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Egyptian pharaohs had to prove they were fit to lead.

  • Pharaoh Ramses II
Pharaoh Ramses II
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Author Darren Orf
January 22, 2024

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Egyptian pharaohs were seen by their subjects as gods — but sometimes, those “gods” had to prove their worth. This occurred at a jubilee-style celebration meant to reaffirm an aging ruler’s kingship, known as the Heb-Sed or Sed festival. The tradition dates back to the first dynasty of ancient Egypt, around 3000 BCE, and usually took place in the 30th year of a pharaoh’s reign (and every three years after that). The event was filled with sacrifices, crownings, and other lavish displays; the Heb-Sed of Amenhotep III, for instance, featured the construction of temples and colossal sculptures all along the Nile valley. But the main event was a footrace run by the pharaoh — dressed in a kilt with an attached animal tail — to demonstrate their physical fitness. 

According to Egyptologists, ancient Egyptians likely related the health of their ruler to the overall health and virility of the kingdom. If a pharaoh couldn’t complete the race, it signaled that it was time to make way for a younger, healthier leader. Of course, thousands of years before modern medicine, 30 years was a long lifespan, and only a small percentage of pharaohs lived long enough to celebrate a Heb-Sed. Not all of them passed the test: Although a simple footrace may seem like a relatively easy method for reaffirming your reign, pharaohs were not nearly as svelte or athletic as hieroglyphics and ancient carvings would have us believe. Many kings and queens were plagued with various maladies caused by inbreeding, as well as obesity: A pharaoh’s diet, often filled with beer, wine, bread, and honey, contained an awful lot of sugar.

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King Tut wasn’t a particularly important pharaoh.

Ask the average person to name some ancient Egyptian pharaohs and Tutankhamun, known more commonly as King Tut, would likely make the list. His name became famous when his remarkably well-preserved tomb was discovered in the 1920s, but Tutankhamun was arguably one of the least memorable leaders of his era. Becoming pharaoh at around 9 years old, he reigned for only a decade before dying mysteriously. His most notable accomplishment was reversing the monotheistic inklings of his father, Akhenaten, and returning the kingdom to its old pantheon of gods. Little else is known of his rule, however. Scholars and Egyptologists theorize that Tutankhamun may have been a puppet of royal advisers and priests, and thus his reign left little mark on Egyptian history. 

The first American alarm clock could ring only at 4 a.m.

  • Antique clock, circa 1900
Antique clock, circa 1900
Credit: DEA / G. NIMATALLAH/ De Agostini via Getty Images
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
May 22, 2025

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In 1787, clockmaker Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire, invented what may have been the world’s first working mechanical alarm clock, and was certainly the first in the United States. But despite Hutchins’ long career building and selling timepieces, this alarm clock wasn’t something he actually patented or sold. He just wanted to wake up at 4 a.m., and felt out of sorts if he slept any later. So he took the assembly from one of his clocks and added a small gear that would trigger a bell at that precise time. 

According to The People’s Almanac, Hutchins said just having the idea for an alarm clock was the hard part, and “it was simplicity itself to arrange for the bell to sound at the predetermined hour.” Because the alarm was built directly into the mechanism of the clock, it wasn’t adjustable or snoozable — useful only for someone who wanted to wake at that exact wee hour of the morning every day. Notably, Hutchins did not live alone at the time — he shared a home with his brother Abel, and married just a couple of years later — so hopefully he kept the volume at a reasonable level, at least.

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The nine-minute snooze dates back to the first snooze button.

In 1956, General Electric-Telechron debuted the alarm clock feature that most of us still use today, whether we’re waking to a clock radio or relying on our phones: the snooze button. While in some cases you can adjust the interval, the standard snooze on alarm clocks and iPhones alike is nine minutes, which seems arbitrary but actually isn’t: The first snooze button was part of an analog clock, and the gear teeth wouldn’t line up to allow a 10-minute snooze. This technical limitation is long gone, but those early alarm clocks created the standard still used today.

The Salem witch trials weren’t actually finished until recently.

