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1,991 facts in History. Click any fact to see its full page.
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📜 History 1,991
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✨ Dinosaur 10
The first published crossword puzzle appeared in the New York World newspaper on December 21, 1913.
The birthday song 'Happy Birthday to You' was originally titled 'Good Morning to All' and was written by two sisters in 1893.
The first Olympic Games in ancient Greece in 776 BC had only one event — a sprint of about 192 meters called the stadion.
The tradition of shaking hands originated as a way to show that neither person was carrying a weapon.
The modern marathon distance of 26.2 miles was established at the 1908 London Olympics so the race could finish in front of the royal box.
The Academy Awards ceremony was first held in 1929 and lasted only 15 minutes.
The first Olympic gold medals were actually made of silver — solid gold medals have not been awarded since 1912.
Chess was invented in India around the 6th century and was originally called chaturanga.
The Great Wall of China is not actually visible from space with the naked eye.
The Nobel Prize was established by Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, partly to improve his legacy.
The first novel ever written is often considered to be 'The Tale of Genji,' written by Murasaki Shikibu in Japan around 1010 AD.
The first feature-length animated film was 'El Apostol,' made in Argentina in 1917.
The Guinness Book of World Records was created in 1955 to settle arguments in pubs.
The first alarm clock could only ring at 4 AM because it was designed for its inventor's own schedule.
Fortune cookies were not invented in China — they originated in San Francisco.
The oldest known recipe is for beer, written on a 4,000-year-old Sumerian tablet.
The Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC saw 300 Spartans and their allies hold off a Persian army of over 100,000 for three days.
The Mayflower Compact, signed in 1620, was one of the first frameworks for self-governance in America.
Ancient Greek athletes competed in the Olympic Games completely naked.
The oldest known cave paintings are in Sulawesi, Indonesia, and are at least 45,500 years old.
Mansa Musa, the emperor of Mali, is considered the wealthiest person in history, with an estimated net worth equivalent to $400 billion.
During Prohibition in the United States, the government ordered manufacturers to poison industrial alcohol, leading to an estimated 10,000 deaths.
The ancient Library of Alexandria may have contained over 400,000 scrolls.
Pompeii was preserved under 13 to 20 feet of volcanic ash after Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.
The Black Death killed an estimated 30 to 60 percent of Europe's population in the 14th century.
The first public library in the United States was founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin.
Samurai warriors would test new swords on corpses or condemned criminals to ensure their quality.
The Aztec capital Tenochtitlan had a population of over 200,000, making it one of the largest cities in the world at the time.
Paul Revere did not actually shout 'The British are coming' during his midnight ride — colonists still considered themselves British at the time.
Ancient Romans used a sponge on a stick, called a tersorium, instead of toilet paper.
The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land empire in history, stretching from Eastern Europe to the Sea of Japan.
The Dancing Plague of 1518 caused hundreds of people in Strasbourg to dance uncontrollably for days, with some reportedly dying from exhaustion.
The first successful powered airplane flight by the Wright Brothers lasted only 12 seconds.
The Inca Empire had no written language but used a system of knotted strings called quipu to record information.
Cleopatra was not Egyptian by ethnicity — she was of Macedonian Greek descent.
The deadliest natural disaster in recorded history was the 1931 China floods, which killed an estimated 1 to 4 million people.
Before alarm clocks, people hired knocker-uppers to tap on their windows with long poles to wake them for work.
The Terracotta Army, buried with China's first emperor Qin Shi Huang, contains over 8,000 individually sculpted soldiers.
The first marathon was not an ancient Greek tradition — it was created for the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896.
In 1816, known as the Year Without a Summer, volcanic ash from Mount Tambora caused global crop failures and snow in June.
The Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799, was the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics.
The first vaccine was developed by Edward Jenner in 1796 using cowpox to protect against smallpox.
Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter and was one of the most intact royal tombs ever found in Egypt.
The Roman Empire at its peak controlled approximately 20% of the world's population.
The Eiffel Tower was originally intended to be a temporary structure and was almost torn down in 1909.
The original Olympic Games in ancient Greece featured only one event — a footrace of about 192 meters.
The world's oldest known musical instrument is a bone flute found in Germany, estimated to be about 40,000 years old.
The Olympic flag's five rings represent the five continents that participated in the Games when the flag was designed in 1913.
The world's first programmable computer, Colossus, was built in 1943 to break Nazi codes during World War II.
Nostalgia was once considered a mental illness — Swiss doctors in the 17th century treated it as a form of homesickness.