History — Page 5
Surprising historical events
152 facts
The city of Troy, which was thought to be merely a Homeric legend, was discovered in the nineteenth century by archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann.
Schliemann followed the geographical descriptions of the Iliad and excavated at Hisarlik in present-day Turkey…
Lady Jane Grey ruled England for only nine days in 1553.
Known as the Nine Days' Queen, she was placed on the throne by Protestant conspirators but was quickly deposed by…
Ancient Egyptians used a toothpaste made from crushed rock salt, mint, and dried iris flowers.
This primitive mixture served to clean teeth and freshen breath, demonstrating that oral hygiene was a concern even…
In the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, winners received silver medals.
In that edition held in Athens, gold was not yet the standard for first place, with a silver medal awarded to the…
Ancient Romans used crushed mouse brains as a form of toothpaste.
It was believed that this strange mixture helped relieve toothache and whiten teeth, reflecting the sometimes bizarre…
The first oranges cultivated in history were actually green, not orange.
The orange color of the fruit is due to a pigment that only develops in cooler climates. In the tropics, where…
The ancient Olympic Games were held in honor of Zeus.
These games, held in the city of Olympia in ancient Greece, were a religious and athletic festival dedicated to the…
The Library of Alexandria was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world.
Founded in the third century BC in Egypt, it was a center of knowledge that gathered the greatest intellectuals of…
The first commercial flight took place in nineteen fourteen in Florida.
This historic flight, operated by the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line, carried a single passenger across Tampa Bay…
The first successful heart transplant was performed in nineteen sixty-seven by Christiaan Barnard.
This historic surgery took place in Cape Town, South Africa, and the patient, Louis Washkansky, lived for eighteen…
The ancient city of Petra in Jordan was carved directly into vibrant red sandstone cliffs.
Known as the "Rose City", Petra was the capital of the Nabataean kingdom and is famous for its rock-cut temple and…
Pope Urban VII reigned for only 13 days in 1590.
Elected in September 1590, he died of malaria before he could be crowned.
Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.
Teaching at Oxford began around the year ten ninety-six, while the Aztec Empire was officially founded with the…
The University of Al Quaraouiyine in Morocco is the oldest existing, continually operating higher educational institution in the world.
Founded in 859 AD by Fatima al-Fihri, this university in Fez is recognized by UNESCO and Guinness World Records as…
The Great Fire of London in 1666 helped stop the Great Plague of London.
The extreme flames destroyed most of the wooden houses and open sewers where rats and plague-carrying fleas thrived…
The first vending machine in the world was invented to dispense holy water.
In the first century, Greek engineer Hero of Alexandria created a device where people inserted a bronze coin. The…
The first computer programmer in history was a woman in the 19th century.
Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine, Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, in…
Cleopatra lived closer in time to the invention of the iPhone than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The Great Pyramid was built around 2560 BC. Cleopatra lived between 69 and 30 BC, about 2,500 years later. The first…
The oldest known writing comes from Mesopotamia and is five thousand years old.
The Sumerians developed cuneiform writing around 3400 BC to record commercial transactions and administer cities.
The British Empire was the largest empire in history.
At its peak in 1920, it controlled about a quarter of the Earth's surface and world population.
The Great Wall of China is not a continuous structure.
It is actually a network of walls, trenches, and natural barriers built over several centuries by different…
Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel.
In 1952, the Israeli government invited the physicist to assume the country's presidency, but he politely declined…
The first person killed by a robot was in 1979.
Robert Williams, a Ford factory worker, was struck by a one-ton robotic arm in a Michigan plant, becoming the first…
The first photograph in history took eight hours to take.
In 1826, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce used a camera obscura and a pewter plate coated with bitumen, requiring a prolonged…
