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Earth didn’t always have an ocean.

  • Antique globe
Antique globe
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

June 17, 2024

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Today, the global ocean makes up the majority of the Earth’s surface — but the massive body of water wasn’t always there. For the first billion or so years of the planet’s existence, the surface was simply too hot for water to be anything but vapor. Around 3.8 billion years ago, the temperature finally dropped below water’s boiling point of 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and the vapor turned into rain. It showered for centuries, filling the deepest points on the planet’s surface and building up moisture in the atmosphere. This was essential for life developing on Earth; the first single-celled microbes appeared in the ocean around 3.5 billion years ago.

Scientific opinion is mixed about how the vaporized water got there in the first place. One theory is that the first water emerged from inside the Earth as part of the volcanic activity that covered the surface. Another is that icy comets hit the Earth, bringing water with them. Water also may have arrived as part of the massive planetary collision that created the moon — or maybe it was a combination of all three. Today, our planet is in the perfect zone for water solids, liquid, and gas to form: A little closer to the sun and all we’d have is vapor, whereas a little farther away there would be no vapor at all. 

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There were multiple continents before Pangea.

The seven continents that make up the land on Earth today — Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia (or Oceania) — were once all part of a supercontinent called Pangea, which split up around 200 million years ago. But before Pangea, there were separate landmasses: Gondwana, which contained South America, India, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica; Euramerica or Laurussia, which contained North America and Europe; and Siberia. These all collided between 250 million and 300 million years ago to create the supercontinent.

Nostalgia was once considered a disease (and it could be fatal). 

  • Injured soldiers, 1800s
Injured soldiers, 1800s
Credit: Beryl Peters Collection/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Bess Lovejoy

November 26, 2025

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Today, nostalgia means getting sentimental about childhood snacks or reruns of TV shows we only half remember. But in centuries past, it was treated as a deadly medical disorder — one that could land you in the infirmary, the stockade, or, in extreme cases, an early grave.

The term “nostalgia” was coined in 1688 by Swiss physician Johannes Hofer, who combined the Greek nostos (“homecoming”) and algos (“pain”). At the time, it was understood to mean something closer to what we call “homesickness” today. Hofer saw the condition most often among young people living far from home, such as soldiers, servants, or children sent out to nurse in the countryside. Symptoms supposedly ranged from melancholy, loss of appetite, and “frequent sighing” to disturbed sleep, heart palpitations, and suicide. Hofer prescribed a single cure for the disease: sending the patient home, although vomiting, mercury, and/or opium were said to help until the patient was strong enough to bear the journey.

Swiss mercenaries had a particular reputation for nostalgic collapse. According to one belief, the songs that Swiss cowherds used to call the flock for milking could trigger the illness reliably in troops, so performing these songs was reportedly punishable by death. Autumn was considered an especially dangerous season for susceptible soldiers, perhaps because the falling leaves stirred thoughts of home.

At best, patients were returned to their families and sometimes recovered almost immediately. Others were subjected to leeches and stomach purging. A French military doctor, Jourdan Le Cointe, recommended “inciting pain and terror,” and in 1733 a Russian commander reportedly buried at least one nostalgic soldier alive to discourage further cases. During the American Civil War, doctors preferred public shaming; nostalgia was considered unmanly and weak-willed.

By the 19th century, nostalgia faded as a formal diagnosis, absorbed into melancholy and what we would now describe as trauma. Today, psychologists see nostalgia as largely beneficial — a resource that can boost mood, inspire optimism, and strengthen social bonds. In other words, nostalgia is no longer something to die from, just something to sigh about.

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Doctors once believed that virgin women suffered from something called “green sickness.”

Beginning in the 16th century, “green sickness” — or chlorosis — was a disease thought to affect young women who were unmarried or sexually inactive. The term comes from the Greek chloros, meaning pale or yellow-green, reflecting the supposed characteristic complexion of sufferers. Symptoms included fatigue, trembling, swollen ankles, poor appetite, and pallid skin. Physicians of the day linked the disease to a supposed imbalance of bodily humors, imagining that temperate young women’s “narrow” blood vessels trapped bad blood. Treatments ranged from bloodletting and enemas to encouraging sexual activity (namely, marriage).

The disease also made occasional appearances in literature, such as in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (“Out, you green-sickness carrion!”). Modern scholars suggest chlorosis may have been iron-deficiency anemia, but social expectations about marriage and female behavior shaped how the disease was understood. By the 20th century, it had vanished from medical texts entirely.

Gas prices include nine-tenths of a cent due to a 90-year-old law.

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Old gas pumps
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

June 12, 2024

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Whenever you fill up your tank, you may notice that the price per gallon of gasoline always ends in nine-tenths of a cent — for example, $3.699 per gallon, sometimes displayed as $3.69 and 9/10. You’ve also likely noticed that it’s pretty much the only everyday commodity that’s priced that way. Even a whole penny hardly makes a difference now, so why bother charging a fraction of a cent? As it turns out, the strange pricing is a holdover from a 1932 law. 

During the Great Depression, a penny was worth a lot more than it is now. The average gallon of gas cost about 20 cents in 1930, and in some parts of the country was as low as 10 cents. When the Revenue Act of 1932 was passed, it allowed for the first federal gas tax. The tax rate of 1 cent per gallon was pretty significant at the time; in some areas, that increased fuel prices by 10%. It made a difference, too: Ultimately, gas accounted for nearly 8% of tax revenue in 1933. Gas station owners, who paid the tax when purchasing fuel from suppliers, were faced with three options: They could eat the tax and take the hit to their profit margin, raise prices by an entire cent (which, again, was a lot at the time), or increase prices by less than a penny and pay the difference. The third option was less of a shock to motorists, but still made up a portion of the tax burden, so it seemed like a good compromise to most retailers.

As the interstate highway system grew in the 1950s (and gas prices stayed roughly between 20 cents and 30 cents per gallon), pricing gas to a fraction of a cent also proved to be effective marketing, making rates appear lower to motorists who saw them displayed on signs along busy highways. It’s the same concept as charging $1.99 instead of $2 — consumers tend to focus on the leftmost digit of a price, making for an effective illusion even to savvy shoppers. But that last fraction of a penny adds up to millions of dollars in revenue each month for gas retailers as a whole; in 2006, one gas station operator cut out the nine-tenths of a cent as an experiment and figured he lost about $23 a day. Roughly 90 years after the 1932 law was passed, pricing gas to nine-tenths of a cent is still nearly universal, but there’s nothing mandating that gas stations price their gallons this way. In fact, a 1985 law in Iowa banned the practice, though the law was repealed just a few years later.

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Gasoline started as a discarded byproduct of distilling oil.

When businessman Edwin Drake drilled the United States’ first productive oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859, internal combustion engines were still more than a quarter-century away from hitting the road. Drake was after kerosene to power lamps, not motor fuel. The distillation process still produced gasoline as a byproduct, but having no use for it, he threw it out. Car inventors didn’t realize it could be a valuable motor fuel until the 1890s — and gas didn’t start outselling kerosene until 1911.

There’s a new medieval castle being built.

  • Guédelon Castle
Guédelon Castle
Credit: Sabrina MARIE/ iStock Editorial via Getty Images Plus
Author Timothy Ott

November 26, 2025

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Within a quarry nestled in the heart of northern France’s Guédelon Forest, masons carve out sandstone blocks, blacksmiths hammer out iron nails, and carpenters forge window frames to fit the walls of a castle that’s been under construction for more than a quarter-century. This isn’t a snapshot of a day in the life of a European fiefdom from 800 years ago; this is an honest-to-goodness medieval-style castle taking shape not far from the modern architectural marvels of Paris.

Guédelon Castle’s origins stem from the discovery of 13th-century ruins on a nearby property owned by entrepreneur Michel Guyot. Initially intending to reconstruct the medieval castle, Guyot instead decided to build a new one from scratch, and pulled together a team to secure funding and the artisans needed to turn the vision into reality. They set out to build the castle using only tools, techniques, and materials that would have been available in the 13th century. The ground rules forced workers to improvise as they tried to figure out how to properly mix ceramic, trowel mortar, and raise scaffolding without help from modern construction methods.

This trial-and-error process of creating the structure with era-specific technology has given participants a hands-on understanding of just how a medieval castle takes shape, something that’s all but impossible to determine by simply examining old drawings and records. And with the endeavor being sustained by a bustling tourist business, no one seems especially concerned that the initial 20-year timeline has passed with no finish line in sight. Indeed, there are even talks underway regarding the construction of an accompanying church and surrounding village.

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The Louvre was initially a castle.

Although the Louvre annually draws more than 8 million visitors to view such masterpieces as the “Mona Lisa” and Venus de Milo, there was a time when its existence served to repel rather than welcome people to the French capital. Constructed in the early 13th century during the reign of King Philippe II, the initial fortress stood guard over the western edge of Paris with a cylindrical keep that reached nearly 100 feet high within a crenellated curtain wall and a moat fed by the waters of the Seine. However, Louvre Castle gradually surrendered its defensive purposes as Paris continued its geographic expansion, and beginning in 1546, the structure was torn down and replaced by a palace to house the French monarchy. While the palace and its additions eventually became the grounds of the national art collection that opened in 1793, remains of the site’s medieval origins can still be found in an underground gallery of the now-world-famous museum. 

Thomas Edison invented the concept of the job interview.

  • Thomas Edison laboratory
Thomas Edison laboratory
Credit: Everett Collection/ Shutterstock
Author Kerry Hinton

May 29, 2024

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Although Thomas Edison was awarded 2,332 worldwide patents as an inventor, one of his lasting contributions to modern society was not proprietary: the job interview. Edison was not just a prolific inventor — he was also a businessman in charge of an industrial empire. His corporation, Thomas A. Edison, Inc., employed more than 10,000 workers at dozens of companies. Edison wanted employees who could memorize large quantities of information and also make efficient business decisions. To find them, he devised an extensive questionnaire to assess job candidates’ knowledge and personality.

Edison began using tests for candidate assessment in the late 19th century, but the questions he asked then were very specific to open positions he needed filled. Over time, he expanded on the idea, including questions that were not directly related to the job. While interviewing research assistants, for example, Edison served them soup to see if interviewees would season the soup before they tasted it; those who did were automatically disqualified as it suggested they were prone to operate on assumptions. In 1921, Edison debuted the Edison Test, a knowledge test with more than 140 questions. Questions varied depending on the job position, but all interviewees were asked about information outside of their areas of expertise. The queries ranged from agricultural in nature (“Where do we get prunes from?”) to commercial (“In what cities are hats and shoes made?”) to the macabre (“Name three powerful poisons”). After a copy of the questionnaire was leaked to The New York Times, Edison had to change the question bank multiple times to ensure applicants took the exam without any outside assistance.

A score of 90% was required to pass, and out of the 718 people who had taken the test as of October 1921, only 32 (just 2%!) succeeded. The test was difficult, to say the least. Edison’s own son Theodore failed it while a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). More famously, Albert Einstein failed the exam because he forgot the speed of sound. The 1920s saw an upswing in college-educated people in the workforce, leading to increased competition for skilled labor, and thus more applicants for employers to choose from. Edison’s strategy of questioning candidates to assess their personality and aptitude was innovative at the time, and is still standard practice today — though employers are more likely to ask about someone’s greatest accomplishment than the origins of prunes.

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A World War I questionnaire helped pave the way for the Edison Test.

Thomas Edison wasn’t the only person interested in the idea of screening people for specific roles. During World War I, psychologist Robert S. Woodworth developed the Woodworth Personal Data Sheet, a 125-question questionnaire used to determine a recruit’s likelihood of succumbing to shell shock, a term coined by soldiers and now known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Woodworth’s Psychoneurotic Inventory, as it was also known, was eventually commissioned by the American Psychological Association and is considered to be the great-grandparent of today’s personality tests.

The first woman in space forgot her toothbrush.

  • Tereshkova in space
Tereshkova in space
Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Michael Nordine

June 11, 2024

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We’ve all had that moment of panic upon realizing we left something important at home, but most of us have at least been on planet Earth when it happened. The first woman in space wasn’t so lucky: Valentina Tereshkova went without a toothbrush during her three days aboard the Vostok-6 spacecraft in 1963. To be fair, it wasn’t her fault. Mission control was actually in charge of packing the essentials, as the pioneering cosmonaut had other, presumably more scientific, things to focus on. In any case, she didn’t seem too bothered by the oversight: “I was resourceful, as any woman would be,” she said in 2015. “I had my hands and water.” Any kid who’s slept over at a friend’s house without planning for it in advance can relate.

