History
Discover facts about history. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
History
Spain’s king needed a nudge to stand for the anthem
King Alfonso XIII of Spain suffered from such extreme amusia that he genuinely couldn't recognize the melody of his own national anthem. He actually had to…
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The disease that could kill within hours of sweating
Surviving the sixteenth century was hard enough without rapidly fatal perspiration. Multiple terrifying outbreaks of a completely unidentified disease swept…
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Kabuki makeup turns character traits into color-coded lines
Subtlety is wildly overrated in traditional Kabuki. Performers paint their faces with a style called Kumadori, which relies on starkly colored lines to…
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First electromagnets lifted thousands of iron pounds
Engineers quickly realized that wrapping some copper wire around a piece of iron was essentially a superpower. The earliest electromagnets escalated rapidly…
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Bowing to altars was mandated over simple nods
A casual head tilt was deemed entirely insufficient; society required a full, deeply exaggerated bend at the waist to properly acknowledge sacred spaces…
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Aztecs believed blood kept the sun moving
Imagine the pressure of keeping the solar system functioning through sheer violence. The Aztecs firmly believed that the sun god was locked in a constant,…
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The Incas poured beer onto the ground
Pachamama, the revered earth mother, apparently had quite a tolerance. During agricultural festivals, the Incas would brew massive vats of fermented corn…
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When cacao beans were used as money
Imagine living in a glorious society where money literally grows on trees and tastes amazing when you melt it down. The Mayans valued the rare cacao bean so…
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Shoe stores once X-rayed your feet
During the early twentieth century, shoe fitting fluoroscopes were all the rage. Salesmen would blast your feet with completely unregulated X-rays just to…
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Baseball was once mocked as childish
Before it became America's sacred pastime, it was heavily viewed as the equivalent of playing video games in your mother's basement. In the mid-1800s,…
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The elephant executed by a Tennessee town
Leave it to early 20th-century humanity to apply the criminal justice system to a five-ton mammal. After a captive elephant named Mary killed her abusive…
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Thermometers originally used water instead of mercury
Early temperature reading was an incredibly flawed science. The first models used trapped water in glass tubes, which was entirely useless because water…
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Doctors once prescribed sun-dried dog poop
The medical term was 'Album graecum', which is just a fancy way of saying sun-dried white dog poop. They mixed it with honey and forced patients to swallow it…
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Ancient warriors wore armor made of stone
When typical protective gear doesn't feel dense enough, the only logical step is dressing entirely in rocks. Excavations have revealed overlapping sets of…
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JFK bought 1,200 Cuban cigars before the embargo
Geopolitics is mostly just hypocrisy with a better PR team. Knowing he was about to sign a devastating trade embargo that would cut off all Cuban imports to…
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Tang dynasty forced neighboring rulers to bring lavish gifts
Diplomacy was incredibly straightforward when you considered yourself the absolute center of the universe. The Chinese tributary system required foreign kings…
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Monet redirected a river for his lily pond
When you are a visionary impressionist, trivial things like local ecosystems simply do not apply to you. Claude Monet aggressively lobbied the local…
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Michelangelo launched his career with a fake Cupid
Because faking it until you make it is a Renaissance tradition. Before he was a legendary master, a young Michelangelo sculpted a sleeping Cupid, buried it in…
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A fly may have inspired Cartesian coordinates
The foundation of modern graphing geometry was literally born out of lazy, staring-at-the-ceiling boredom. Descartes, who famously refused to get out of bed…
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Did a banquet kill astronomer Tycho Brahe
Politeness literally killed one of the greatest astronomers of the 16th century. Tycho Brahe, a man who famously lost his nose in a mathematical duel and wore…
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The Louvre started as a fortress
Before it was the elegant home to the Mona Lisa and hordes of camera-wielding tourists, the Louvre was built to keep people out, not invite them in.…
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Universities once brewed beer for students
Water quality in the past was a fantastic excuse to stay constantly buzzed. Academic institutions actually operated their own massive brewing facilities,…
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Why ancient Egyptians slept on stone headrests
Nothing ensures a good night's sleep quite like resting your fragile skull on a literal boulder. Wealthy Egyptians used rigid headrests carved from stone or…
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Early coffee drinkers made caffeinated fat balls
Before complicated espresso machines, ancient baristas used a much meatier brewing method. The earliest recorded consumers of coffee in East Africa didn't…
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