History

The Venetians didn’t invent Venetian blinds despite its name. It was British designer, Edward Beran, who, in 1769, enclosed adjustable wooden slats into a frame in order to regulate the amount of light coming into a room. They became known as Venetian blinds as a marketing ploy because Italian furnishings were considered very sophisticated in … Read more

Caribbean natives invented hammocks. Columbus saw them lounging around in hammocks on his first trip to the New World. The name comes from the hamack tree, the bark of which was woven to make the comfy portable beds.

Dr. Lillian Gilbreth invented the pedal trash and the electric mixer. She was a pioneering efficiency expert and, incidentally, was also the mother in the book Cheaper by the Dozen, written by two of her 12 children.

Alexander Graham Bell wasn’t deaf, but his mother was. Also, his father and grandfather were both speech experts. It was his work with electronically transmitted vowel sounds for the hearing-impaired that ultimately led to the invention of the telephone. Ironically, he considered the phone a mere trifle and expected that posterity would remember him for … Read more

Alexander Graham Bell certainly invented other things besides the telephone. He was the inventor of the hydrofoil boat, a man-carrying kite, the aileron, a moveable part of an airplane wing that helps control rolling, and the landing/take-off airplane tricycle gear. He was also a cofounder of the National Geographic Society. Bell also inadvertently invented a … Read more

Philo T. Farnsworth didn’t do much before inventing the television. When Farnsworth sketched his idea for a television for the first time in 1922, it was for a science project, and it was drawn on a high school blackboard in Utah. At the time, he was a 14-year-old farm boy, yet to discover college and … Read more

Alexander Graham Bell was from Boston Massachusetts, sort of. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, but immigrated to the U.S. in 1871, spending most of his work time in Boston. But he spent his summers at Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada, where he had a summer home.

Thomas Edison wasn’t attempting an experiment as a child when he burned his father’s barn down. He was merely attempting to start a fire, apparently. Al, as he was called throughout his childhood, claimed he started it deliberately, “just to see what it would do.” Good kid, that Al, but keep an eye on him.

He certainly did understand the dangers of electricity when he conducted the kite and key experiment. As a matter of fact, in another of his experiments, he once knocked himself temporarily senseless. At the time, he was trying to electrocute a turkey and nearly killed two birds with one thunderbolt. Here’s part of his account … Read more

It was actually Henry Ford II, the grandson of the famous Henry Ford, who named the Edsel after his dad. The name Edsel is a Germanic derivation of the name Atilla, but it’s unlikely that Ford executives meant to honor the ruthless Hun when they named it. When Edsel Ford died in 1943, he willed … Read more

Rudolf Diesel invented the diesel engine. He’s not actually in the fuel, mind you, except in spirit. The German inventor developed the diesel engine back in 1890. The diesel engine has the highest thermal efficiency of any regular internal or external combustion engine due to its very high compression ratio. Manufactured in two stroke and … Read more

Ferdinand Porsche, the designer of the speedy roadster, also designed the Bug for the government-owned Volkswagen car company. Adolf Hitler financed it. The Volkswagen Type 1 was produced by the German car company Volkswagen (VW) from 1938 until 2003, marking an unprecedented 58-year production run. The last car built on 30 July 2003 was immediately … Read more

Would you believe Henry Ford grew dope? In his experimental gardens, Ford grew marijuana in the hopes of figuring out a way to make plastic from it. Apparently nothing, aside from a distinct feeling of relaxation, came of this youthful experimentation. And strangely, there’s nothing that mentions these efforts at the Ford history museum.

Would you believe Taco Bell was named after a guy named Glen Bell? The “Bell” in Taco Bell is the founder’s last name. The whole mission bell motif was a fortunate by-product, especially considering that the restaurant’s original logo was a Mexican taking a siesta under a sombrero.

