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Humans have been wrapping gifts since the second century.

  • Measuring wrapping paper
Measuring wrapping paper
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Author Nicole Villeneuve

December 5, 2024

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Decorative wrapping has long been an integral part of gift-giving. Over the years, studies have shown that gift wrap can even positively influence the perception of a gift — a fact that was clearly understood in some ancient cultures. When paper first emerged in ancient China around the second century BCE, it was primarily used for wrapping medicine and delicate goods. But during the Southern Song dynasty from 1127 to 1279 CE, wrapping paper took on an intentional and meaningful role not unlike how it’s used today: Monetary gifts from the imperial court were presented wrapped in paper envelopes known as chih poh. 

In Korea, wrapping gifts may have started even earlier. Records such as the Samguk sagi, a 12th-century historical Korean text, note the use of a decorative cloth known as bojagi for wrapping gifts throughout the Three Kingdoms period from 57 BCE to 668 CE; most early bojagi artifacts, however, date to the later Joseon period, from 1392 to 1910.

The Western world was much slower to embrace the practice. The proliferation of elaborately decorated Christmas cards in Victorian England led to early gift wrapping, and the tradition spread from there to the U.S., where the wrapping paper industry boomed. In 1917, while running their namesake Hallmark stationery store in Kansas City, Missouri, the Hall brothers ran out of traditional tissue paper during the Christmas season. Scrambling for a solution, they began selling decorative paper envelope liners as a replacement. The colorful sheets were a hit, and by 1919, the brothers began producing and selling their own printed wrapping paper for several occasions, transforming how we give gifts.

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Christmas was once banned in Massachusetts.

When early English settlers arrived in Virginia in 1607, they brought with them a reverence for their European Christmas traditions. Though their celebrations didn’t match those back home — the hardships of colonial life didn’t allow much fanfare — the Virginia colonists still considered Christmas a sacred and restful day. In Massachusetts, however, following England’s lead during the English Civil Wars, the Puritans outright banned Christmas in 1659. The extreme Protestants believed the holiday had no biblical basis and denounced its pagan traditions; the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony fined anyone caught celebrating the holiday five shillings. Though England lifted its ban with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Massachusetts enforced its law until 1681. Even after that, the holiday remained controversial in New England for decades. It wasn’t until 1856 that Christmas officially became a public holiday in the Bay State.

British kings had attendants to help them go to the bathroom.

  • The royal toilet
The royal toilet
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

November 1, 2023

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During the reign of Henry VII, a curious job emerged to serve the king of England: the “groom of the stool,” an attendant who helped with the monarch’s toileting. The “stool” in the title refers not to excrement, but to the “close stool,” a luxurious portable toilet that followed the king during his travels. One close stool made for Henry VIII in 1546 was trimmed in ribbon and gilt nails, and came with a leather carrying case.

The groom was in charge of the close stool and monitoring the king’s bathroom habits, and may have even helped clean the royal bottom afterward. But it wasn’t considered a menial job — it was a prestigious position held by men of influence. Perhaps due to the intimate nature of the gig, the groom of the stool was a close royal adviser, too. Henry VII’s longtime groom Hugh Denys eventually became the king’s personal treasurer. Henry VIII’s first groom, William Compton, handled many of his personal affairs from the get-go, including arranging romantic encounters. (He eventually became fabulously rich.) Henry VIII’s final groom, Arthur Denny, even controlled his signature stamp.

The last known groom of the stool, at least by that name, was Michael Stanhope, who worked under King Edward VI in the 16th century. The office lapsed during the reign of two female monarchs, Queen Mary and the last Tudor monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, who both had their own set of domestic staff. During the reign of the Stuarts, starting in the early 17th century, the title changed to the more polite “groom of the stole,” referring to dressing the king rather than doing his dirty work. King Edward VII eliminated the position entirely when he ascended to the throne in 1901.

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Shakespeare was not above toilet humor.

Don’t let the dense verse fool you: Shakespeare loved a potty joke. In The Comedy of Errors, for example, Dromio of Ephesus delivers this line about flatulence: “A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind / Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.” The Bard even made a couple of jokes about close stools specifically, such as in All’s Well That Ends Well, when Parolles requests that the clown deliver a letter. “Foh! prithee, stand away,” the clown responds, “a paper from fortune's close-stool to give to a nobleman!”

