10 Historical Facts You Should Know (But Probably Don’t)

9. Saint Nicholas Beat Someone Up Over The Sign Of The Cross

Yes that one, Santa himself. Good ol’ (not so jolly) Nick was invited to the council of Nicaea or so the long lists of attendees say, the shorter ones leave him off, dubious? Maybe. Someone is lying. It’s religion, it’s all like this. Anyway, if (about half of the) sources are to be believed our man Nick attended the ‘Council of Nicaea’ which was called by Constantine, the Emperor of Rome – you may have heard of him due to the name of some city always changing.

Why was the Council called? Because someone (the Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt) said that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were three separate things and this caused all sorts of problems. For some reason. People started agreeing with him and that’s when it really started kicking off. Constantine soon realised religion was quite a complicated matter and in a Jerry Springer move, he invited the battling parties to Nicaea to sort things out.

The event went down as you would expect and the two factions turned violent on a number of occasions, firmly believing that what they thought was right, shock I know. This is where Saint Nicholas comes in, he firmly believed that the Trinity as they call it represented one thing and it was his duty to beat the living snot out of those who thought otherwise. His side won but as you would expect, the other side only pretended to see the light and swiftly began preaching their way again.