Henry Ford was a renowned anti-Semite who was highly regarded by Hitler and the Nazis, not only for his car-making abilities but for his politics as well. You don’t see much of this side of Ford early on, when he paid high wages and provided fair working conditions for blacks and other minorities. Granted, he … Read more

The Chinese wrote the first encyclopedia in about 220 A.D. It was called The Emperor’s Mirror, and included historical texts, biographies, and literary anthologies. No copies survived. The next known extensive encyclopedic work came from Spain and was titled Etymologiae. Saint Isidore of Seville is credited with writing it sometime between the sixth and seventh … Read more

Egyptian shepherds made sunscreen from crushed castor beans in 780013.c. Today, the main ingredients in sunscreens are usually aromatic molecules conjugated with carbonyl groups whichabsorb high-energy ultraviolet rays. Sunscreens also block UV-B rays, and if used often enough, this can cause a deficiency of vitamin D. Get some sun, but not too much, is the … Read more

The $15 million paid back then for Louisiana is the equivalent of just under $171 million dollars in today’s money—a steal even now. In 1803, the U.S. got Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mississippi River, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, Nebraska, nearly all of Kansas, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of … Read more

The ancient Egyptians were the first to invent anesthetics, sort of. Before surgery, ancient Egyptian doctors put their patients under by hitting them on the head with a wooden hammer. Surprisingly, none were sued, despite this mallet-practice.

Maybe Chihuahuas were bred as hand warmers. The forebears of Chihuahuas were first developed by the Toltecs, a wandering Central American tribe. When the Aztecs conquered the Toltecs, they also won the Toltec dog, which they crossbred with other small dogs to get even smaller dogs (in fact, the Chihuahua is the world’s smallest dog). … Read more

The Chinese were the first to use toilet paper by recycling paper that had already been used for other purposes. How do we know this? Because a court official wrote in 589 A.D. that he was careful not to use documents with “quotations from the great writers.” Before that? Well, there were leaves, rocks, or … Read more

More than a century ago, the price of Manhattan was estimated to be about $24, but based on the recent price of silver, it would be more like $100 in today’s money. Still, it’s not surprising that we expect that somebody must have gotten ripped off—probably the Indians, considering the price. That expectation is no … Read more

Libraries came first before books according to recent ancient Egyptian archaeological finds. Early Egyptian libraries lent out literature that came pressed and fired into clay tablets. It took a while for ancient civilizations to discover and invent paper.

The holiday of Thanksgiving became all the rage during 19th century America-certainly more popular and more practiced than ever before or since. During this time, artists began to render their interpretations of what these first colonists might have looked like: old fashioned, prim, and sternly proper. Before anyone knew it, a completely false image had … Read more

British started shipping their worst criminals to Australia because America won the Revolution. After 1780, the British could no longer use their penal colonies in Maryland, Georgia, and Virginia and had to find another place. Sending criminals far away from home was an extreme punishment only reserved for the worst offenders, but it meant avoiding … Read more

It took the Mayflower 66 days to get from England to Cape Cod, New England. That meant the boat was traveling at about two miles per hour throughout the trip, which isn’t too bad considering the strong Gulf Stream and the stormy weather during the September/October season. One hundred years later, the fastest clippers were … Read more

The Mayflower was appraised for one hundred twenty-eight English pounds and 12 shillings at the end of her sailing years.

Actually, their portrayal as fashion victims is a terrible injustice that’s been done to the poor Pilgrims. It’s all a lie: They never wore clothes like that. In reality, the Pilgrims dressed as others of the day dressed, in various colors of clothing that would never have stood out on the streets of England.

