# I can't believe I'd never heard of... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 23, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816 "2011-11-23T00:07:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/21 "2011-11-24T12:41:15Z")
Max, about a year back I asked what happened to the treasures of Paris during the Nazi occupation. Seemingly they were all hidden in a private chalet. I have doubts as I could imagine the Nazis being persuasive as the where certain artifacts went. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/22 "2011-11-24T13:55:22Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > So wait: every last chestnut tree in the US was killed? And there are no chestnut trees here now? Or have they been re-planted in significant numbers? > > I’d never heard of this either. Yes and no … there was a gentleman my father worked with that was hooked up with a university in IIRC West Va who was working on the issue. Something like 95% of the American Chestnuts were wiped out, there were a very few isolated pockets of them left. We have a living American Chestnut planted in the yard at my Mom’s house. Poor lonely thing, we have a female, but no male. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/23 "2011-11-24T13:56:06Z")
> [@shantih](#): > > In my 20s, I read about the Spanish Flu for the first time. I was astonished that such a devastating and frightening illness had never been covered in my history classes. I learned about that when I was a kid, from my grandfather. He told about being in Kansas City and watching trains full of sick soldiers coming into the station. How hospitals ran out of space to treat everyone, and how the boarding hotel where he was living had a clerk who was also taking care of a sick relative, _who was on a cot right behind the counter!_ ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/24 "2011-11-24T19:45:10Z")
> [@Alice\_The\_Goon](#): > > Screw sinks. In all my time of hanging things up, and helping my dad do projects around the house, etc., I’ve never heard of screw sinks. How is this possible?? But now I know why my curtains didn’t stay up. I know them as “anchors” - maybe you’d always heard them refered to as that? Other than the screw sinks/anchors and the Iran/Contra affair (oh, and the sutherlands) I’ve never heard of anything else in the thread, but it all seems like stuff that wouldn’t interest me anyway. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/25 "2011-11-24T19:57:14Z")
I grew up in Tulsa, but I didn’t hear a peep about the Tulsa race riots until I was in my 30’s. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/26 "2011-11-24T20:20:43Z")
During a recent business trip to China, I took a colleague to the Rape of Nanking memorial. I mentioned this later to some other people, who confessed they had never head of this. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/27 "2011-11-24T20:34:05Z")
A screw sink and an anchor are not the same thing, and I, too, think **Alice the Goon** is talking about anchors. A screw sink is a drill bit that has a wider cutting head at the top; it cuts a hole for the screw head at the top of a pilot hole. ---
**Author:** ![Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dread_pirate_jimbo/32/3897_2.png) [@Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dread_Pirate_Jimbo)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/28 "2011-11-24T20:51:50Z")
> [@Missy2U](#): > > That Kiefer and Donald Sutherland are related. > > No, I’m not kidding. It just never occurred to me. Also, Kiefer Sutherland’s grandfather (on his mother’s side) is none other than The Greatest Canadian, [Tommy Douglas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Douglas), and his mother, [Shirley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Douglas), is a fairly well-established actress north of the border. I assume you knew all those people were Canadians. 🙂 I had no idea that Yellowknife, NT, is a harbour town in the middle of a continent until we went there on vacation last year. Odd, but quite interesting to see all the docks and fishing boats in the old town. It was in 2008 when we journeyed to Chicago and back that we discovered that there were Vikings in the Minnesota area hundreds of years ago. I was under the impression that any Vikings who had ventured to North America has stuck to the east coast – little did I know that some journeyed through Hudson’s Bay onto the Red River and south to the Minneapolis region. The rune stone and other artifacts in the museum in Alexandria were totally worth the visit. And I now understand the origin of the NFL team’s name. Oh, and last night, while watching an episode of Supernatural, we learned that the Jersey Devil isn’t just a hockey team, but also a monster rumoured to live in those parts. ---
**Author:** ![Ashes\_Ashes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@Ashes\_Ashes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashes_Ashes)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/29 "2011-11-25T04:12:14Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > We spent all of 7th grade history class on WWII, and I’ve read a bunch about the war since, so I still can’t believe that it’s only been until the last couple of years I’ve heard about either the bombing of Dresden _or_ Unit 731. _Dear og_! I didn’t have even a hint of this and my dad was a social studies teacher! Here I thought we’d talked about everything and instead there’s a giant freakin’ gorilla in the room. To be fair, there are a lot of other gorillas in that room. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/30 "2011-11-25T04:46:20Z")
> [@Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](#): > > It was in 2008 when we journeyed to Chicago and back that we discovered that there were Vikings in the Minnesota area hundreds of years ago. I was under the impression that any Vikings who had ventured to North America has stuck to the east coast – little did I know that some journeyed through Hudson’s Bay onto the Red River and south to the Minneapolis region. The rune stone and other artifacts in the museum in Alexandria were totally worth the visit. And I now understand the origin of the NFL team’s name. You do know that all that is legend, something to amuse/sucker the tourists, and that it’s not actually historically accurate? Anyway, the Red River empties into Lake Winnipeg, not Hudson’s Bay. And the Red River is in the Fargo, ND area, several hundred miles from Minneapolis. ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/31 "2011-11-25T05:29:06Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > You do know that all that is legend, something to amuse/sucker the tourists, and that it’s not actually historically accurate? > > Anyway, the Red River empties into Lake Winnipeg, not Hudson’s Bay. And the Red River is in the Fargo, ND area, several hundred miles from Minneapolis. Yes, and Lake Winnipeg drains into Hudson’s Bay. The Kensington Runestone has been controversial since its “discovery” in 1898. Most scholars consider it a hoax, but not all. It’s not as whacko as plesiosaurs in Loch Ness, or Area 51, but still pretty hard to take at face value. ---