Before pockets, people wore elaborate “chatelaines” to carry their keys.

  • Chatelaine at the waist
Chatelaine at the waist
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Author Nicole Villeneuve

December 5, 2024

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Long before pockets became commonplace, humans had other resourceful ways to carry everyday essentials. Wearable pouches such as belt bags date back more than 5,000 years, and as early as ancient Roman times, people wore brooches that had hooks for hanging personal grooming tools. Similar items were used for carrying keys throughout the medieval period and beyond; by the 18th century, the tool had evolved into an elaborate piece that came to be known as a “chatelaine,” a word derived from French, referring to the keeper of a castle.

Chatelaines from this era typically consisted of an ornately designed metal clip or hook that was fastened over a waistband or belt. Several chains — upwards of 12 or 13 on large chatelaines — extended from the clip, and each one held a small but useful item for the day-to-day operations of a household. This included keys, of course, but also scissors, writing tools, sewing kits, or even perfume. There were specialized versions for nurses or artists to help them keep their tools at hand, as well as chatelaines that primarily served as fancy fashion accessories — these were usually made of gold, beautifully decorated with diamonds and enamels, and often held a fan, watch, or purse. 

While both women and men wore versions of chatelaines throughout history, it was mostly women who wore them during this era — men’s clothing, after all, had reliably included pockets since the 17th century. By the early 20th century, however, women’s handbags had become more common and larger; people also began wearing watches on their wrists as opposed to a chain. After World War I, dropped-waist fashion silhouettes took center stage, and chatelaines were left behind as but a relic of functional fashion.

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Lovers used to wear miniature portraits of each other’s eyes.

In the late 18th century, tiny tokens of romance emerged as a mysterious jewelry fad in Britain. They were known as “lover’s eye” portraits — miniature paintings featuring a single, detailed eye, often framed in jewelry such as brooches, lockets, or rings. They were usually exchanged as tokens of love, but often, only the giver and the recipient knew whose eye it was. The origin of the tradition is linked to Prince George of Wales (later King George IV). According to legend, the prince, who famously shared a scandalous love affair with a woman named Maria Anne Fitzherbert, sent a tiny painting of his eye to ask for her hand in marriage in 1785. The intimate hand-painted objects came and went fairly quickly as a trend, especially as photography emerged in the 1830s. Today, approximately 1,000 “lover’s eye” artifacts exist.

Roman ships used flamethrowers as far back as the seventh century.

  • Byzantine flame thrower
Byzantine flame thrower
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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

December 5, 2024

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Modern flamethrowers emerged at the turn of the 20th century, but the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, was far ahead of the curve. The empire’s most closely guarded secret — its exact formula is a mystery even today — was its recipe for Greek fire, a napalm-like incendiary substance. The Byzantines first deployed it to defend Constantinople from an Arab attack, loading it into bronze siphons and firing it under pressure at enemy ships, like an early version of a flamethrower. (They would also fill pots with Greek fire and hurl them like grenades.) Because it caught fire spontaneously and couldn’t be extinguished by water, it was a powerful and destructive naval weapon, and it helped the Byzantines stay in power for centuries.

Callinicus of Heliopolis, a Greek-speaking refugee who fled to Constantinople from Syria after the city was conquered and became part of the Rashidun Caliphate, is widely credited for inventing Greek fire. Historians are pretty confident that it was petroleum- or naphtha-based, possibly sourced from Crimea. Other possible ingredients include quicklime, sulfur, and saltpeter. Its volatility meant that it was extremely dangerous to manufacture — and distilling the petroleum product would have been pretty advanced tech for the time. The weapon was a mainstay of the Byzantine arsenal for centuries, and despite one of their flamethrowers being captured once, nobody else managed to crack the code.

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Sword fighters in Renaissance Italy had lantern shields.

Sword fighters in Renaissance-era Italy would often duel at dawn, carrying lanterns to both light their way and also use as weapons in their own right. Fencing manuals at the time instructed students on how to use lanterns to blind opponents and deflect blows. Armorers started adding a hook for hanging these lanterns on shields, sometimes even embedding lanterns into them. Eventually, things got a little out of hand; one particularly famous lantern shield also includes a gauntlet and a dagger. Ultimately, lantern shields turned out to not be very practical, since it was pretty easy to accidentally snuff out the lantern or scald yourself with lamp oil.