Although there was no livestock on board the Mayflower voyage in 1620, there probably was the usual cat or two to keep the rat populations in check. We also know that at least two passengers brought pet dogs, a mastiff and a spaniel used to hunt during the first winter months in America. Most historians … Read more

John Smith of Pocahontas fame was supposed to lead the way to Plymouth in America, but the Pilgrims couldn’t afford his fees. Instead, they bought a book from him that included a map of the new region. So they went without the hired help of a captain. But this was a technicality. The ship’s master, … Read more

You would think the Mayflower was a small rickety ship by reading the Pilgrims’ accounts of the voyage. However, they weren’t familiar with the nautical life, so they were not accustomed to the hardships. Thinking their lives were always in constant danger, their journals reflect a much more harrowing journey than it probably seemed to … Read more

No, the Mayflower was not built especially for the famous Pilgrim voyage to America. Ships made just for carrying passengers weren’t in existence at the time. Records are sketchy, but the ship that most likely carried the Pilgrims was built around 1606 as a merchant ship that carried goods around the main ports of Europe. … Read more

The Pilgrims had a corporate sponsor for their voyage to America. After King James I refused to give the Pilgrims a charter to start a colony, the London Virginia Company, a group of merchants with financial interest in the American colonies, was more than happy to help the Pilgrims make their journey and set up … Read more

Theoretically, Pocahontas would have been 12 when she saved John Smith’s life. However, it’s somewhat questionable that the incident ever took place. In an earlier book, John Smith never mentioned the incident. It was only after Pocahontas gained fame and adoration in England as an Indian “princess” that Smith suddenly began telling the story about … Read more

The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony lived in Holland for years to escape English religious persecution. They only returned to Southampton, England, to find ships to take them across to America. Two ships were hired, the Mayflower and the Speedwell, but the Speedwell had numerous problems almost from the moment they departed. They stopped off in … Read more

It was discovered years later that a group of Native Americans calling themselves Croatans inhabited the hills of North Carolina and still do to this day. Some of these tribesmen, although very much of Native American culture, bore English names; offering, perhaps, the answer to the eventual fate of the Roanoke colonists. Some historians believe … Read more

Pocahontas’s Indian name, Pocahontas, meant playful one. When she was baptized as a Christian, she was given the name Rebecca. And contrary to popular belief, Pocahontas did not marry John Smith, she married John Rolfe.

A year after sailing to London to help raise funds for the English colonists in Virginia, Pocahontas died of smallpox in 1617. Her young son, Thomas, was raised and educated in England, later returning to Virginia to live as an adult.

There are a few speculations on what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke when John White returned from England, based on some scant evidence. Briefly, the group of about a hundred English men, women, and children came to Roanoke under the leadership of a man named John White in 1587, looking to set up … Read more

Estimates of the number of natives in America before the Europeans arrived vary from 8 to 16 million. Fewer than 250,000 Native Americans were in what is now the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.

That first documented European colony in America would have to be the Viking colony, dating from about 1000 A.D. in what is now northern Newfoundland. Excavations at a location called L’Anse aux Meadows bear artifacts from Greenland at around this time period, and ancient manuscripts from Greenland speak of a country full of grapevines that … Read more

On August 18, 1587, just days after the first colonists had arrived in Roanoke, John White’s daughter gave birth to what most consider to be the very first English person born on American soil. They named the baby girl Virginia in honor of the virgin queen of England, Elizabeth I. The colony was named for … Read more

The first czar of Russia Ivan IV Vasilyevich, crowned in 1547 at the age of 17, was called Ivan the Terrible because he really was. His entire rule was tainted with senseless, brutal acts against his countrymen. In his childhood, Ivan IV liked tossing cats and dogs off ramparts just to see what would happen. … Read more

Napoleon Bonaparte was about the same height as the average Frenchman at the time. However, he was shorter than most leaders of his day and certainly shorter than most men today. He stood at five feet, two inches tall. This earned him the nickname Petit Caporal or “the Little Corporal.” Napoleon was one of the … Read more

Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, nicknamed Caligula, was the third Roman emperor after Augustus and Tiberius. His name meant “Little Boots” in Latin. Like so many parents since, his parents thought he looked cute as a child dressed in a soldier’s uniform, and his nickname stuck. His reign was short—only 3 years, 10 months. Following a … Read more

Not true at all. By all accounts, Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine de Beauharnais had a very passionate relationship. Still, there was a painful moment on their wedding night when man’s best friend became anything but. They were in bed making love when suddenly Napolean cried out. Josephine thought he was in the throes of passion, … Read more

No, Attila the Hun died in bed on his wedding night. After a night of passion, he died of a fatal nosebleed. How very tragic and slightly ironic.

