History
Discover facts about history. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
History
An Ottoman traveler reported vampires fighting witches
Evliya Çelebi’s travelogue could move from useful observations about the Ottoman Empire to Russian vampires battling Circassian witches with uprooted trees.…
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The Viking map that fooled Yale
The Vinland Map appeared to show Viking knowledge of North America on medieval parchment. But its ink contained titanium dioxide in a form associated with…
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One prison survivor's account became an imperial rallying cry
John Holwell claimed that 123 of 146 prisoners died in the 1756 Black Hole of Calcutta. His account became central to British retellings, although historians…
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The famous helmet rebuilt from hundreds of rusty fragments
The collapsed burial chamber crushed the Sutton Hoo helmet into hundreds of rusty fragments. Conservators assembled them over a custom-made mold, turning a…
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The impostor who lived Martin Guerre's life for three years
Arnaud convinced Martin Guerre’s wife and lived on the family estate for three years, nearly inheriting it. Then the real Martin limped into court during the…
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Why Louis XIV's court turned to arsenic
French nobles sought arsenic “inheritance powders” to hasten the transfer of family fortunes, buying them from fortune-tellers during the Affair of the…
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James Barry rose through an army that barred women from medicine
Barry practiced as a man, became a senior British Army medical officer, and performed a cesarean in which mother and child survived. After his death, an…
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The father of Alexandre Dumas rose from slavery to general
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was born into slavery in Saint-Domingue and later rose through the French Revolutionary army. His military career ended in hardship,…
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Coade stone was fired like pottery, not quarried like rock
Eleanor Coade's business produced durable architectural ornaments from a ceramic material shaped in molds and fired in a kiln. That made intricate figures and…
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Richelieu survived a celebration of his downfall
At the Day of the Dupes in 1630, Richelieu’s enemies thought the king had finally dismissed him. Louis XIII instead backed his minister the next day, turning…
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The longest Etruscan text became mummy bandages
A linen text in Etruscan was cut into strips and reused to wrap an Egyptian mummy, now kept in Zagreb. That unlikely recycling preserved the longest surviving…
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The woman who fought a siege and ordered almonds
Even with attackers at the manor, Margaret Paston still had estates to manage and a household to run. Her letters move from siege ladders to requests for…
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A miller imagined creation as cheese filling with worms
Menocchio, a sixteenth-century Italian miller, described a cosmos in which matter formed a mass like cheese and beings emerged like worms. His ideas reached…
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The Russian whistleblower who became an anatomy prop
Grigori Kotoshikhin defected to Sweden and wrote an account of corruption in the Russian state. After he murdered his landlord, he was executed; a Swedish…
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The opera singer who stabbed three noblemen
At a royal ball, 17th-century opera singer and swordswoman Julie d’Aubigny kissed a young woman. When three noblemen challenged her to a duel, she fought and…
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The crusade that never reached the Holy Land
When the crusaders couldn’t pay Venice for the fleet, they accepted a detour to Zara and were later drawn into a struggle over the Byzantine throne. In 1204,…
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The ancient disk we still can't read
The Phaistos Disc, found on Crete and dated to around 1700 BC, bears spiral-stamped symbols that match no known language. Because the symbols were pressed…
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The French spy who lived as both a man and a woman
After d’Éon threatened to expose secret French invasion plans, the government officially declared them a woman and paid for a new wardrobe in exchange for…
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Aladdin's famous story came from a storyteller with a name
Hanna Diyab, a traveler from Aleppo, told Antoine Galland the tale in Paris in 1709. Galland then included it in his French collection of the Arabian Nights.…
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The widow who bought a fleet for revenge
After her husband was executed for treason, Jeanne de Clisson sold her estates and bought warships. For the next decade, she attacked French vessels in the…
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Babylon's ancient map put Babylon at the center
The 6th-century BC Imago Mundi surrounded Babylon with rival lands and placed mythical creatures beyond the ocean. It put the familiar world on the map and…
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The monster that reads villagers’ gossip aloud
Each year, a villager in a furry costume represents the Badalisc, a mythical creature with a huge mouth. The village parades the monster, then hears a rhyming…
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Istanbul's great observatory lasted only a few years
Taqi al-Din's observatory was completed in the 1570s and demolished on the sultan's orders in 1580. Court politics and opposition to the institution helped…
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The pirate queen made a sultan come to her
Sayyida al-Hurra governed the Moroccan port of Tetouan and directed privateering against Iberian shipping. When she married Sultan Ahmed al-Wattasi in 1541,…
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