  • Elizabeth Johnson Jr. witch trial
Elizabeth Johnson Jr. witch trial
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Author Rachel Gresh
January 18, 2024

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In the woods of Salem, Massachusetts, there is a summit called Gallows Hill, where the darkest days of the town’s history occurred. Here, nearly 20 people lost their lives by execution after being accused of witchcraft during the infamous Salem witch hunts of 1692 and 1693. One of the accused, a 22-year-old woman named Elizabeth Johnson Jr., was pardoned from execution but not cleared of charges until 2022, leaving her name sullied for more than three centuries.

Toward the end of the witch-hunting frenzy, the governor began sparing the accused from execution, including Johnson. In 1711, colonial Massachusetts lawmakers passed an act that reversed the witchcraft convictions of 22 individuals, but Johnson’s name wasn’t among them. She petitioned to have hers added, and it is unclear why she was left out. Legislation clearing additional names continued to trickle in over the decades, as recently as 1957 and 2001, but Johnson was never listed. Finally, in 2021, students at North Andover Middle School (in the town adjacent to Salem) learned about the matter in class and urged their teacher to take action. The teacher alerted state Senator Diana DiZoglio, who sponsored an amendment to clear Johnson’s name. On May 26, 2022, 329 years after she was wrongly accused, Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was finally exonerated, making her the last known person convicted of witchcraft in Salem to be cleared of the charges. 

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One of New England’s “witch tests” involved baking a cake.

As mass paranoia swept Europe and the American colonies, tests were devised to reveal who was really a “witch.” Unfortunately, these tests were markedly unfair, and most were unpassable, resulting in the death or conviction of many innocent people — rarely was anyone cleared by these tests. One of the most peculiar tests was the “witch cake,” which involved baking a cake with rye meal, ashes, and the urine of the accused witch’s “victim.” The cake was then fed to a dog (at the time, dogs were associated with the devil), and if the dog displayed the same symptoms as the “victim,” the accused was confirmed to be a witch. The dog would allegedly even point to the guilty “witch.” Inspired by a similar English practice for revealing witches, the test was created by Salem resident Mary Sibley. Though Sibley had hoped to help her neighbors and their bewitched children, the test only fueled the panic. Eventually, baking the cake was considered by some to be an act of witchcraft itself. 

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams stole a piece of Shakespeare’s chair.

  • Shakespeare’s wooden armchair
Shakespeare's wooden armchair
Credit: Andreas von Einsiedel/ Alamy Stock Photo
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
May 22, 2025

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In April 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who were close friends despite their political differences, took a horse and carriage on a weeklong tour of England. Both were great admirers of William Shakespeare, and one of their first stops was the Bard’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. According to Abigail Adams, Jefferson was so moved that he kissed the ground of the house where Shakespeare was born — although he also complained about the entrance fees, and Adams called the house “small and mean.”

Among the many relics at the house was Shakespeare’s own chair, where the poet and playwright supposedly sat and wrote his great works. When the founding fathers left, they sliced off a piece of the chair to take home as a souvenir. (A chip of Shakespeare’s chair — which may or may not be the one that Jefferson and Adams shaved — is currently on display at Monticello.)

In their defense, this was a fairly normal thing to do at the time. As Adams wrote in his diary, “We cutt [sic] off a Chip according to the Custom.” Before the ubiquity of gift shops and commemorative snow globes, tourists would scavenge for whatever souvenirs they could find, often pilfering little bits of significant objects or buildings. In fact, Jefferson’s own gravestone had to be removed and replaced because too many visitors wanted to take a piece home.

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Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were bitter rivals and close friends.

Despite their well-known political differences, Jefferson and Adams had quite a genuine affection for each other, which became even more apparent after politics brought their friendship to a temporary end. The pair stopped corresponding after Adams made some unwelcome political appointments right before Jefferson’s presidency began — Jefferson told Abigail Adams that he spent some time “brooding over it.” 

When Jefferson’s presidency ended in 1809, founding father Benjamin Rush made it his mission to restore the friendship. It took two years, but eventually one of Jefferson’s neighbors overheard Adams saying, “I always loved Jefferson, and still love him.” Jefferson echoed the sentiment, telling Rush, “I only needed this [knowledge] to revive towards him all the affections of the most cordial moments of our lives.” Rush convinced Adams to reopen communication, and the former friends spent the last 15 years of their lives in doting correspondence, before dying on the same day.

More than 60 nations signed a pact to outlaw war after WWI. 

  • Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928
Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928
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Author Rachel Gresh
January 24, 2024

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International relations changed dramatically after World War I. Public opinion swayed heavily against war, and peacekeeping measures were at the top of political agendas. One of the most ambitious attempts at deterring future conflict was signed on August 27, 1928: the Kellogg-Briand Pact. It outlawed war between the nations that signed, including France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India. 

The pact was named after U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French Minister of Foreign Affairs Aristide Briand, who spearheaded the act. Briand had proposed a bilateral agreement between France and the U.S. to deter aggression (especially from Germany), but eventually other countries were invited to join the alliance. The response was overwhelming. The world was eager to maintain peace, and the pact was signed by 15 nations initially, followed by 47 additional countries in the following years. Signatories of the “Paris Pact” (the act’s nickname) were to renounce war as a national policy and settle disputes by peaceful means. While acts of aggression were outlawed, self-defense was permitted, which led to the pact’s eventual downfall. What’s more, there weren’t any real legal consequences for violations, and nations soon began justifying international aggression as self-defense, and without any repercussions, beginning with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, China, in 1931. Although the pact failed to prevent World War II, it remains in effect today, and its goals are still relevant. In 1945, following the end of the war, key ideas such as renouncing the use of war and promoting peaceful solutions were incorporated into the United Nations Charter, which was signed by many of the same signatories as the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

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Napoleon Bonaparte and Tsar Alexander I signed a peace treaty on a river raft.

A 19th-century print titled “Entrevue des Deux Empereurs” (“Meeting of the Two Emperors”) portrays Russian Tsar Alexander I and French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte embracing each other on an elaborate raft. But this was no leisurely day of sailing — it was a pivotal meeting to sign the first Treaty of Tilsit, officially ending the war between Russia and France and forming an alliance between the two powers. It was signed on July 7, 1807, in Tilsit (present-day Sovetsk in Russia’s Kaliningrad oblast), following France’s victory over Russia at the Battle of Friedland. At the time, signing treaties along neutral borders was commonplace, so the leaders chose the Neman River, which forms the border between Kaliningrad oblast (then part of Prussia) and Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). As seen in various artworks depicting the occasion, the leaders met in an ornate tent perched atop a wooden river raft, with advisers anchored around them in boats. The second Treaty of Tilsit, which included King Frederick William III of Prussia, was signed two days later — he wasn’t invited on the raft for the first signing.

Hans Christian Andersen ruined his friendship with Charles Dickens.

  • Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
January 22, 2024

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Famed British novelist Charles Dickens and Danish fairy-tale writer Hans Christian Andersen (known for The Ugly Duckling and The Little Mermaid) could have been lifelong friends. They met in 1847 at a swanky party; Andersen told Dickens he was “the greatest writer of our time,” and Dickens, in turn, sent Andersen several books he signed as “his friend and admirer.” The pair were close pen pals for the next decade, but their relationship quickly went south in 1857, when Andersen visited Dickens for what was supposed to be two weeks, but stretched on for five.

Dickens later wrote in a letter to his friend William Jerdan — one of multiple letters to multiple people about the visit — that “whenever [Andersen] got to London, he got into wild entanglements of cabs and sherry, and never seemed to get out of them again until he came back here, and cut out paper into all sorts of patterns and gathered the strangest little nosegays in the woods.”

While Andersen, who was notoriously difficult to be around, remembers the visit fondly, for the Dickens family it was both peculiar and exhausting. Andersen was moody, anxious, and sensitive to rejection. Dickens’ daughter Katey called Andersen a “bony bore,” and one morning, Dickens’ wife Catherine found the visitor face down on the lawn, crying and clutching a bad review of his most recent book. After Andersen’s departure, Dickens left a note on the mirror in the guest room: “Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks — which seemed to the family AGES.” In the following years, Andersen continued to write letters to Dickens, but Dickens stopped responding.

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Hans Christian Andersen always traveled with an escape rope.

Despite frequent journeys all over the world, Hans Christian Andersen was an anxious traveler. He was scared of dying in a hotel fire, so he always packed a long rope in his luggage as a precaution. This wasn’t his only unusual phobia — the Danish author was so scared of being accidentally buried alive that he would sometimes place a note on his bedside table with the words, “I’m not really dead.”

Ohio’s abbreviation used to be just “O.”

