of the Japanese. There were also efforts on both sides to repatriate the body parts.(source)

5 Anne Frank wrote in great detail her thoughts about her vagina, menstruation and male sexual organ that she didn’t know the name of. The diary was previously censored and edited by her father Otto Frank before publication.

In an effort to stop the world from picturing Anne Frank as a saint, her cousin allowed for an unedited version of her diary to be give to the public. According to him she was just an ordinary girl with thoughts, feelings and emotions that are normal at that age. Regardless, the unedited version shows her honest thoughts about sexuality, menstruation, her discovery and curiosity about male and female body parts, and her feelings about the boy Peter van Pels she was falling in love with.

Anne had also written very honestly about how she felt about her parents. She wrote that she found her father’s jokes about farting and lavatory quite unsavory and how she didn’t feel very daughterly towards her mother.(source)