“Pennsylvania” is written with a missing “n” on the Liberty Bell.

  • Liberty bell up close
Liberty bell up close
David W. Leindecker/ Shutterstock
Author Adam Levine

October 31, 2023

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In 1751, Pennsylvania statesman Isaac Norris placed an order to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London for a large bell to be placed in the State House in Philadelphia. The bell was meant to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges, the colony’s original constitution. Now known as the Liberty Bell, this colonial landmark remains on display in Philadelphia as a symbol of the United States’ ideals of liberty and equality. The bell is inscribed with a Bible verse extolling the virtues of liberty, as well as these words: “By Order of the Assembly of the Province of Pensylvania for the State House in Philada.” That’s right, Pennsylvania is spelled with a missing “n” on the Liberty Bell — but it’s not a typo. Though it looks unorthodox today, “Pensylvania” was generally accepted in the 18th century as one of several legitimate spellings for the colony’s name, along with “Pensilvania” and “Pennsilvania.” 

In fact, this same spelling of “Pensylvania” appears in the U.S. Constitution, in the section where delegates from Pennsylvania signed their names to the document. The word was written by Alexander Hamilton in that instance, but the “Pennsylvania” spelling we know now appears elsewhere in the Constitution. To this day, the word “Pensylvania” remains unaltered on both the Liberty Bell and the Constitution, forever enshrining this alternate spelling in the story of the nation’s founding.

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The Liberty Bell was hidden during the Revolutionary War.

For about 10 months during the American Revolutionary War, the Liberty Bell was rushed away from Philadelphia to a hidden location that was classified as a military secret. The mission to hide the bell was launched in 1777, and in September of that year, George Washington’s troops were defeated by the British army at the Battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania. Washington’s defeat left Philadelphia vulnerable to British occupation, and the British began advancing on the city. Anticipating the impending invasion, Philadelphians rushed to remove all the large bells in the city — including the Liberty Bell — so that the occupying soldiers wouldn’t be able to melt them down to make new weapons. The bell was relocated from Philadelphia to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where it was hidden underneath the floorboards of a local church. It remained concealed in the church until June 1778, when the British occupation of Philadelphia ended and the bell could safely be returned to Philadelphia.

Some Civil War ships used cotton for armor.

  • Civil War battle ship
Civil War battle ship
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Author Michael Nordine

October 31, 2023

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When the Civil War began in 1861, the United States Navy had just 90 warships. By the conflict’s end four years later, it had 626. Sixty-five of the ships were ironclads, which were the strongest seafaring vessels in the world at the time. But they were also expensive and made from scarce resources, which is why they accounted for such a small percentage of either side’s fleet. Hence the Confederacy’s eventual reliance on “cottonclads,” which were armored with 500-pound bales of cotton lining their sides. Because they were weaker than their iron counterparts, cottonclads would often steam at full speed toward their combatants as the cotton absorbed as much enemy gunfire as possible, then would attack once they were within firing range. 

This proved more successful than you might expect. The Battle of Galveston began before dawn on January 1, 1863, with cottonclads playing a crucial role in the Confederate victory; the South held the Texas port for the rest of the war. Nevertheless, the Confederates were ultimately bested on the sea just as they were on land, failing to defend their rivers, coasts, and seas en route to their eventual surrender.

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Civil War generals were more likely to die in combat than privates.

We often think of the lowest-ranking soldiers as the most vulnerable when it comes to dying in combat, but that wasn’t the case during the Civil War. Generals and other high-ranking officers personally led their troops into battle during the internecine conflict (which remains the war with the most American fatalities by a considerable margin), making them 50% more likely to die in combat than privates. Six generals were killed and several more were wounded during the Battle of Antietam alone, the bloodiest one-day battle in American history. Perhaps unsurprisingly, generals have rarely entered the fray in subsequent wars.  

The “Iliad” was thought to be pure fiction until Troy was discovered.

