- In 1621, the Pilgrims and some Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast. Except for venison and wild fowl, historians aren't sure exactly what they did eat, but sadly, that first Thanksgiving dinner did not include corn on the cob, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, or pumpkin pie.
- The pronghorn antelope is actually a goat. The mountain goat is actually an antelope. Incidentally, the main cause of death for the sure-footed mountain goat? Accidents.
- Anthropologists know of no human society where the children did not play hide and seek. Other animals play the game, too, including otters and young deer.
- The Vienna Boy's Choir has been around since 1498.
- Savien Cyrano de Bergerac is famous primarily because of Edmond Rostand's 1897 play, Cyrano de Bergerac. However, this large-nosed young man was well-known in his own time as a duelist, playwright, soldier, and satirist. He was also the first novelist to suggest rocket-propelled spacecraft, in a story published posthumously in 1657. Cyrano de Bergerac died ignominiously in 1655, at age 36, when a plank fell on his head.
- We've forgotten that his contemporaries considered Michelangelo one of the world's greatest poets.
- Throughout history and throughout the world, naked females have outnumbered naked males in art … except in Ancient Greece.
- Some Roman slaves owned slaves.
- One out of ten Caribbean pirates of the eighteenth century was a Scotsman.
- Under Charles II of England, a law required that all coffins be lined with flannel. It was passed to prop up England's ailing wool trade.
- Roughly 3000 individuals were charged with witchcraft in England in the 16th and 17th centuries, almost all of them women, almost all over 50. Contrary to a fairly common belief, most accused witches were acquited; only some 400 were executed. Witchcraft was "decriminalized" in England in 1736.
- The most-consumed vegetable worldwide is the onion.
- Sean tigh is Gaelic for "old house". We now pronounce it "shanty".
- Plato said, "Attention to health is the greatest hindrance to life." He didn't diet or exercise or take popular "maintenance" medications.
- Archeological finds indicate that the apple corer is the second-oldest kitchen utensil, second only to the ladle.
- Teutonic rainmakers poured water over nude girls. There's no evidence that the practice ever produced rain, but they clung to the ritual.
- A young man kissed his girlfriend on a public street in Padua, Italy, early in the 16th Century. The young man's father, Pietro Lando, the podesta (chief magistrate) of Padua, was a strict moralist. He saw the kiss and had his son beheaded.
- One disappointing bit of history is that Lady Godiva - if she existed at all - was actually only "stripped of all signs of her rank".
- In Egypt under the Ptolemy Dynasty, tax collectors had to turn in the correct amount of tax, which meant making up - from their own pocket - any shortages caused by tax evaders. Some of the tax collectors became famous as remarkably dangerous and effective man hunters.
- Oil of cloves and oil of wintergreen share an uncommon trait. They are oils that are heavier than water.
- Word students think we say that we "shell" corn because Native Americans used mussel shells to remove kernels from the cob.
- Harems are typically kept by male monarchs, but Queen Kahena, a Jewish Berber in Northwest Africa in the 7th century, kept 400 male athletes in her harem.
- There is no known instance of a king or a queen who was a twin.
- Merapi, a volcanic mountain on the island of Java, has erupted 68 times in the last 600 years, qualifying it in the minds of some scientists as the world's most active volcano. Yet more than 3,000,000 Indonesians live within range of an eruption's lava and pyroclastic flows; 70,000 of these live in the immediate vicinity of the mountain.
- The Roman emperor Nero watched gladiatorial combats through an emerald held to his eye if the sun was too bright, the first known use of sunglasses.
- They called it "The Curse of the Bambino". With Babe Ruth in their lineup, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 1915, 1916, and 1918. In 1919, Boston traded Ruth to the New York Yankees. After the trade, the Red Sox didn't win another World Series for 86 years. The Yankees, who never won anything before getting Ruth? They played in 39 World Series during those 86 years, winning 26 of them.
- In a quarter-mile race, a greyhound can outrun a Thoroughbred ... but so can a kangaroo.
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