  • Ohio welcome sign
Ohio welcome sign
Credit: fotoguy22/ iStock via Getty Images Plus
Author Timothy Ott
May 22, 2025

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With the 1831 publication of Table of the Post Offices in the United States, the Post Office Department acknowledged the population’s reluctance to completely spell out state names on mailing envelopes (such as the always-vexing “Massachusetts”) and for the first time unveiled a list of approved abbreviations. The list largely followed consistent guidelines: States with one-word names were abbreviated with their first and last letters (e.g., Connecticut became “Ct.”); states with two-word names were marked by their initials (New York became “N. Y.”); and territories were shortened to two letters with a “T” (Arkansas Territory became “Ar. T.”). But there were a few anomalies among the group: Alabama and Illinois were denoted by their first two letters (“Al.” and “Il.”); Michigan Territory retained its first three (“Mic. T.”); Missouri used a middle letter (“Mo.”) to avoid confusion with Mississippi (“Mi.”); and Ohio simply became “O.”

When the U.S. Post Office released updated lists in 1874 and 1943 to account for the country’s expansion, it did away with abbreviations for Ohio and other states with short names. Then, in mid-1963, the department established new two- to four-letter abbreviations for all states — with the exception of Ohio, Iowa, and Utah — to fit the templates of new mail processing equipment. When the four-letter designations were still found to be too long, the Post Office shortened them one more time in October 1963 to a consistent two letters, and Ohio, Iowa, and Utah became “OH,” “IA,” and “UT.” And that’s where things stand today. The only state abbreviation that has changed since 1963 is Nebraska‘s; originally given the two-letter abbreviation of “NB,” the Cornhusker State was rebranded as “NE” in 1969 to avoid confusion with the Canadian province of New Brunswick.

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The Post Office introduced a mascot to promote the use of ZIP codes.

When mail services struggled to keep pace with America's booming population after World War II, the Post Office Department sought to streamline the process by dividing the country into regions marked by five-digit Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) codes. However, the department had taken note of the recent pushback against the introduction of area codes for the telephone, so it introduced a cartoon mailman named Mr. Zip to help persuade the public to add these five numbers to outgoing mail. Mr. Zip was initially featured on Post Office promotional materials, mail trucks, and buttons worn by carriers; he also appeared in a 1967 PSA alongside a band that performed ZIP code-themed songs and skits. When ZIP code usage continued to lag, he found his way onto kids' lunch boxes, a board game, and into a Dick Tracy cartoon. It's unclear just how effective Mr. Zip was as a pitchman, but the relentless promotional push led to nearly 100% of Americans adopting the ZIP code by the late 1970s, and allowed the Postal Service to ease the smiling mailman into retirement in 1983.

The creator of Fabergé eggs made a Fabergé potato.

  • Mosaic Fabergé egg
Mosaic Fabergé egg
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
January 22, 2024

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Even if you don’t know the name of Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé, you’re probably familiar with his Fabergé eggs, most of which were made for the Romanov family in their last few decades as Russian rulers. Like most things associated with the Romanovs, these Easter eggs were over-the-top opulent, finely crafted with intricate diamond patterns, hidden treasures, and elaborate bases. One single egg is worth around $33 million today.

Fabergé didn’t just make eggs, however. His other designs, including fruits and flowers in tiny crystal vases, also fetch a high price. But among all his dainty, ornate work, one unexpected subject stands out: a potato, just under 4 inches long, in a realistic, irregular shape. Crafted around 1890, the Fabergé potato is a polished box carved from pink agate, decorated with a gold-mounted lid and a fleur-de-lis clasp. It’s one of his lesser-known works, but it bears the mark of the Russian jeweler Michael Perkhin, the master goldsmith Fabergé used to create his eggs at the time. Anything that’s a Fabergé is extremely valuable, whether it’s an enameled egg with a tiny, perfect gold replica of a palace inside, or a humble spud. Indeed, the potato box was sold by the auction house Christie’s for $93,750 in 2016.

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The accent on the end of Fabergé was made up.

When Peter Carl Fabergé’s father Gustav founded the family’s jewelry firm, his name was actually Gustav Faberge — without the accent. Gustav changed it around 1842, when he finished his goldsmithing apprenticeship in St. Petersburg, Russia. One theory is that the accent was added to make the name sound more French, making his jewelry a little more appealing. In his defense, the Faberge family did actually come from France, where their last name was originally Favri. They fled the country in the 17th century, and over the next several generations the name morphed into Faberge.

