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The world’s oldest place of worship predates the Egyptian pyramids by at least 6,500 years.

  • Göbekli Tepe archaeological site
Göbekli Tepe archaeological site
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Author Timothy Ott
September 11, 2024

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While the pyramids of Giza (dating back to 2500 BCE) and Stonehenge (3000 BCE) are likely the most famous ancient monuments, the world’s oldest place of worship predates these sites by a whopping 6,500 to 7,000 years. Dating to around 9600 BCE, Göbekli Tepe is an archaeological tell — a raised mound formed by continuous settlements rebuilt in the same location — in the foothills of southeastern Turkey. It not only reveals evidence of Stone Age human activity, but also has forced a reckoning of some of the widely held beliefs about the origins of civilization. 

Since excavation of the site began in 1995, Göbekli Tepe — which translates to “potbelly hill” in Turkish — has yielded enclosures of T-shaped limestone megaliths, along with smaller human statuettes, early Neolithic tools, and remnants of animal bones. Because many of these megaliths are arranged in circular patterns and feature carvings of wild animals, anthropomorphic creatures, and human clothing, it’s generally believed these structures served as a gathering site for spiritual ceremonies. And as radiocarbon dating has revealed the Göbekli Tepe ruins to be at least 11,000 years old, from a time when nomadic hunter-gatherers were beginning to transition to permanent settlements, anthropologists have had to reconsider the previously held belief that organized religion only emerged well after agriculture-based communities were firmly in place.

Archaeologists have determined that Göbekli Tepe housed more of a permanent settlement than originally believed, and that it wasn’t the only Neolithic temple complex in the region. But while archaeologists suspect it’s not the only place of worship from the era, the site remains an invaluable source of information about people who lived thousands of years before the great pyramids rose to the sky, even if we can only guess at what the stone arrangements and their strange symbols really mean.

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Large quantities of beer may have been produced at Göbekli Tepe.

How would you rope in enough people to undertake the backbreaking work of hacking loose and hauling multiton limestone pillars up a 50-foot hill without the aid of construction vehicles? Perhaps with the promise of a beer-filled feast to celebrate the effort. In a 2012 paper, archaeologists at Göbekli Tepe relayed the discovery of six 160-liter-capacity vessels that contained traces of the chemical oxalate, which typically results from the fermentation of grain into alcohol. Putting aside jokes about how people have known how to party since the dawn of humanity, there's a long-running debate in the archaeology field about whether our ancestors first cultivated grain to make beer or bread. Given that the starting point for alcohol production continues to be pushed further into the past, and that sociologists espouse the bonding powers of shared drinks, it isn’t too far-fetched to imagine Göbekli Tepe’s inhabitants engaging in this sort of familiar social revelry amid the otherwise inconceivable aspects of life 11,000 years ago.

Tug-of-war used to be in the Olympic Games.

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Sweden's tug-of-war team
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Author Adam Levine
September 18, 2023

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Today, we associate tug-of-war with cookouts and schoolyard games, but for a brief period in the early 20th century, world-class competitors participated in tug-of-war matches on one of the most prestigious stages in athletics: the Olympic Games. Tug-of-war was an event at five Summer Games: in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920. The rules of Olympic tug-of-war were essentially a slightly more regulated version of the game commonly played today. Two teams of eight competitors (or five or six competitors in the 1900 and 1904 Games) grabbed hold of either side of a rope, and two lines were drawn in the middle of the field, 6 feet away from each team. The two sides then battled to pull the opposing team 6 feet over the line closest to their side — or to make the other team fall over. If this wasn’t accomplished within a five-minute time limit, the team that had pulled their opponent the greatest distance was declared the winner.

However, there were some unusual rules in Olympic tug-of-war that led to a few odd results. For instance, a country could enter multiple teams into the same competition, which resulted in the United States winning the gold, silver, and bronze medals in tug-of-war at the 1904 Olympics. A similar result occurred after a controversy in the 1908 Games: When the United States complained that the competitors from Great Britain had an unfair advantage from the heavy, spiked police boots they were wearing, the U.S. withdrew from the competition in protest, and all three medals went to Great Britain. After the 1920 Games, the International Olympic Committee removed around 30 sports from the Olympics, including tug-of-war, amid concerns that the event was getting too large.

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The Olympics used to award medals for art.

Between 1912 and 1948, the Olympic Games awarded medals not just for athletics, but also for works of art. Artists in the Olympics competed in five categories: literature, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture. All works had to be original, and they had to be inspired by the subject of sports. Some notable artists won Olympic medals for their submissions. In the 1932 Games in Los Angeles, architect John Russell Pope, the designer of the Jefferson Memorial, took home a silver medal in architecture for his design of Yale University’s Payne Whitney Gymnasium. Another notable winner was the multitalented competitor Walter Winans, who won both a silver medal for sharpshooting and a gold medal for sculpture at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. The Olympic art competitions were discontinued after the 1948 Games, but the arts didn’t disappear from the Olympics completely. They live on through the Cultural Olympiad, a noncompetitive cultural festival that accompanies the Olympic Games to this day.

