History
Discover facts about history. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
History
The man who survived an 18,000-foot fall
During a massive mid-air emergency, a man was violently blown out of his bomber aircraft without a parachute from 18,000 feet up. He miraculously crashed…
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How the Zodiac Killer turned newspapers into puzzle boards
The ultimate desperate cry for attention mixed with horrific violence. This shadowy figure forced entire pressrooms to publish complicated puzzles,…
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When underground trains were a luxury
Plunging deep underground in a soot-filled metal tube with barely any internal lighting was somehow considered the absolute pinnacle of modern luxury.
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When hairstyles needed their own scaffolding
What started as a simple ribbon to tie back hair escalated into a wire-supported lace monstrosity that mercilessly scraped the ceilings of every carriage.
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First electric generators used rotating copper disks
Harnessing the immense power of electricity started with a rudimentary metal frisbee. The first device to generate continuous electric current simply…
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Go originated as a strategy game in ancient China
Ancient Chinese scholars realized arguing was exhausting, so they abstracted their frustrations into placing little black and white stones on a wooden grid.…
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Fritos began in a janitor's kitchen
Talk about a massive career pivot. A janitor noticed that fried corn snacks were a massive hit and bought the recipe from a café owner for a hundred bucks. He…
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A bagpiper marched into the Normandy landings
In the chaos of war, the most terrifying sound isn't artillery; it's a guy in a kilt aggressively squeezing a sack of air. During WWII, notable soldiers like…
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Antarctica was officially sighted in 1820
It took until the nineteenth century for humanity to definitively notice an entire frozen continent covering the bottom of the globe. Explorers finally bumped…
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Chinese porcelain was fired in massive dragon kilns
Instead of building normal, reasonable ovens, artisans constructed massive climbing kilns draped over hillsides to perfectly capture rising heat. These…
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Robert Boyle thought skull powder could stop nosebleeds
Robert Boyle is known as the first modern chemist, but his personal medical remedies were completely terrifying. He was convinced that the most effective way…
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Wu Zetian was China's only officially recognized empress
Breaking the glass ceiling is impressive, but systematically usurping the Tang Dynasty is legendary. Wu Zetian started as a low-ranking concubine and…
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Massive asteroid strike triggered global dinosaur extinction
An asteroid the size of a city slammed into the modern-day Yucatan Peninsula, instantly ending millions of years of reptilian dominance. The resulting ash…
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The Aztec racks built from human skulls
The tzompantli was essentially ancient propaganda built from human remains. Aztecs displayed the heavily pierced skulls of sacrificed captives on gigantic…
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Francis Bacon died testing whether snow could preserve a chicken
The father of the scientific method died trying to invent frozen food. He spent a freezing afternoon stuffing snow into a dead chicken to see if it preserved…
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When kings exchanged hostages for peace
Pinky promises meant nothing in medieval diplomacy, so kings relied on human collateral. To ensure a peace treaty actually held up for more than ten minutes,…
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When sports fans threatened the Roman Empire
Imagine if sports hooligans could genuinely threaten the stability of the entire government. In the Eastern Roman Empire, the Blues and the Greens were…
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The ancient Greek steam engine used as a novelty
The industrial revolution was delayed by about 2,000 years purely because of a lack of imagination. In the 1st century AD, Hero of Alexandria invented the…
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When Romans flooded the Colosseum for naval battles
Imagine having the budget to casually flood a sports stadium for a mock battle. The Romans would actively pipe thousands of gallons of water into the…
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The clocks that changed speed with the seasons
Because standardizing time is utterly boring, local clocks dynamically altered their speed depending on the season so that daytime always had exactly six…
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Pascal wore a spiked belt to punish pleasure
Blaise Pascal laid the groundwork for modern probability theory, but he was also deeply, terrifyingly religious. Believing that earthly pleasure was a sinful…
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Because hitting a divine prince was treason, courts hired a proxy child to get absolutely beaten whenever the prince misbehaved. Talk about a toxic internship.
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Voyager carries a map pointing aliens to Earth
In a stunning display of unwarranted cosmic trust, scientists attached a pulsar map to the Voyager probe showing exactly where Earth is located. Should a…
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Why the groom used to throw lingerie out the door
To stop invasive attendees from following the couple into the bedroom for proof of consummation, the groom would angrily throw a piece of lingerie out the…
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