Welcome to another edition of my blog series meant to save my family from my historical “fun” facts! As I said last time, this series is mainly for me and my family. Basically, I love history and have been known to share facts I share interested by saying, “Fun fact…”. My family has been dealing with this for 27 years and are over pretty much all of my fun facts, so I’ve started this blog series to keep myself from imploding with all my fun facts and hopefully share my interests with others. I’m going to do this series at least once a month, and I won’t be promoting the posts like I promote my other ones.

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Oxford University existed at the same time as the Mayans. Oxford was around at least by 1167. There’s no known date of its founding (x). On the other hand, the Mayans were still around in the 1500s when the Spanish arrived, although the peak of the civilization had passed (x). Oh, and the Great Hall in Harry Potter is based on one of Oxford’s halls (x). (Lots of Oxford was used to film the Harry Potter movies.)

When Edward I went to France to due homage to the new French king (because he was Duke of Aquitaine aka Gascony), so many people and things went that it took 8 ships for the kitchen equipment alone. (Source)

Edward I also once stayed in Scotland for a winter “to annoy his enemies,” which he legitimately said in a letter. (Source)

Cleopatra was Greek, not Egyptian. Well, she was born and raised in Egypt, and her family had been in Egypt, but her ancestors were Greek. Her family intermarried lots – I mean lots – so she was very Greek in Egypt. (Source)

George Washington – and probably most of the Founding Fathers – never knew dinosaurs existed. Washington died in 1799 (source) and the first dinosaur fossil was found in the early 1800s (source). Well, technically, the first fossil was found in 1676, but it was believed to belong to a “large man” and then the fossil disappeared (source).

Check out all historical fun facts