Fun history facts

All fun history facts

• Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid.Source: Pyramid c. 2560 BC, Cleopatra died 30 BC, Moon landing 1969
• Oxford University was already teaching students before the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan was founded.Source: Oxford from 1096, Tenochtitlan 1325
• The shortest war in history, between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896, lasted less than 45 minutes.Source: Guinness World Records
• Napoleon was about 1.69 m (5 ft 7 in), average for his time. The "short" myth came partly from French inches being longer.Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica
• The Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest human-made structure on Earth for about 3,800 years.Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Vikings almost certainly didn't wear horned helmets. That look came from 1800s costume designers.Source: National Museum of Denmark
• Woolly mammoths still lived on Wrangel Island when the Egyptian pyramids were being built.Source: Mammoths survived there until about 4,000 years ago
• The fax machine (1843) was invented before the telephone (1876).Source: Alexander Bain's patent, 1843
• Nintendo was founded in 1889, as a company making playing cards.Source: Nintendo
• Ketchup was sold as a medicine in the United States in the 1830s.Source: Smithsonian Magazine
• The Hundred Years' War actually lasted 116 years (1337 to 1453).Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica
• In 1919, a flood of molasses swept through Boston at about 50 km/h.Source: The Great Molasses Flood, Boston
• Abraham Lincoln is in the US National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He lost only one recorded match.Source: National Wrestling Hall of Fame
• When countries switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, 4 October was followed by 15 October.Source: Papal bull Inter gravissimas
• The first photo of a person was taken by accident in 1838: a man having his boots polished on a Paris street.Source: Louis Daguerre, Boulevard du Temple
• The University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco, founded in 859, is often called the oldest university still running.Source: UNESCO, Guinness World Records
• The Eiffel Tower grows about 15 cm taller in summer, because the iron expands in the heat.Source: Société d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel
• The first recorded Olympic Games were held in 776 BC, with a single running race.Source: International Olympic Committee
• The ancient Romans had a goddess of sewers, Cloacina.Source: Roman religion texts