Pinoy Historical Facts

6 Surprising Pinoy Historical Facts You Probably Don’t Know

 

1. Philippines could have been a German colony.

In a Manila Times article published on September 21, 2006, author Augusto de Viana reveals that the Philippines would have been a German colony had a second battle of Manila Bay taken place.
During the Spanish-American War in 1898, Kaiser Wilhelm sent the German squadron to Manila “to protect German interests and her citizens”. But unlike other countries who also sent their naval vessels to Manila, Germany had plans of taking over the Philippines if the U.S. abandoned the islands.
After Commodore George Dewey from the U.S. ordered a blockade of Manila, the Germans started supplying trapped Spaniards with flour and even treated some of the wounded soldiers aboard the German vessels.  This incident infuriated the U.S. but it was when the Germans refused to let the Americans inspect their gunboat Cormoran that resulted into a heated confrontation.
The conflict between Germany and the U.S. only ended when the British ship Immortalit’e chose to join Dewey’s flagship Olympia. The combined forces outnumbered the Germans, forcing them to stop their provocations.
Later, the McKinley administration formalized their control over the Philippines through the Treaty of Paris which refused to recognize Aguinaldo’s declaration of Independence and permanently ended Germany’s aspiration of making our country one of its colonies.

2. A black American fought for the Filipinos during the Philippine-American War.

Troop C, 9th Cavalry, at Camp Lawton, Washington, before being sent to the Philippines in 1900. Source: University of Washington

His name is Corporal David Fagen, one of the 7,000 black soldiers who were sent to the country during the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902.
He was supposed to fight against Filipino Insurrectos but conflicts between him and his superiors as well as the racism shown by Americans against Filipino soldiers pushed Fagen to finally abandon his group on November 17, 1899.
Fagen proved to be useful for the Philippine army. He was promoted to captain by General Jose Alejandrino and would clash with the American army for at least eight times. His most daring and commendable action was when he bravely led his 150 men to capture and seize cargo of guns from an American steam launch on Rio de Grande de la Pampanga River.
After General Alejandrino surrendered to the American army in 1901, Fagen escaped to the mountains of Nueva Ecija together with his Filipina wife and another Filipino soldier.
A man named Anastacio Bartolome would later appear on December 5, 1901 with a sack containing a decomposed head allegedly of Fagen. However, this discovery has been heavily contested and there was no record proving Bartolome received his reward.

3. In 1965, a nuclear bomb fell into the Philippine sea. It’s still missing.

The American Mark-43 nuclear bomb. Source: US Department of Defense.

On December 5, 1965, a month after the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga‘s departure from a U.S. naval base in Subic Bay, a Broken Arrow incident (i.e. an accident involving a nuclear weapon) occurred.
The attack jet United States Navy Douglas A-4E Skyhawk, manned by American pilot Lieutenant Douglas M. Webster, accidentally fell off the carrier while being rolled from the level 2 hangar to the level 2 elevator. Unfortunately, the Skyhawk was carrying a nuclear weapon at that time, specifically the Mk. 43 free-fall bomb which contains at least a megaton’s worth of nuclear explosive. The accident happened just 80 miles from Okinawa. The pilot as well as the aircraft and the nuclear bomb were never recovered, and it’s not until the 1980s that the Pentagon revealed the loss of such weapon.

4. A Ferdinand Marcos look-alike doubled for the late president during many occasions.

Jesus Quevenco (left) with President Ferdinand Marcos

Jesus Quevenco, a native of Negros, first met Ferdinand Marcos when his friend, Silay Mayor Romulo Golez, accompanied him to the late dictator’s house in the 1960s. During that time, then Senator Marcos just made his bid for the presidency.
While he was waiting at the living room, Quevenco met NP delegates from Mindanao who would later shake his hands, thinking that he was the real Marcos. It was the start of Quevenco’s part-time job as a Marcos double. He would take the place of Ferdinand to meet with people, accompany the First Lady Imelda Marcos, and attend events in times when the late president was either too busy or tired.
For his efforts, Quevenco was offered a position in the government which he then refused. But desperate to get him back as a Marcos double, Imelda Marcos offered a government position once again, this time to Quevenco’s wife, Thelma, who would become a GSIS employee and later, operations manager of the Ministry of Human Settlements in Western Visayas.
Eventually, Marcos’ popularity decreased in the 1970s and poor Quevenco was chased twice by an angry mob who thought he was the dictator. Afraid of his life, Quevenco left Manila with his wife and promised to never go back again.
The Marcos look-alike outlived the original by 25 years. Quevenco died of pneumonia at a Bacolod City hospital at the age of 90.

5. A statue in Pampanga was built to honor the first Japanese kamikaze pilots of World War II.

Source: wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu

The life-size statue, cast and paid for in Japan, was erected at Mabalacat next to the former Clark Air Base. It shows Lt Yukio Seki, considered as the world’s first official human bomb who led the first kamikaze raid in October 1944. The fiberglass statue represents thousands of Japanese suicide pilots who damaged or sunk Allied ships from October 1944 to August 1945.
Every October, hundreds of Japanese tourists , students, war veterans, and even Buddhist monks visit the place to offer prayers, flowers, and incense to all the suicide pilots who perished during the war.
Although it faced a lot of protests from comfort women and other victims of Japanese brutalities, the life-size statue has helped boost Mabalacat’s tourism industry.

6. University of Santo Tomas was established before calculus was invented.

We all know UST is old but only few realize just how ‘old’ it is. Established on April 28, 1611 by Manila’s third Archbishop, Msgr. Miguel de Benavides, O.P., the University of Santo Tomas predates America’s Harvard University and even the calculus. In fact, both Harvard and UST were not teaching calculus during their first few years because calculus at that time wasn’t invented yet.
Calculus was first introduced in 1684 through Gottfried Leibniz’s “Nova Methodus” followed by Isaac Newton’s “Principia” in 1687. Harvard University, on the other hand, was established in 1636, exactly nine years before UST was elevated from college to the rank of university by Pope Innocent X .


Source: http://www.filipiknow.net/surprising-trivia-from-philippine-history/