**Author:** ![Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dread_pirate_jimbo/32/3897_2.png) [@Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dread_Pirate_Jimbo)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/32 "2011-11-25T14:14:02Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > You do know that all that is legend, something to amuse/sucker the tourists, and that it’s not actually historically accurate? > > Anyway, the Red River empties into Lake Winnipeg, not Hudson’s Bay. And the Red River is in the Fargo, ND area, several hundred miles from Minneapolis. > [@JWT\_Kottekoe](#): > > Yes, and Lake Winnipeg drains into Hudson’s Bay. > > The Kensington Runestone has been controversial since its “discovery” in 1898. Most scholars consider it a hoax, but not all. It’s not as whacko as plesiosaurs in Loch Ness, or Area 51, but still pretty hard to take at face value. You people need to stop ruining my childlike wonderment. I mean, come on – Vikings!!! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/33 "2011-11-25T14:56:13Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > Max, about a year back I asked what happened to the treasures of Paris during the Nazi occupation. Seemingly they were all hidden in a private chalet. I have doubts as I could imagine the Nazis being persuasive as the where certain artifacts went. No doubt. But when I was in Bordeaux several years ago I was told of the history of the statues of the Monument aux Girondins. > **[22/38.- Bordeaux, Monument aux Girondins, fountain. VIRTOURIST.COM](https://www.virtourist.com/europe/bordeaux/22.htm)** They are spectacular and apparently when the local French people became aware that German invasion was immanent, they hid the statues somewhere secret. And then, over time, it seemed no-one remembered where they had been hidden, and many years later they turned up, discovered by accident, on some private land covered in brambles and shrubs. Well, that was the story that was told to me, but I can’t vouch for it’s truth. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/34 "2011-11-25T16:26:53Z")
I just learned this morning in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=632346) that Captain Kidd was a real pirate who operated out of New York City in the 17th century. I always though he was a literary creation. ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/35 "2011-11-25T17:10:34Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > So for a long time, this was basically the most valuable item in the entire world, and I’d never heard of it until now, which I find surprising. Even better, you can see it up close if you want. I’m not sure how often they bring it out - I think it’s every Friday during lent. I was there on Good Friday in 2008 and they had it out. It’s in a plastic container and wrapped with gold leaf. People wait in line (wasn’t long - maybe 10 minutes) and they bow in front of it and kiss the plastic. I didn’t do that, as I don’t really believe in that sort of thing, but I used a longer lens to take a [pretty crappy picture](http://s878.photobucket.com/albums/ab350/colin_mcbride/?action=view¤t=NotreDame-Crown3.jpg) of it. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/36 "2011-11-25T17:24:19Z")
> [@Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](#): > > … > Oh, and last night, while watching an episode of Supernatural, we learned that the Jersey Devil isn’t just a hockey team, but also a monster rumoured to live in those parts. Weird. I just found that out a couple of weeks ago too. It was also on TV, but I don’t recall the program, although I think it was just the news. You’d think after 30 years in the league… :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/37 "2011-11-25T17:33:14Z")
I’d never heard of carpenter bees until I was in my mid 40’s. I was building a garage and one day I saw a neat row of perfectly drilled holes in the facsia board. Who goes around drilling holes in stuff? I smacked it in disgust and what looked like bumble bees come flying out. It was like something out of a sci-fi movie. Or maybe a Monty Python movie… aaaagggghhh run away, run away… ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/38 "2011-11-25T22:04:35Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I wouldn’t put much faith (no pun intended) on the authenticity of that relic. 400 years a long time for there to be a gap in the history. Certainly, but that’s kind of not the point I was trying to make, which is not “I can’t believe that a relic of Christ has survived” but “I can’t believe this item that (a) had a long and interesting history, and (b) was considered so important by such a large number of people for so long; existed without my having heard of it”. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/39 "2011-11-25T22:33:18Z")
I was gobsmacked to learn, only yesterday, that there’s a tiny little French outpost off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada: [Saint Pierre and Miquelon - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon) ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816/40 "2011-11-26T06:07:53Z")
I had never heard of Canada’s [October Crisis (1970)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Crisis) until someone mentioned it here. I was in college at the time. Of course the USA was in turmoil then, too: Kent State took place in April of that year. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-id-never-heard-of/603816.md?page=3)