Genghis Kahn wins, hands down, with an estimated total of 4,860,000 square miles, capturing the most land in history. That’s twice as much land as conquered by the runner up, Alexander the Great. In contrast, Napoleon Bonaparte conquered 720,000 square miles.

No, Napoleon Bonaparte was not executed after being exiled as leader of France. He tried unsuccessfully to officially step down and have his son put on the throne. But when that idea was rejected, he abdicated voluntarily anyway and was exiled to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean. His wife and only child were … Read more

Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun did not fight each other in this world. Although both were considered ruthless scourges of civilization and so had much in common, they were separated by thousands of miles. That, and more than seven centuries. Attila terrorized Europe in the fifth century; Genghis terrorized China in the 12th and … Read more

In a strange way, you can give backhanded credit to Attila the Hun, back in the fifth century, for discovering Venice. Tired of being raided by his gang of ruffians, the residents of several Italian towns decided to pack up their stuff and relocate to a series of islands just off the coast. They figured, … Read more

According to a physical description the police circulated when he was a known revolutionary troublemaker, Joseph Stalin was only five feet, four inches tall. The notice goes on, painting a less-than attractive picture: Soft voice Birthmark on left ear Sunken, hazel eyes Pockmarked face Withered left arm Second and third toes on left foot grown … Read more

In a fashion, J. Edgar Hoover did fraternize with women. He “kept company” with some women. One was Lela Rogers, actress Ginger Rogers’s mother and an extreme right winger. He also claimed to have had a relationship with Dorothy Lamour. Hoover certainly wanted the public to believe he had relationships with these women. Whether they … Read more

Benito Mussolini was editor of a couple of political newspapers, including one for the Socialist Party, before he became a fascist dictator. When he jumped ship and became a Nationalist, he started a different paper. He then joined the army before rising through the ranks—on his way to becoming Il Duce in 1925 . However, … Read more

Joseph Stalin studied for the priesthood but was expelled from the seminary in 1899 and joined the Communist Party, before becoming a militant dictator .

Iosif Dzhugashvili was Joseph Stalin’s given name. Iosif is “Joseph” in Russian. He was known to his parents, however, as “Soso.” He adopted the name Stalin, meaning “man of steel,” sometime around 1912, right after he was elected to the Communist Party’s Central Committee. Joseph Stalin was a World War II leader and was on … Read more

Yes, Adolf Hitler had five siblings and two half-siblings. Hitler’s father, Alois, had all of his children during his second and third marriages. The Hitler children were, in order, Alois Jr. and Angela by Alois’s second wife; and Gustav, Ida, Otto, Edmund, Adolf, and Paula by his third wife. Of the eight kids, only Adolf, … Read more

When Adolf Hitler’s half sister, Angela, moved in and became his housekeeper, her daughter Geli was about 16. Hitler in many respects adopted Geli. He took her places, both educational and recreational, and he paid for her formal schooling. During this time, he also apparently fell in love with his teenage niece and refused to … Read more

Most would say General George Patton was eccentric, maybe worse. For starters, he had a long-term affair with his niece, who called him “Uncle Georgie.” It’s said he once urinated in a foxhole of another division commander during WWI, simply to show his disdain for what he called “passive defense.” He was bloodthirsty and loved … Read more

Vlad the Impaler’s father, also named Vlad, was inducted into a secret Catholic organization called the Order of the Dragon, sworn to battle the Ottoman Turks. When he became Prince of Walachia, his kingdom dubbed him Dracul, meaning, in Romanian, “The Dragon.” When Vlad the Second came to power, he called himself Dracula, or “Son … Read more

Before becoming a principality ruler, military strategist, grand inquisitor, and sadist extraordinaire, Vlad the Impaler studied for the priesthood.

