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The incredible technologies and inventions now lost to history Some may be nothing more than legends, while others are well documented or even surviving as unexplained curios to this day.
We tend to look back at ancient technologies with an air of superiority, but there are more than a few historical inventions and artifacts that reach beyond our understanding. Some may be nothing more than legends, while others are well documented or even surviving as unexplained curios to this day. Stradivarius violins Antonio Stradivari lived from 1644 to 1737. He was an Italian luthier and craftsman who we know as the most significant and greatest artisan in instrument-making history. Somewhere around 500 of his violins survive to this day and sell for tens of millions of dollars for their acoustic properties. The exact techniques and materials used to make his…
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10 spectacular Darwin Awards of the medieval age The Darwin Awards are annual and don't concern themselves with historical (ig)noble sacrifices. Let's correct that injustice.
The Darwin Awards were created in the 1980s to honor those individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect humanity’s gene pool. That is, they died in such an extraordinarily idiotic manner that their deaths actually significantly raised the quality of the DNA passed on to the next generation – as per Charles Darwin’s theories on natural selection. But the Darwin Awards are annual, only concerning themselves with candidates who have expired within the last year. This leaves a vast array of figures throughout history who have gone unrecognized for their (ig)noble sacrifice. This hardly seems fair. Of course, there’s a lot of history to cover, so in the interests…
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10 great educational video games for history buffs Jokes about Battlefield's wokified WWI soldiers aside; for today's games, historical authenticity is a selling point. Learning has become fun.
You may have played those third-rate “edutainment” video games as a kid and developed a dislike for anything with the word educational in front of it. Educational video games for aspiring essay writers are often focused on reading comprehension (like Reader Rabbit) or simple math (like Number Munchers), and those games aren’t really that fun. The fare for adults is much better. Video games focused on history tend to involve deep strategic gameplay, and are even more enjoyable when you already have a little prior knowledge of the past (which we suppose you do). Many of them strive for historical authenticity – and of course it doesn’t hurt that it’s…
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These ancient technologies were way ahead of their time Incredible artifact discoveries reveal many ancient cultures were capable of far more than previously thought.
People tend to think of ancient civilizations and their technologies as primitive, but while certainly not as impressive as our 2020 technology trends, it’s still incredible what they were able to do with the limited tools and resources available to them. Incredible artifact discoveries have shown that some of these cultures were way ahead of their time and capable of far more than previously thought. From ancient alarm clocks to an industrial revolution that almost happened thousands of years ago with the invention of steam power, here are 10 fascinating ancient technologies. The Lycurgus Cup, a 4th century Roman technicolor cup The beautiful Lycurgus Cup is a Roman glass cup…
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Medieval gambling: high stakes games in the Middle Ages The folly of many, and suppressed whenever authorities felt the gentry were impoverishing themselves. It nevertheless flourished.
Just like today, people in the Middle Ages (5th to 15th century) liked to play games to pass the time. And where there’s games, there’s gambling. Gambling in the middle ages was of course a lot different from pointing your browser at King Casino and clicking yourself to victory on Jumanji video slot, but no matter what time period you’re from, backing games up with stakes will get your adrenaline pumping that much faster and our ancestors would have experienced the same thrill we do. Despite pushback from the church and law enforcement, gambling was an unrelenting force for people in all levels of society. Here are our top 10…
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The most badass Latin phrases Latin's utility has long since faded, but there's still something inherently awesome about it.
There’s something delightfully pretentious about Latin. It is, despite what the classics majors will tell you, a very dead language. And yet its use alludes to an era that many in the West naturally revere — the Bronze Age. These days, Latin is, more often than not, relegated to legal terms or mottos. These have an air of permanence about them. And while Latin’s utility has long since faded, there’s still something inherently awesome about uttering a phrase in Latin. Here are some of our favorites. Ad astra per aspera “A rough road leads to the stars” Apollo 1 was the US first real disaster in the space program. Three…
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Struggles of a royal mistress: the women who went to any length to obtain their kings In order to have sex with a king, you had to be one accomplished mistress.
“Every woman was born with the ambition to become the King’s favorite,” wrote Primi Visconti, an Italian fortune-teller who lived at Louis XIV’s french court. And in this world of glittering ambition and mercurial passions, it seemed he was right. While princesses were bred to be proper and abiding, the mistresses of kings were edified on an entirely different level. Pandering to powerful men who were accustomed to having their egos and nether regions stroked regularly, the chosen lover or maîtresse-en-titre of the king had her work cut out for her. If prostitution is, in fact, the oldest profession in history, maintaining the position as the chief mistress of a monarch…
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A brief history of toilets Going to the bathroom used to be a lot weirder. And in some countries, it still is.
The next time you take a seat on your own private porcelain throne: be grateful. You have privacy, toilet paper, and the streets don’t reek of feces. Toilets have come a long way from their dirty, breezy, communal origins. Poop like an Egyptian The earliest humans in hunter-gatherer society would have just gone au naturale out in the woods. But once cities started becoming a thing, the elite needed to figure out a way to keep all that human waste out of their way. The ancient Egyptians were among the first to appoint designated pooping spots for the wealthy. They even concocted some of the world’s first toilet seats—these little…