Ferrets were a popular pet in ancient Rome.

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Pet ferret
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Author Michael Nordine
September 11, 2024

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Ferrets, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I have come to tell you about one of ancient Rome’s most surprising pets: ferrets, whose small size and playful nature belie their fierce hunting abilities. These wily weasels were primarily kept to hunt rabbits and keep pest populations under control, including by soldiers. As the Roman Empire expanded, so too did the humble ferret’s range. According to the Roman historians Pliny and Strabo, around 6 BCE, Emperor Augustus sent γαλέη — a Greek word believed to have been referring to ferrets, though it also could have meant mongooses or polecats — to the Balearic Islands in modern-day Spain to control their plague of rabbits.

Though certainly not as common as cats and dogs, ferrets remain popular pets today. They’re beloved for their mischievous personalities — their name literally means “little thief” due to their habit of taking small objects and hiding them — and how much they love to play, including with other animals. They’re also high-maintenance, meaning you shouldn’t attempt to channel your inner Roman without giving it a good deal of thought first. 

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A ferret was cloned in 2020.

Unlike domestic ferrets, black-footed ferrets are native to North America. They’re also so endangered that they were actually thought to be extinct before being rediscovered in Wyoming in 1981 — which helps explain why one was cloned in 2020. A ferret named Elizabeth Ann, the first endangered U.S. species to be cloned, was created from the cells of a black-footed ferret named Willa who died more than 30 years ago. More than just an experiment, Elizabeth Ann represents hope that the species can continue to thrive for decades and centuries to come. As it stands, black-footed ferrets are so few in number that their limited genetic diversity makes them especially vulnerable to diseases and other health conditions.

The Hundred Years’ War was actually 116 years long.

  • Armagnacs in France, 1415
Armagnacs in France, 1415
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Author Michael Nordine
September 13, 2023

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Anyone who’s watched the TV series Succession or Game of Thrones knows that bad things tend to happen when an aging ruler is without a clear heir. Yet both of those fictional conflicts look positively quaint next to the Hundred Years’ War, which was actually 116 years long. Lasting intermittently from 1337 to 1453, the conflict has its roots in the 1328 death of Charles IV of France, who went to the grave without a son. His first cousin succeeded him as King Philip VI, much to the chagrin of Edward III of England and his supporters — as the late king’s nephew, Edward was a closer blood relation and many considered his claim stronger. However, an assembly of French barons declared that the throne should pass to a native Frenchman instead, which eventually led to a century-long clash.

France was considerably more powerful at the time, with the strongest military and deepest pockets in all of Western Europe, but a series of early victories by the scrappy English prolonged the war far longer than initially expected. The war, which historians divide into three distinct phases (Edwardian, Caroline, and Lancastrian), was an intermittent affair that finally ended in a French victory after the Battle of Castillon. Though this was the last military conflict of the Hundred Years’ War, England and France were technically at war with one another until the Treaty of Picquigny was signed in 1475. The Hundred Years’ War is a catchier name than the 116 Years’ War (or the 138 Years’ War), however, so it’s easy to see why it stuck.

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Joan of Arc helped turn the tide of the Hundred Years’ War.

Joan of Arc is one of history’s most revered figures, but her enduring legacy is often divorced from the conflict in which she was involved. That conflict was the Hundred Years’ War, and her appearance couldn’t have come at a more fortuitous time for France: the 1428-1429 Siege of Orléans, at which point the English were at the peak of their power as the war neared its end. Born a peasant and believing she was on a divine mission to help her country, Joan of Arc was sent to the siege by the as-yet-uncrowned Charles VII of France to provide relief. Both sides believed that Orléans would soon fall; they also believed that England might conquer all of France if that happened. Instead, the siege ended just nine days after the arrival of Joan and the army she convinced Charles VII to send, boosting morale and leading to France’s ultimate victory. After being captured and burned at the stake at just 19 years old, Joan of Arc was eventually recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.

Marie Curie’s daughter also won the Nobel Prize.

  • Marie & Irene Curie, 1925
Marie & Irene Curie, 1925
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Author Adam Levine
September 13, 2023

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In 1903, Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in physics for her study of radioactivity, including the discovery of the elements radium and polonium. She shared the award with her husband, physicist Pierre Curie, and engineer Henri Becquerel. The Curies’ aptitude for science seems to have been hereditary, because in 1935, their daughter Irène Joliot-Curie also won the Nobel Prize, in chemistry, for her own study of radioactive elements. Like her mother, Joliot-Curie shared the prize with her husband, physicist Frédéric Joliot-Curie.