Although young Vlad and his brother were bartered off to the Turkish Sultan as part of a peace treaty signed by his father, Vlad himself was by no means a follower of Islam. If anything, he fought hard against the Turks for most of his adult life, perhaps as a result of his bitterness from … Read more

Well, doesn’t it seem pretty suspicious that, of all the people who opened King Tut’s tomb in 1922, not a single one of them is still alive? Seriously, though. The press in the 1920s made a big deal of a supposed “mummy’s curse,” claiming that it had taken 21 victims by 1935. However, in order … Read more

King Tutankhamen, who died in 1325 B.C., was a minor king of ancient Egypt, serving for nine years from age nine to 18. Scientists believe he might have died from a blow to the head, though whether it was from an accident or an assassination is not known.

King Tut and Cleopatra were related maybe in the sense that we’re all brothers and sisters and children of Mother Earth. Apart from that, they were separated by 1,300 years and came from completely different bloodlines. Tutankhamen was a native Egyptian king. Cleopatra was part of an interloper family that came from Greek Macedonia. In … Read more

A group of French engineers from Napoleon’s army found the Rosetta Stone near Alexandria, Egypt. In 1799, they were getting ready to demolish an ancient wall outside Rosetta, a city near Alexandria, Egypt. They stumbled upon a carved stone which, because it had the same message in three ancient languages, ended up becoming the key … Read more

Cleopatra’s palace still exists, but it’s underwater. A fourth century earthquake accompanied by a tsunami caused the royal island of Antirhodos to sink into the sea. The ruins of the palace were rediscovered in the murky, sewage-filled Alexandria harbor in 1992.

Cleopatra had twins with Mark Antony. Before that, though, she had a son with Julius Caesar who she named Caesarion (“Little Caesar”).

Cleopatra used quite a bit of makeup, actually. She even used some of the pigments that artists of the age were also using, including lead, which probably shouldn’t be placed on your face if you value your health and sanity. Still, if you want to inspire Roman hands, here are some of her secrets: Red … Read more

The snake that killed Cleopatra on August 12, 30 B.C. might have been an especially poisonous asp called the Egyptian cobra. But it’s not absolutely certain that a snake did kill Cleopatra. After her first Roman general, Julius Caesar, was assassinated, Cleopatra took up with Mark Antony, believing him to be on the fast track … Read more

There’s absolutely no evidence to support the idea that Cleopatra was black and much evidence to discount the possibility. Although many Egyptians were black, Cleopatra was not Egyptian. She descended from a line of Macedonian Greeks in a family so determined to avoid diluting the family blood that it practiced a severe form of incestuous … Read more

It took about 70 days to turn a corpse into a mummy in ancient Egypt. Most of the wait included the drying process which included the use of salt. When the Egyptians became really good at making mummies, advanced techniques were used which involved removal of all the body’s organs except the heart.

Cleopatra wasn’t as pretty as you’d imagine. A coin issued during her reign depicted her with straight hair, a hooked nose, and a pronounced chin. In fact, she looked disconcertingly like Robin Williams in drag. So, perhaps Cleopatra had inner beauty. “Her beauty was by no means flawless,” wrote the tactful historian Plutarch, adding that … Read more

The heart was considered the seat of all thought, and it was always kept in the body when the ancient Egyptians made mummies. If you unwrapped a mummy, the cloth material would go almost half a mile.