Memorial Day was originally called “Decoration Day.”

  • Decoration Day in Philadelphia, 1876
Decoration Day in Philadelphia, 1876
Credit: Heritage Images/ Hulton Archive via Getty Images
Author Nicole Villeneuve
May 15, 2024

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As the American Civil War came to an end in 1865, communities across the U.S. honored fallen soldiers through local ceremonies at burial sites. On May 30, 1868, the first national ceremony of this kind took place on a day that would come to be known as Memorial Day — though at the time, it was called “Decoration Day.”

A few weeks before the ceremony, John Logan, head of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Union veterans organization, issued a proclamation urging Americans to decorate Civil War soldiers’ graves with springtime’s “choicest” blooms. Logan stated that the May 30 commemoration would be “designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.” About 5,000 people gathered at Arlington National Cemetery for the first official Decoration Day observance. Along with flowers, each grave was adorned with a small American flag.

By the end of the 19th century, Decoration Day ceremonies were taking place on May 30 throughout the country. The name had started to evolve by this time, too; people began using the term “Memorial Day” instead. That moniker, however, didn’t become common until after World War II, and Congress didn’t make the name change official until 1967. A year later, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, declaring that certain federal holidays would be observed on Mondays, including Memorial Day, which was to be commemorated annually on the last Monday in May. Today, the holiday honors all Americans who have died in military service.

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It’s legally required to observe a National Moment of Remembrance on Memorial Day.

Despite Memorial Day’s origins as a time to honor fallen Civil War soldiers, it has largely become an unofficial kickoff to the summer season. What barbeque lovers and beach trippers might not know, however, is that the holiday also comes with a law requiring a National Moment of Remembrance. This solemn reminder was said to be inspired by a group of children. While touring Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., in 1996, the children were asked what Memorial Day meant to them. Their answer? “The day the pools open!” The National Moment of Remembrance law was passed in 2000, and encourages all Americans to pause for one minute at 3 p.m. local time to think about the sacrifices of fallen military personnel. 

The first rockets date back to 1232.

  • Incendiary arrows in China
Incendiary arrows in China
Credit: ullstein bild Dtl./ ullstein bild via Getty Images
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd
May 15, 2025

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In the Middle Ages, China was a technology leader in explosives. Gunpowder was invented in China as early as the ninth century CE, and the Chinese were also the first to use it to propel weapons — the earliest known rockets. 

During the Battle of Kai-Keng (also called the Siege of Kaifeng) in 1232, Jin dynasty soldiers deployed simple, early rockets — fire arrows propelled with gunpowder — to defend themselves against Mongol invaders. To launch the arrows, soldiers used a tube capped on one end and filled with gunpowder, then attached to a stick for stability — basically a large bottle rocket. Once the tube was ignited, the fire, smoke, and gas that escaped out the open end propelled the tube and the stick toward a target.

Soon after finding themselves on the receiving end of fire arrows, the Mongols started developing rockets of their own. The idea soon spread to Europe, and with a growing number of inventors experimenting with rocketry, the technology continued to develop.

Though the Chinese fire arrows are often cited as the first example of rocketry, some earlier inventions used the same basic principle. In ancient Greece, one inventor launched a wooden pigeon using steam as a propellant. Throughout the next several centuries, similar experiments followed, including in China, where chemists developed firecrackers and other fireworks. 

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One of the fathers of aeronautics was a self-taught schoolteacher.

Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was born in poverty in 1857 and lost most of his hearing to scarlet fever at age 9 or 10. He was then removed from school at age 14 — hardly a recipe for becoming a pioneer of aeronautics and rocketry. Yet at age 16, Tsiolkovsky started taking full advantage of the Chertkovskaya Library in Moscow, developing a passion for both science and science fiction. A few years later, he got his teaching credential and started teaching arithmetic and geometry in a small-town school, but continued doing experiments in his spare time. He even built a centrifuge to study the effects of different levels of gravity on chickens. In 1903, he published "Exploration of the World Space With Reaction Machines" in a scientific review, widely considered the first viable proposal for exploring space via rocket, including a foundational equation that’s still named for him. Today, he is widely considered to be one of the fathers of modern aeronautics and human spaceflight. 

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