  • Ruins at Hisarlık
Ruins at Hisarlık
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Author Michael Nordine

December 5, 2024

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Homer’s Iliad is perhaps the most famous work of mythology in history, not to mention one of Western literature’s foundational texts. And though the Trojan War and its legendary combatants are fictional, the city of Troy is not — not that everyone always knew it. First settled in the Bronze Age, Troy was destroyed and rebuilt several times during its 4,000 years of existence, and was eventually forgotten and lost to history. Because of this, the Iliad was thought to be pure fiction for centuries until the city of Troy was rediscovered in the 1870s. It was uncovered by Heinrich Schliemann, a businessman and amateur archaeologist from Germany, who also excavated the ruins of Mycenae and Tiryns.

What was once called Troy is now Hisarlık, an archaeological mound in present-day Turkey. Schliemann’s discovery also reignited the debate around whether the Trojan War itself actually took place. The ancient Greeks themselves certainly thought so, but there simply isn’t enough evidence to state that a conflict of the sort portrayed in the Iliad actually lasted 10 years and was waged by such larger-than-life figures as Achilles, Odysseus, and Agamemnon. There were certainly wars (or at least battles) fought in Troy, but not of the stature depicted in the epic poem.

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Very little is known about Homer, including whether he was a real person.

If you were to ask 10 historians when and where Homer was born, you might get 10 different answers. Very little is known about the famed poet, including what century he lived in, if he was actually blind, and whether he was a real person or rather a composite of several people. The consensus is that Homer — if he indeed existed — was born between the 12th and eighth centuries BCE, possibly on the coast of Asia Minor, and that he died on the Greek island of Ios. Because the Odyssey, the Iliad, and other epic poems were spoken aloud, not written down, some believe they were composed by a group of people to whom the single name Homer was later given, or that Homer was simply the one to compile their efforts. Even the idea that he couldn’t see is based solely on the fact that Demodocus, a poet in the Odyssey, is blind, and that Homer based the character on himself.

Suffragists caused a hatpin panic in the early 1900s.

  • Woman with a hatpin
Woman with a hatpin
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Author Nicole Villeneuve

October 31, 2023

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At the beginning of the 20th century, elaborate hats were ubiquitous in women’s fashion. Hat brims were so wide, they often extended out past a woman’s shoulders, and the tops of the hats were adorned with taffeta, ribbons, and lots of feathers. Hatpins, themselves often decorative and sometimes as big as a foot long, were required to fasten the large hats to a woman’s hairstyle — but they also became inadvertent tools of self-defense for women who were gaining more independence and venturing out into the world alone.

The use of hatpins for self-defense dovetailed with a growing culture of “mashers,” as they were known at the time. These were men who leered at, catcalled, or unwantedly touched women in public. Suffragists and other women’s rights groups became increasingly vocal about the need for female safety, autonomy, and self-defense in the face of “masher” culture, but their efforts had the unintended effect of bringing negative attention to the female victims. Newspapers across the country reported stories of women using hatpins and umbrellas to fend off attackers, and by 1909, hatpins were considered dangerous around the world. Some regions attempted to regulate their length; in many U.S. states, women could be fined up to $50 for wearing hatpins that were more than 9 inches long. 

Eventually, measures were taken in some locations to punish “mashers,” including with fines and jail time. Still, women were sometimes told (by a judge in at least one instance) that they were simply too beautiful to be walking around alone. By the end of World War I, women’s hairstyles — and the size of their hats — were significantly smaller, and the “hatpin peril” was all but forgotten.

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British suffragettes’ self-defense was known as “suffrajitsu.”

The fight for women’s suffrage reached a fever pitch in the early 20th century, and in the U.K., women encountered increasing physical resistance by opponents and law enforcement during protests and demonstrations. In order to protect themselves, some women started learning the Japanese martial art of jiu-jitsu, which emphasizes using leverage and targeting pressure points to overcome physical aggression. Media outlets started reporting on the trend, as well as on martial artist Edith Garrud, who was teaching jiu-jitsu to members of the Women's Social and Political Union (the driving force of the U.K.’s suffrage campaign). Soon, the term “suffrajitsu” was being used. The word was later used as the title of a graphic novel trilogy on the self-defense movement.

When Charles Dickens visited the White House, no one answered so he let himself in.

  • Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
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Author Timothy Ott

November 27, 2024

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As part of an extensive tour of the United States that encompassed most of the first half of 1842, English author Charles Dickens earned an invitation to meet President John Tyler at the White House. However, this visit left a lot to be desired on the part of the author, beginning with his attempt to actually locate the commander in chief. As explained in his travelogue American Notes, Dickens and an unnamed official, “having twice or thrice rung a bell which nobody answered,” simply entered the White House and attempted to find the president on their own.

After wandering upstairs and catching the attention of a servant, Dickens noticed how the others gathered in a waiting room had no compunction about spitting tobacco juice as they pleased. He wrote, “Indeed all these gentlemen were so very persevering and energetic in this latter particular, and bestowed their favours so abundantly upon the carpet, that I take it for granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages.” While he didn’t have to wait long to see President Tyler, the meeting soon unfolded into an awkward spectacle. Tyler commented on the youthful appearance of the 30-year-old writer, who failed to reply in kind to the “worn and anxious” 51-year-old president. The two then sat in silence near a hot stove until Dickens excused himself, sarcastically noting that his host was clearly very busy.

The disappointing visit to the Executive Mansion was a microcosm of Dickens’ overall experience in the United States. Overwhelmed by the mobs of people who gathered to see him, dismayed by the ongoing institution of slavery, and frustrated by his inability to generate interest in international copyright laws, the author vented his criticisms of the titular country when American Notes was published later that year, in turn igniting the ire of U.S. citizens until Dickens returned to make amends in 1867.

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Visitors enjoyed near-unfettered access to the White House for most of the 19th century.

While the concept of someone breezing into the White House seems unusual in this day and age, it was actually pretty common for several decades before and after Dickens' visit. The practice began with the mansion's second resident, Thomas Jefferson, who encouraged visitors to the building by displaying artifacts from the Lewis and Clark Expedition and even placing taxidermied bears on the lawn. While James Monroe installed gates around the premises, visitors could still largely enter the building as they wished, except for mornings or when the president was out of town. The near-unfettered access was first curtailed in the mid-1890s, when First Lady Frances Cleveland ordered the gates locked over safety concerns for her young daughter, Ruth. Although Warren G. Harding reopened the grounds to the public in the early 1920s, the arrival of World War II brought stricter security measures that all but closed off the “People’s House” to the people, save for those with previously approved appointments.

Manhattan was once “traded” for a tiny Indonesian island.

  • New Amsterdam, 17th century
New Amsterdam, 17th century
Credit: Nastasic/ iStock
Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

November 27, 2024

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In the 17th century, the Netherlands, through the Dutch East India Company, had control of the tiny, remote archipelago of Banda where all of the nutmeg trees on Earth grew — except for one island, Pulau Rhun, which was under British control. The Dutch were pretty unhappy about that holdout, and spent four years fighting their way onto the island, eventually seizing it in 1621. Then, in 1664, as part of a larger conflict over international trade and shipping, the British sent frigates to New Amsterdam, a marshy Dutch colony and fur trading outpost on the Atlantic coast of North America, to claim it for the British Empire.

Both nations were adamant about taking over these territories — and neither was putting up much resistance at that point — so in 1667, when the Treaty of Breda ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War, they struck a deal. The Netherlands, presented with an opportunity to control the entire world’s nutmeg supply, ceded control of New Amsterdam, which comprised what is now lower Manhattan in New York City, to the British. (Today, neither country has control of either territory — the United States won independence from Great Britain, and the Banda Islands are officially part of Indonesia.)It may seem surprising from a modern perspective: A country traded what became an economic and cultural powerhouse for a volcanic island less than 2 miles long. But at the time, the so-called Spice Islands, which included the Banda archipelago, were extremely valuable territory to European colonial forces, which had been violently competing for shares of the spice trade for more than a century. The remote islands were the only source of many seasonings we take for granted today, including not only nutmeg, but also cinnamon, ginger, cumin, and black pepper.

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New York was briefly called New Orange.

It didn’t take the Dutch long after the Pulau Rhun “trade” to take another shot at controlling the island of Manhattan. In 1673, the Netherlands briefly reconquered the city — but instead of reverting the name back to New Amsterdam, it was dubbed New Orange in honor of Dutch leader (and later king of England) William of Orange. After about a year, the British retook the city and reinstated the New York name.

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