In Egypt, making a rudimentary mummy was pretty easy because of the dry heat: All you had to do was bury the corpse in sand for a few months. It would become so completely leatherized that it wouldn’t rot. That lucky accident worked well enough for centuries and continued to work for regular folk for … Read more

We’ll get into how mummy powder is good for you in a minute. First, though, let’s look at the mummy situation from a 12th-century, Egyptian point of view. Finding mummies in your garden just about everywhere you sank a shovel could start getting on your nerves after a while, and it was pretty likely that … Read more

It’s not as hard as you’d think to find Egyptian mummies. For nearly four thousand years, from 3100 B.C. to 649 A.D., Egyptians mummified their dead. That made for a lot of mummies lying about—about 500 million, according to best estimates. And that’s just the humans; there were animals, too—cats, wild dogs, bulls, fish, birds, … Read more

No, despite what you might see in the movies, there’s no evidence that Israelites worked on the ancient pyramids in Egypt. Archaeologists excavating the temporary villages and grave sites around the base of the pyramids have come to the conclusion that they were probably built by Egyptians as public works projects. They estimate that about … Read more

The most famous Egyptian pharaoh with the same name as the condom, Ramses II, was perhaps the greatest pharaoh of Egypt. He ruled for 67 years from 1279 to 1212 B.C. Despite the name, it’s unlikely that condoms were part of Ramses’ life since he fathered over 160 children. It was this virility that probably … Read more

It’s possible but unlikely that the ancient Egyptians were the first American explorers who built the New World pyramids. True, the New World pyramids were built from 1200 B.C. to the 1500s, slightly overlapping the time when Egyptians were doing the same thing, from 2700 B.C. to 1000 B.C. However, the styles, building materials, shapes, … Read more

One country opposed and refused to support the Holocaust, in a big way, Denmark. On the northern border of Germany, Denmark shamefully but pragmatically surrendered to the Nazis with almost no resistance in 1940. Yet, three years later, when the Nazis tried to round up the country’s 7,000 Jews, thousands of normal folks—taxi drivers, fishermen, … Read more

The “D” stand for in “D-Day” stand for “Day.” The term “D-Day” is typically used by the military to indicate the date of an attack without giving away the actual date. “H-Hour” is the hourly equivalent when discussing the time of an attack. “D-Day” as we know it became popularized during WWII when it was … Read more

Best estimates are that about four million people died at the concentration camps known as Auschwitz in Poland during World War II from overwork, starvation, and poison gas. Rudolf Hess, the death camp’s commandant, called it “the largest human slaughterhouse that history has ever known” and estimated that as many as 9,000 people a day … Read more

Hitler’s plan for England if Germany’s invasion plans were successful was pretty much the same as every other country that the Nazis conquered: Kill the intelligentsia and enslave the rest. For example, when the Nazis took over Poland, they quickly liquidated more than half of Poland’s college graduates. In Orders Concerning the Organization and Function … Read more

The B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb named “Little Boy” on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, was commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets, Jr. He had painted the aircraft the day before with his mother’s name, Enola Gay. The B-29 that carried the atomic bomb named “Fat Man” to Nagasaki was known as Bockscar, often misspelled … Read more

Well, technically, Hawaii wasn’t a state yet during the attack in World War II. Neither was Alaska in 1942, so Japan’s invasion and occupation of the Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands doesn’t quite count, either. America fought back, and Japan retreated from the islands the following year. However, Japan did attack an oil … Read more

The Crusades of medieval western Europe became progressively uglier as centuries passed; gold and lives were squandered, and yet the Crusaders were no closer to wresting the Holy Land from the infidel Muslims. In 1202, Crusaders ransacked Christian churches and Eastern European villages, much to the embarrassment of the Church and their communities back home. … Read more

The Six-Day War between Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria wasn’t exactly six days, but it was close. For Israel, it went on for 132 hours and 30 minutes—a little over five and a half days from start to finish. However, Egypt saw the war’s end after four days, and Jordan … Read more

In the year 1756, British and Indian troops were busy warring when Indians managed to capture a British fort in Calcutta. The troops locked their captives into a 14 by 18 foot room for the night. A British survivor named John Holwell charged that 123 of 146 men suffocated in the room, which is now … Read more

Lord Alfred Tennyson wrote about The Crimean War in “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, the same war that made Florence Nightingale famous. The war was fought between the Russian Empire on one side and an alliance of the British Empire, French Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the Duchy of Nassau … Read more