All facts — Page 2

The word 'avocado' comes from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs.

The Aztecs called the fruit 'āhuacatl'. The Spanish adapted it as 'aguacate', which gave rise to 'avocado' and…

Nachos were invented in 1943 by a Mexican maître d' called Ignacio 'Nacho' Anaya.

In Piedras Negras, on the border with Texas, a group of American army wives arrived after the kitchen had closed…

Brazil nuts are among the most radioactive foods there are, because of the radium they absorb from the soil.

The deep roots of the Brazil nut tree pick up radium from Amazonian soil, and the nuts can contain up to a thousand…

In the original sushi, the rice was only used to ferment the fish and was thrown away.

'Narezushi' was salted fish packed in cooked rice for months: fermentation preserved it. Only in the Edo period did…

Black peppercorns were found in the nostrils of the mummy of the pharaoh Ramesses II.

Ramesses II died in 1213 BC and the embalmers used peppercorns to help keep the shape of his nose. Black pepper only…

German chocolate cake is not German: it is named after an American called Samuel German.

In 1852 Samuel German developed a sweet baking chocolate for the Baker's company, sold as 'German's Sweet Chocolate'…

Cornflakes were created at a sanatorium as part of a health diet.

At the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, the brothers John Harvey and Will Keith Kellogg accidentally left cooked…

The pepper mash for Tabasco sauce is aged for up to three years in oak barrels.

On Avery Island, Louisiana, the peppers are mashed with salt on the day they are picked and stored in white oak…

The Romans sweetened wine with a syrup boiled in lead pots, which contained lead acetate.

Grape juice was boiled slowly until it thickened into a syrup called 'sapa' or 'defrutum'. The lead in the pots…

In 1582, when the Gregorian calendar was adopted, 4 October was followed directly by 15 October.

The Julian calendar had drifted ten days behind the seasons. Pope Gregory XIII ordered them removed, and Portugal…

The recipe for Greek fire, the incendiary weapon of the Byzantine Empire, was lost and remains unknown.

Used from the 7th century, Greek fire was sprayed through tubes at enemy ships and kept burning on water. The secret…

The Rosetta Stone carries the same decree written in hieroglyphs, Demotic and ancient Greek.

The text is a decree from 196 BC honouring the pharaoh Ptolemy V. Because Greek could be read, the stone became the…

Tutankhamun was buried with a dagger made of meteoritic iron.

A 2016 analysis found about 11% nickel and traces of cobalt in the blade, a composition typical of iron meteorites…

The Leaning Tower of Pisa began to lean while it was still being built, on its first floors.

In 1178 the soft clay and sand underneath gave way on one side. Work stopped for almost a hundred years, and later…

Louis XIV reigned over France for 72 years, the longest reign in European history.

The 'Sun King' came to the throne in 1643, aged just four, and reigned until his death in 1715. He outlived his son…

The 1918 'Spanish flu' did not start in Spain.

During the First World War, the countries at war censored news about the disease. Spain was neutral and its press…

The Incas had no writing, but they recorded numbers and information with knots on cords called quipus.

A quipu had a main cord with dozens or hundreds of strings hanging from it. The type and position of each knot showed…

Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day: 12 February 1809.

Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England, into a wealthy family; Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky. One…

According to Herodotus, the Persian king Xerxes had the sea whipped 300 times after a storm destroyed his bridges.

In 480 BC, Xerxes had bridges of boats built across the Hellespont strait to invade Greece. When a storm broke them…

A Roman vomitorium was not a room for vomiting, but a passageway for crowds leaving the amphitheatre.

The word comes from the Latin 'vomere', 'to spew out', because these passages poured thousands of people onto the…

Senet, played in ancient Egypt more than 5,000 years ago, is one of the oldest known board games.

The board had 30 squares in three rows of ten, and pieces moved forward when sticks or knucklebones were thrown. Over…

Ulaanbaatar, in Mongolia, is the coldest national capital in the world.

It sits about 1,350 metres above sea level, far from the sea and exposed to Siberian air. The average yearly…

Bhutan absorbs more carbon dioxide than it emits, and its Constitution requires 60% of the country to stay forested.

Forests now cover about 70% of the territory. Almost all its electricity comes from hydropower, much of which is sold…

Only two countries are doubly landlocked, surrounded solely by countries that also have no coast: Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan.

Liechtenstein borders Switzerland and Austria, while Uzbekistan borders Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan…