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Rome’s first gladiator battle was not entertainment — it was held at a funeral.

  • Gladiator fight in ancient Rome, Italy
Gladiator fight in ancient Rome, Italy
Credit: © Sunny Celeste/Alamy
Author Michael Nordine
July 9, 2026

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You’ve probably never heard of Decimus Junius Brutus Pera, but the prominent aristocrat’s death inspired one of ancient Rome’s most famous attractions: the gladiator. 

When he died in 264 BCE, his sons Marcus Junius and Decimus Junius took it upon themselves to honor his memory by organizing a fight between three pairs of enslaved people. The public event, which preceded the opening of the Colosseum by hundreds of years, was held at Rome’s cattle market (better known by the amazing moniker of Forum Boarium). 

The spectacle, which also included meat and wine, was a kind of public sacrifice in Pera’s honor. This became common practice at Roman funeral pyres in the ensuing decades and centuries, with the fighters themselves known as bustuarii and holding a lesser status than the gladiators who fought at larger public gatherings; though many gladiators became celebrities in their own right, their position wasn’t considered a noble one. 

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One gladiator reportedly won his freedom four times and refused it each time.

Spartacus is probably the most famous gladiator, but he wasn’t the best fighter the Colosseum ever saw. That may have been Flamma, a Syrian soldier-turned-gladiator whose name meant “the Flame” and who according to some reports survived 34 different matches (far more than most competitors) with a final record of 21 victories, nine draws, and four defeats. (Most battles didn’t actually end in death.) 

By the time he died at age 30, he had been granted his freedom on four separate occasions and turned it down each time, according to his gravestone. No record exists stating why. The gravestone reads, “Flamma, secutor, lived 30 years, fought 34 times, won 21 times, fought to a draw 9 times, won reprieve 4 times, a Syrian by nationality. Delicatus made this for his deserving comrade-in-arms.”

‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ posters were never actually released during WWII.

  • WWII “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster
WWII "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster
Credit: Rawdon Wyatt/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Michael Nordine
January 23, 2025

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“Keep Calm and Carry On” posters and their variants have become ubiquitous over the last two decades, a symbol of the United Kingdom’s stoic resilience during World War II. But while more than 2 million posters were printed by the Ministry of Information in the leadup to World War II, they were never officially released during the actual conflict. Two other slogan posters were designed in the same style, neither of which has achieved the same prominence despite being seen by far more people during the war. They were: “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution — Will Bring Us Victory” and “Freedom Is in Peril; Defend It with All Your Might.”

The “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters were meant to be held in reserve until the situation grew especially dire and the public needed a morale boost, but officials found the other designs effective enough on their own. It wasn’t until the owner of a bookstore in Alnwick, Northumberland, found a batch of “Keep Calm” posters in a box of secondhand books he’d won that the posters achieved their current fame. The bookseller framed one in his shop, and it drew so much attention from the public that he began selling copies.

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The bestselling poster in history is Farrah Fawcett in a red swimsuit.

Even if you didn’t have one on your bedroom wall growing up, you’ve surely seen it: Charlie’s Angels star Farrah Fawcett in a red swimsuit, smiling at the camera in profile. The iconic poster was released in 1976, selling more than 6 million copies in its first year at the modest price of $3. More than 12 million total have been sold, making it the bestselling poster of all time and an enduring symbol of the 1970s. A copy of the poster, and the swimsuit itself, can now be found in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. 

The skinniest house in the U.S. is a historic ‘spite house.’

  • Spite house in Alexandria, Virginia
Spite house in Alexandria, Virginia
Credit: Elizabeth Lankes/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
January 24, 2025

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In 1830, brickmaker John Hollensbury lived in a handsome two-story home in what’s now the Old Town district of Alexandria, Virginia. He had one small problem, however. There was an alley about 7.5 feet wide running down one side; horse-drawn carriages would try to squeeze through and end up scraping against his wall, and loiterers would mill about in the area. Hollensbury’s drastic solution? Fill in the alley with a very, very small house to spite the riffraff outside.

This is how the Alexandria Spite House was born — not to create something, but to take something away. But regardless of Hollensbury’s motivations, he built a cute, functional, two-story home, albeit one that’s wedged in so tight that the neighbors’ exterior brick walls serve as its interior walls. It stretches around 25 feet back into the alley, and has a 325-square-foot interior spread out over two stories. The first floor has a sitting area and a small kitchen. Upstairs, there’s a small bedroom and bathroom with a clawfoot tub.

The diminutive home’s creature comforts are ample enough that people have used it as a long-term primary residence. One couple even lived there for the better part of 25 years. The most recent owner purchased it in 1990 for $130,000; as of 2008, he used it as a pied à terre.

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Two 5-foot-wide “spite houses” were built in New York City.

In New York City in 1882, construction of Lexington Avenue had split some lots into itty-bitty pieces. One corner lot at 82nd Street, owned by eccentric developer Joseph Richardson, was just 5 feet wide and 100 feet long. When the owners of the adjacent lot decided to build apartment homes there, they offered Richardson $1,000 for the lot. He countered with $5,000, and the other party decided to not buy the parcel — after all, they thought, what could Richardson even build there that could block their residents’ views?

Unfortunately for them, Richardson called their bluff and built two 50-foot-long, 5-foot-wide houses right along the eastern wall, and even moved into one himself. Richardson died in 1887, and the buildings — the two spite houses and the apartment building next to them — were demolished in 1915.

The Trojan horse is barely mentioned in the ‘Odyssey’.

  • Trojan Horse at the Gates of Troy
Trojan Horse at the Gates of Troy
Credit: © C.P. CUSHING—ClassicStock/Alamy
Author Michael Nordine
July 9, 2026

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Along with the Cyclops and Odysseus’ confrontation with the many would-be suitors of his wife, the Trojan horse is one of the famous narratives people often associate with the Odyssey. There’s just one problem: It’s barely even mentioned in Homer’s epic poem, and never by name. 

There are a few brief references to the tale in the Odyssey. In one, Homer writes, “Sing of the building of the horse of wood, which Epeius made with Athena’s help, the horse which once Odysseus led up into the citadel as a thing of guile, when he had filled it with the men who sacked Ilios.” Other passages mention Greeks “hidden in the horse” and the Trojans’ “fate to perish when their city should enclose the great horse of wood.”

Considering the Trojan horse isn’t in the Iliad either, a question naturally arises: When and where was the story actually told?

The answer has to do with the Epic Cycle, a series of a dozen or so ancient Greek epic poems that have been either lost entirely or preserved only in fragments. The Iliad and the Odyssey are the only two that survive in full, but two non-Homeric poems, Little Iliad and The Sack of Troy (The Sack of Ilium), mention the Trojan horse. 

The epic that goes into the most depth about it isn’t Greek at all, but Latin: Virgil’s Aeneid, which recounts the story in full. It’s from the Aeneid that the famous line “timeō Danaōs et dōna ferentēs,” or “I fear the Greeks even when bearing gifts,” originates, as well as nearly everything else we know about the Trojan horse.

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Odysseus doesn’t appear until the fifth book of the ‘Odyssey.’

Homer’s epic is divided into 24 sections, or books, the first four of which aren’t actually about Odysseus — at least not directly. Those four books, better known as the Telemachy, focus instead on his son Telemachus as he leaves Ithaca in search of news about his long-missing father. Odysseus finally appears in person in the fifth book, and it isn’t what you would call a heroic entrance. When we first meet him, he’s trapped on Calypso’s island and spends much of his time crying while gazing out to sea — an understandable reaction to his arduous journey, to be sure.

Until 1956, French children attending school were served wine with their lunch.

  • French child with glass of wine
French child with glass of wine
Credit: adoc-photos/ Corbis Historical via Getty Images
Author Michael Nordine
January 21, 2025

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Lest you doubt France’s commitment to wine, know this: Until 1956, French schoolchildren were served it during lunch. Even the ban that came into effect that year applied only to enfants under the age of 14, and alcohol wasn’t banned from schools entirely until 1981. Photos and videos of the practice can still be found, most of which are remarkable for how casual they are — as though choosing between red and white was as normal for a second grader as deciding between plain and chocolate milk. 

That’s probably because it was. Wine has been an integral part of French culture for more than 2,000 years, and you don’t have to be a sommelier to know that France is widely considered the best wine-producing country in the world. And though consumption has been consistently dropping in the country as younger generations across the globe have opted to drink less than their parents and grandparents, wine is still a staple of daily life.

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The earliest known winery was in Armenia.

Though hardly synonymous with wine in the same way France is, Armenia has been producing it longer than any other country, as far as archaeologists know. The oldest-known winery was discovered in an Armenian cave in 2007, and dates back 6,100 years. A wine press, cups, withered grapes, and vessels used for fermentation and storage were all unearthed at the Areni-1 cave complex, as the site is known, which is also where the oldest known leather shoe was discovered. Today, the country’s best-known alcoholic export is brandy, which is produced by distilling wine and has a higher alcohol by volume (ABV) content.

Teddy Roosevelt tried to change American spelling.

  • Teddy Roosevelt
Teddy Roosevelt
Credit: © ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy
Author Bess Lovejoy
July 1, 2026

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In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt found himself at the center of an unexpectedly fierce national debate. The issue wasn’t war, trust-busting, or foreign policy — it was spelling.

That year, Roosevelt endorsed a movement to simplify hundreds of English words, hoping to make the language easier to learn and more efficient to print. Instead, he touched off a backlash that far exceeded the modest scope of his proposal.

The effort began with the Simplified Spelling Board, a group funded by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. The board argued that English spelling was unnecessarily complicated and filled with silent letters, outdated spellings, Britishisms, and inconsistencies that made the language harder to learn. Its members included prominent writers, educators, and scholars (such as Mark Twain and the philosopher William James), and they proposed simpler versions of 300 words. Under their system, “although” became “altho,” “through” became “thru,” and “fixed” became “fixt.”

Roosevelt was convinced. Without consulting Congress, in August 1906 he ordered the Government Printing Office to use the board’s preferred spellings in documents issued by the executive branch. The reaction was immediate. Newspapers mocked the reforms, critics accused Roosevelt of overstepping his authority, and even British commentators joined the chorus of complaints. Some British writers jokingly asked whether the president was going to start spelling his last name “Ruzvelt.”

But the controversy quickly became as much about presidential power as it was about spelling. Congress objected to Roosevelt’s attempt to dictate language rules, and in December 1906 the House of Representatives voted to withhold funding for the printing of any government publications that didn’t follow conventional spellings. The next day, Roosevelt officially abandoned his effort, just four months after it began.

In the end, only a small number of government documents ever used the simplified spellings. But the episode became a memorable chapter in the long history of attempts to make English a little easier to read, write, and learn.

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Some of Roosevelt’s spelling reforms succeeded.

Roosevelt’s spelling reform was a political disaster, but some of the changes championed by reformers eventually became standard American English anyway. Words such as labor, draft, jail, check, and clue all replaced older spellings — such as labour, draught, gaol, cheque, and clew — that were once common (and remain common in the U.K.). In fact, many members of the Simplified Spelling Board argued that they weren’t trying to invent new spellings so much as speed up changes that were already happening naturally. In that sense, Roosevelt may have been ahead of his time. However, other suggestions by the board seem less likely to catch on — we probably won’t be spelling “kissed” as “kist” any time soon.

The oldest shoes in the world were found in Oregon.

  • Sagebrush sandal on display
Sagebrush sandal on display
Credit: Gina Kelly/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
January 16, 2025

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Human beings first arrived in the Americas more than 20,000 years ago, long after the earliest dated cave paintings, musical instruments, and sewing needles. North America is, however, home to the oldest known pair of shoes, unearthed in central Oregon in the 1930s and dating back more than 10,000 years. But don’t worry, this doesn’t mean the earliest Americans made the chilly journey across the Bering Strait barefoot — these sandals are just the earliest surviving shoes that we know about.

Researchers found the footwear in Fort Rock Cave, located in the northern Great Basin area, preserved in ash from the eruption of Mount Mazama roughly 7,700 years ago. Around 100 pairs were present, including some in kids’ sizes, and most were well worn; some were caked with mud, and one had even been singed by sparks from a fire.

Like other sandals found around the Great Basin area, the Fort Rock shoes were made from sagebrush and covered the toes. But they had a distinct weaving style, with just five thick warps along the sole that were split into smaller cords for a thinner toe flap. They were secured to the feet with cords that tied around the ankle. This style faded out around 9,300 years ago, when it was replaced by different weaving styles that were still being used thousands of years later by Klamath and Modoc tribes, who are Indigenous to the area.

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Crater Lake is in a collapsed volcano.

Preserving a large shoe collection was one of Mount Mazama’s lesser impacts. When the volcano erupted 7,700 years ago — one of the largest eruptions on Earth in the last 12,000 years — its magma chamber emptied and the volcano collapsed. It left a giant caldera, or volcanic crater, in its place — similar to how Yellowstone National Park was created. Smaller eruptions continued for the next 750 years, but over time, the caldera filled with water and became Crater Lake, now a national park in Oregon, which eventually became deep enough to hide any volcanic activity. 

Medieval people slept inside wooden cupboards.

  • Bedroom with wooden box bed
Bedroom with wooden box bed
Credit: © Clement Philippe—Arterra Picture Library/Alamy
Author Nicole Villeneuve
July 1, 2026

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Sleeping in a cupboard sounds more like a punishment than a good night’s rest. But in parts of Europe in the medieval and early modern era, people often slept on beds inside wooden cupboards. 

Built right into house frames or crafted as freestanding pieces of furniture, these boxes didn’t look like modern beds so much as wardrobes: The cupboard stood upright like a wardrobe, often with elaborate carving details on the outside. Inside, the sleeping space inside was a horizontal bed enclosed by wooden walls and doors or curtains that could close up at night.

Box beds (or closet beds) were quite practical for the time. The average house in the Middle Ages was smaller than today, with just one or two rooms serving as both living and sleeping spaces for families, so having the option of even a small amount of privacy was valued. Even more importantly, homes could often be quite cold, and enclosing the bed helped trap body heat. Many box beds measured around 5.5 feet long — about as long as a modern queen-sized bed is wide — and were wide enough to fit at least two people, so they would sometimes be shared by more than one family member. 

The furniture piece began to fade out of use in the 19th century amid rising concerns about hygiene and air quality, improved indoor heating, and the increasing popularity of bed frames. Closet beds eventually became a symbol of rural poverty and an old-fashioned way of living, and by the mid-20th century, they were no longer used.

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Queen Elizabeth I once refused to go to bed for days.

In March 1603, as Queen Elizabeth I was ill and in the final days of her life, the monarch refused to go to bed. Accounts from attendants describe the queen standing in her Richmond Palace chamber for upwards of 15 hours. After eventually getting worn out, she moved to the floor. There, she reportedly remained seated or lying on cushions, largely withdrawn and silent while her courtiers waited for the end. Eventually, after several days of this, Elizabeth was persuaded to lie down in her bed, and she died shortly after, on March 24, 1603.

John Steinbeck’s dog ate the first draft of ‘Of Mice and Men.’

  • Portrait of John Steinbeck
Portrait of John Steinbeck
Credit: Ntguilty/ Shutterstock
Author Timothy Ott
January 7, 2025

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By the spring of 1936, life was clearly on the upswing for John Steinbeck. As described in Jay Parini’s biography, the commercial success of his 1935 novel Tortilla Flat had produced newfound financial comfort for the author and his wife, Carol, and with it they were building a new home in an isolated stretch of wilderness outside Los Gatos, California. Meanwhile, Steinbeck was knee-deep in another work, tentatively titled Something That Happened, that was originally meant as a children’s story but was turning into an experimental piece that could be absorbed from the page or performed on stage.

And then, a “minor tragedy stalked,” Steinbeck wrote in a letter to his literary agent on May 27, 1936. “My setter pup [Toby], left alone one night, made confetti of about half of my ms. [manuscript] book. Two months work to do over again. … There was no other draft.” Yet whatever anguish the author initially felt over seeing his months of hard work reduced to shreds had clearly tempered by the time he sat down to write the letter. “I was pretty mad but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically,” Steinbeck continued. “I didn’t want to ruin a good dog for a ms. I’m not sure is good at all. He only got an ordinary spanking with his punishment flyswatter. But there’s the work to do over from the start.”

Fortunately, Toby’s drastic edits proved but a temporary obstacle in the gestating story’s path to completion. Inspired by his new surroundings, which included a study crafted to his liking, Steinbeck restarted his tale of codependent migrant workers George and Lennie and furiously plowed through revisions until submitting what became Of Mice and Men to his editors in August. And while Steinbeck initially had modest hopes for his completed novella, Of Mice and Men became another critical and commercial hit upon publication in February 1937, ensuring that its now-famous author, his wife, and especially Toby could enjoy nothing but the finest dining options in the days to come.

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Another of Steinbeck’s dogs featured prominently in one of the author’s last books.

Nearly a quarter-century after Toby made a mess of the Of Mice and Men manuscript, Steinbeck took his French poodle, Charley, for a three-month tour of the U.S. in a pickup truck fitted with a camper top. Ostensibly there to provide companionship for long, anonymous stretches of highway, the poodle instead became a prominent figure in Steinbeck’s 1962 travelogue Travels With Charley: In Search of America. Avoiding the urge to feast on his owner’s letters that formed the basis of the book, Charley lived up to his end of the bargain both as a sidekick and instigator of events, including his bouts with prostatitis that prompted the need to seek out veterinary care. While Travels With Charley later invited controversy for Steinbeck’s alleged fudging of many details, the titular canine’s ever-steady presence throughout its pages helped give its ailing and aging author one final bestselling book.

ZIP codes needed a cartoon mascot to convince people to use them. 

  • Mr. ZIP mascot
Mr. ZIP mascot
Credit: © BC Photo/Alamy
Author Bess Lovejoy
July 1, 2026

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Today, most Americans can rattle off their ZIP code without a second thought. But when the five-digit system debuted in 1963, many people weren’t thrilled about adding yet another string of numbers to their lives.

The ZIP code — short for “Zone Improvement Plan” — was created to help the Post Office Department handle a growing flood of mail. Between 1943 and 1962, annual mail volume doubled, while suburban growth made delivery routes increasingly complex. The new five-digit codes allowed mail to be sorted by machines, speeding letters through the postal system far more efficiently than older methods.

Postal officials worried, however, that the public would resist the change. Americans were already adapting to telephone area codes and growing reliance on Social Security numbers. Some had grumbled that ZIP codes would make life more complicated, while a few even complained that assigning people numbers felt vaguely un-American.

To make the new system seem friendlier, the Post Office Department turned to an unlikely spokesman: a cheerful cartoon mail carrier named Mr. ZIP. The character was originally created in the 1950s for a Chase Manhattan Bank mail-by-bank campaign. After the campaign ended, the design eventually made its way to the Post Office, which renamed the character, made a few tweaks, and put him at the center of a massive national publicity effort. He was introduced to postmasters at a convention in October 1962; each postmaster present was photographed hugging Mr. ZIP.

Shortly after, Mr. ZIP was everywhere. He appeared in newspaper and magazine ads, in television and radio spots, on mail trucks, and on the uniforms of postal employees. Post offices displayed life-size cardboard cutouts of the smiling mascot, some equipped with push-button recordings that explained the importance of using ZIP codes. Communities featured him in parades, fairs, and local events, while schoolchildren learned about the system through Mr. ZIP-themed educational materials.

The campaign worked. By the 1970s, ZIP code use had become nearly universal, helping pave the way for the highly automated mail system Americans rely on today. Before he was retired in the 1980s, Mr. ZIP became one of the most recognizable advertising mascots of the mid-20th century — a cartoon character who helped persuade a nation to embrace five little digits.

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There were “Miss ZIP” contests.

As Mr. ZIP became a familiar figure, some communities decided he needed a female counterpart. Local post offices around the country held “Miss ZIP” beauty contests at banquets and dances. In Tucson, Arizona, for example, a local woman named Doe Stella posed with Mr. ZIP after winning the title; in Miami, a post office named 19-year-old Janet Swanson its official “ZIP Girl.” The contests generated favorable publicity and helped transform a postal modernization campaign into a community event.

The idea eventually moved beyond local promotions. In 1969, the Post Office Department launched a “Miss ZIP” program at selected large post offices, stationing female employees in lobbies to help customers navigate the increasingly modern mail system. Wearing distinctive “Miss ZIP” sashes, they answered questions, offered mailing advice, and sold stamps — giving the friendly, human touch that postal officials hoped would encourage Americans to embrace the ZIP code era.

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