History
Discover facts about history. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
History
Why some Civil War wounds glowed in the dark
When you're bleeding out in a trench, turning into a glow-stick is probably the last thing you want. At the Battle of Shiloh, soldiers lying in the freezing…
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The painter who outlived repeated plagues
Survival in Renaissance Venice was basically a highly lethal lottery, but Titian completely refused to lose. While his contemporaries dropped dead from…
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Why families watched the dead before burial
A 'wake' originated from the very literal fear of burying a sleeping person. Relatives would keep a constant, paranoid vigil over a corpse for several days in…
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The king who barely spoke English
Managing an entire empire is surprisingly relaxed when you literally cannot understand a word your parliament is screaming at you. Brought over from Hanover…
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First radio broadcasts transmitted simple Morse code
Before we had the privilege of enduring infinite commercial breaks, radio was just invisible tapping. The first wireless transmissions couldn't carry human…
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India's Kumbhalgarh has a 20-mile fortress wall
When you have a highly strategic fort, putting a small fence around it just simply doesn't send the right message. The massive stone barrier surrounding…
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The first commercial flight had just one passenger
He paid an absolute fortune just to sit uncomfortably on a wicker chair in a tiny seaplane for twenty minutes, mostly out of sheer spite for taking a boat.
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Mineral additives in tap water drastically reduced cavities
After noticing towns with naturally high levels of certain minerals had incredibly healthy teeth, officials began intentionally dosing public water supplies.…
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Scorched earth tactics meant intentionally burning supplies
The absolute pinnacle of strategic denial is setting your own house on fire so the burglar can't steal the TV. Retreating armies would deliberately burn down…
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How shipbuilding stripped Europe's forests
Constructing vast merchant fleets required an unfathomable amount of high-quality timber. States relentlessly clear-cut their own ancient woodlands just to…
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The painter who lived on glue-boiled eggs
Eccentricity is a requirement for Renaissance painters, but di Cosimo took it strictly to the culinary level. He utterly despised the distraction of cooking…
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Tabla players memorize complex rhythmic cycles
Because tapping your foot to a simple beat is for amateurs. Indian percussionists commit to learning dizzying mathematical sequences by reciting spoken…
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Mayan traditional weaving encodes village identities
Asking someone where they are from is completely unnecessary if you just aggressively analyze their shirt. Using a backstrap loom, weavers create complex,…
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Why armies targeted battlefield drummers
Standing in a massive field during a heavy artillery barrage with only a snare drum requires a severe lack of self-preservation. Because radios didn't exist,…
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Treaty of Versailles forced one nation to take all war guilt
When a massively complex web of alliances dragged the entire globe into a catastrophic war, the victorious powers looked around and legally decided it was…
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Why the Flying Dutchman must sail forever
Nautical traffic laws are notoriously harsh in folklore. Because a highly arrogant captain swore he would round a cape despite an apocalyptic storm, he was…
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Why Victorians hung bread from the ceiling
Nineteenth-century folks genuinely thought baking dough on a specific religious holiday gave it magical preservative properties. They would bake a small loaf…
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Ancient ice cream was made with snow
Because satisfying a sweet tooth historically required intense mountaineering. They mixed buffalo milk and rice into heavily packed snow to create a primitive…
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Watermelons used to be mostly white rind
Renaissance paintings of watermelons look like a tragic mistake. Before generations of selective breeding, they were pale, mostly made of hard white rind, and…
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Dead letter offices piled up thousands of undelivered notes
When sloppy handwriting meets infinite patience, you get massive government hoarding. Entire massive departments were entirely dedicated to deciphering…
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How engineers slid huge stones across ice
When tasked with transporting single megaliths weighing hundreds of tons directly into an imperial complex, engineers decided wheels were entirely useless.…
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Why Ottoman princes lived in luxurious cages
Family reunions are tough, but they are infinitely worse when your brother is the Sultan. To avoid civil wars, Ottoman rulers stopped executing their siblings…
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Thomas Hobbes was terrified of the dark
The man who theorized that the natural state of human life is 'nasty, brutish, and short' was severely terrified of the dark. Despite his grim, rational…
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These gift knots can say what words can't
Using tape to seal an envelope is completely soulless. Mizuhiki involves taking stiff, wildly colorful paper cords and weaving them into terrifyingly complex,…
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