More than six decades later, Tereshkova remains the only woman to have piloted a solo mission to space; five other women were trained for the mission, but the then-26-year-old was ultimately chosen. “A bird cannot fly with one wing only,” she has said of her historic role. “Human spaceflight cannot develop any further without the active participation of women.” Sally Ride became the first American woman in space (and the third overall after Svetlana Savitskaya) 20 years later in 1983; not having heard anything to the contrary in the decades since, we can safely presume that she had her toothbrush with her.

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There are golf balls on the moon.

Astronaut Alan Shepard may not have been the first person on the moon, but he was the first to take one small shot for golf and one giant swing for golfkind. Part of the Apollo 14 mission, which made its lunar landing on February 5, 1971, Shepard was also a golfer who brought his hobby all the way to our humble planet’s only natural satellite — along with a makeshift club fashioned partly from a sample-collection device. He took two shots, claiming that the second went “miles and miles.” The United States Golf Association (USGA) later put the actual distance of his two strokes at about 24 yards and 40 yards, respectively — not enough to land him a spot on the PGA Tour, perhaps, but fairly impressive when you remember that the stiff spacesuit Shepard was wearing (in low gravity, no less) forced him to swing with one arm.

A 1920s millionaire started a baby-making race known as the Great Stork Derby.

  • Stork Derby entrant with 16 children
Stork Derby entrant with 16 children
Credit: Toronto Star Archives via Getty Images
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

November 20, 2025

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When Canadian lawyer, investor, and known practical joker Charles Vance Millar died in October 1926 with no heirs, he left a slew of social experiments in his will, including bequeathing a home to multiple people who hated each other and leaving shares of a Catholic brewery to Protestant ministers. But the bulk of his fortune went toward his most bizarre and impactful postmortem project: granting around $500,000 CAD ($9 million CAD in today’s money) to whichever Toronto woman had the most babies in the decade following his death. 

The “Great Stork Derby,” as reporters eventually called it, got off to a slow start. In 1932, the Ontario Legislature tried to transfer the money to the University of Toronto instead, prompting both outrage and publicity. The baby race moved forward and became a media frenzy, and families covered in the press dealt with multiple kidnapping threats and scamming attempts.

In 1936, several mothers, along with a couple of Millar’s distant relatives hoping to nullify the contest, started a two-year court battle to decide who took home the cash. In 1938, four mothers, each with nine children born within the time frame, were determined the winners, and were awarded $100,000 CAD (about $2 million CAD today) each. 

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A wealthy lumber magnate kept his heirs from inheriting for nearly a century.

Lumber baron Wellington R. Burt was one of the wealthiest men in the United States when he died in 1919 with a fortune of up to $90 million. He left most of his children and some of his staff a small annual pension, but Burt made sure they’d never see a dime beyond that. Due to family strife, he stipulated in his will that the vast majority of his wealth would be held until 21 years after the death of his last grandchild. That tied up the money for 92 years, and 12 descendants split the remaining $110 million in 2011.

The Vikings reached North America before Columbus.

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Viking explorers
Credit: GL Archive/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Michael Nordine

June 6, 2024

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Though the idea that Christopher Columbus discovered America has long been taken as fact, the famous explorer did no such thing. Not only were Indigenous people already living in North America, but the Vikings reached the continent long before Columbus did. Led by Leif Erikson, a group of Norse explorers arrived on these shores in 1021, nearly 500 years before Columbus’ 1492 journey. The two expeditions do have one thing in common, however: Erikson probably wasn’t looking for America either.

There are two main accounts of the Norse journey to North America. The Saga of Erik the Red (Erikson’s father) suggests the explorer made his way across the Atlantic by accident en route from Norway to Greenland. The Saga of the Greenlanders, meanwhile, claims it was indeed intentional. Having heard about the strange new land from Bjarni Herjólfsson, an Icelandic trader who had seen North America but not set foot on it after overshooting Greenland on a journey of his own a decade earlier, Erikson was inspired to make the voyage himself. Upon his successful arrival in present-day Canada, he named it “Helluland” — Old Norse for “Stone Slab Land.” It’s believed that this was Baffin Island, which certainly fits the description.

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The word “Viking” means “pirate raid.”

If you’ve ever thought that the word “Viking” sounds like a verb, you might be onto something. Though the origins are disputed, the word likely comes from the Old Norse “vīk,” referring to a bay or inlet. (Anyone who’s been to Iceland will recognize the root word, as the country of fire and ice’s capital is Reykjavík and its southernmost village is simply Vík.) This evolved into “viking,” which roughly translates to “pirate raid.” Not all Vikings were pirates — many were humble farmers who may well have resented their people’s reputation for pillaging villages — but those who did engage in the pastime were said to be “going a-viking.”

Russian stores ran out of vodka celebrating the end of World War II.

  • Victory Day in Russia, 1945
Victory Day in Russia, 1945
Credit: Archive Collection/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Michael Nordine

November 20, 2025

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“Vodka is our enemy,” an old Russian proverb begins, “so we’ll utterly consume it.” That was never truer than at the end of World War II, when the country celebrated its hard-fought victory to such an extent that it reportedly ran out of its favorite spirit. It didn’t take long, either: By the time Joseph Stalin delivered his victory address 22 hours after a massive nationwide party began, the vodka reserves had already been depleted in some stores. 

“We drank for the victory, for those who did not live to see this day and for the fact that this bloody massacre would never be repeated,” a naval navigator named Nikolai Kryuchkov reportedly recalled. “On May 10, it was impossible to buy vodka in Moscow, because it was completely drunk.”

Like most supplies, vodka was scarce by the end of the war. The Soviet Union suffered the heaviest losses of any country in the world, stretching resources dangerously thin as soldiers and civilians alike struggled to endure. Soldiers received the “commissar’s ration” of 100 grams of vodka per day and production of the spirit never stopped, but it was in short supply.

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Vodka was used as currency in 1990s Russia.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union wasn’t exactly a smooth process. Hyperinflation soared as the economy contracted by nearly 50%, resulting in the once-mighty ruble becoming nearly worthless. Many Russians began exchanging American dollars, German marks, and British pounds for goods and services, a practice that was banned in 1993. As a result, a kind of barter system emerged in which one of the country’s most reliable goods became a new currency: vodka. “A repairman will yawn if you offer 20 rubles to get the car fixed or a ceiling plugged,” a 1991 Baltimore Sun article explained about the “liquid currency.” “But if you offer a bottle of vodka, the job gets done.” The practice waned as the economy slowly stabilized in the 21st century.

Mail was delivered up to 12 times a day in Victorian England.

  • Postman, 1867
Postman, 1867
Credit: World History Archive/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Michael Nordine

November 20, 2025

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Instant messaging may be a relatively new invention, but staying in touch in the 19th century wasn’t as difficult as you might expect. In Victorian England, for instance, mail delivery was near-constant — up to 12 times a day in London. In 1889, the first deliveries went out at 7:30 a.m. and the last at 7:30 p.m., with Londoners so used to instant gratification that many complained if a letter took more than two hours to arrive. Birmingham, England, meanwhile, received the post only six times a day — perish the thought.

This frequency was made possible in part by legislation that created a flat rate for postal service and introduced the first adhesive postage stamp, meaning people could send a letter weighing half an ounce or less to any destination in Britain for a penny. In the U.S., mail carriers heeded a clause in Section 92 of the 1873 Postal Laws and Regulations requiring them to make deliveries “as frequently as the public convenience may require.” In most places, that meant twice a day — a practice that ended for most residential areas in 1950, though some parts of New York City enjoyed twice-daily mail delivery until the 1990s. 

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Victoria was Britain’s longest-reigning monarch until Elizabeth II.

At 63 years and 216 days, Victoria’s reign as queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland spanned the better part of a century. She ruled from June 20, 1837, until her death on January 22, 1901. Just 18 years old when she took the throne, her tenure defined 19th-century England — and broke the record previously held by George III, whose 59-year reign (1760-1820) is best remembered in the U.S. for being on the losing side of a certain revolution. Queen Elizabeth II overtook Victoria as Britain’s longest-reigning monarch on September 9, 2015, and held the throne another seven years after that. She died in 2022 at age 96 after serving for 70 years and 214 days.

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