Irène and Frédéric developed a technique for inducing artificial radioactivity in previously nonradioactive elements, a breakthrough that had widespread ramifications. Scientists were better able to observe the behavior of atoms as they underwent radioactive decay, which led to new insights into atomic structure and nuclear physics. In medicine, radioactive iodine prepared using the Joliot-Curies’ methods became a key means of treating thyroid diseases, and the ability to easily produce radioactive material at a commercial scale was essential to the development of new cancer treatments. In the years following her Nobel Prize win, Irène followed in her mother’s footsteps once more; in 1946, she became the director of the Radium Institute in Paris, where Marie ran her own laboratory for 25 years.

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Marie Curie is the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.

In 1906, the Curie family suffered a tragedy when Pierre Curie died suddenly in an accident. Though Marie was devastated by the loss of her spouse and research partner, she carried on the research they had been conducting into the nature of radioactive elements. In 1906, she replaced her husband as a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, becoming the first woman to hold the position, and continued her career as one of the leading physicists in the world. In 1910, she became the first person to isolate pure radium metal, a major breakthrough in the study of radioactivity. Her achievement was recognized in 1911 with her second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry. Though other scientists have won two Nobel Prizes, Curie’s recognition in both physics and chemistry gives her the unique distinction of being the only person to be awarded the prize in two different scientific fields. To this day, no other scientist has accomplished this feat.

The planet Uranus was originally named “George’s star.”

  • Galaxy with Uranus planet
Galaxy with Uranus planet
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Author Bennett Kleinman
September 13, 2023

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In 1781, astronomer William Herschel discovered the planet we know today as Uranus, though the celestial orb nearly had a much more regal name. Herschel, who lived in Britain, proposed naming his new find “Georgium Sidus,” Latin for “Georgian star,” in honor of England’s reigning monarch, King George III. However, his suggestion was met with pushback within the scientific community, particularly from astronomer Johann Elert Bode, who noted that the name “George” didn’t quite mesh with the mythological-based names of the other planets. Instead, Bode put forward the name “Uranus,” the Latin form of the Greek word “Ouranos.” In mythology, not only is Uranus the Greek god of the sky, but Uranus’ Roman counterpart, Caelus, is Saturn’s father. Given those fitting associations, scientists adopted Bode’s suggestion in lieu of Herschel’s initial proposal.

Uranus’ 27 moons have a fascinating etymological history of their own, as all are named after characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. In 1787, Herschel discovered the moons Titania and Oberon, named after the king and queen of the fairies from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other Uranian moons include Miranda, Stephano, and Trinculo, all characters from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. And in 1851, astronomer William Lassell discovered two additional moons that he named Umbriel and Ariel in honor of Alexander Pope’s poem The Rape of the Lock. The name “Ariel” also applies to a character in The Tempest, meaning that either 24 or 25 of Uranus’ moons are named after Shakespearean characters specifically, depending on how you view it.

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Mark Twain’s life span coincided with Halley’s comet.

Satirist Mark Twain lived from 1835 to 1910, which just so happened to be the same two years that the rare Halley’s comet appeared in the Earth’s sky. Halley’s comet is one of the most talked-about celestial objects, with recorded observations dating back 2,000 years. Though the comet’s orbit around Earth is 76 years on average, it reached a record low of just 74.42 years between 1835 and 1910, coinciding with Twain’s life span. Just a year before his death, Twain — who was born two weeks after the comet’s perihelion (the point at which an object is closest to the sun) in 1835 — noted this odd connection. According to biographer Albert Paine, Twain said, “It is coming again next year. The almighty has said, no doubt, ‘Now there are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’” Sure enough, Twain passed away on April 21, 1910, just one day after Halley’s comet reached its perihelion that year.

Four days of the week are named after Norse gods.

  • Norse goddess Frigg
Norse goddess Frigg
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Author Adam Levine
September 12, 2023

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Each week, whether we know it or not, we pay a small tribute to several gods from the ancient Norse pantheon. In fact, four days of the week are named after deities from Norse mythology. Tuesday comes from Tyr, the Norse god of war, while Wednesday is named after Odin , a powerful deity who was the father of many other Norse gods and ruled over Valhalla, the hall of slain warriors (the name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word “Wodnesdaeg,” meaning “Woden’s day”). Thursday’s namesake is Thor, the Norse god of Thunder, and Friday is named for Frigg, the wife of Odin and the Norse goddess of marriage and fertility.

The presence of Norse mythology in our days of the week is due to the historical connection between the English and Old Norse languages. In the eighth century CE, the British Isles were invaded by Viking tribes from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, all of whom spoke Old Norse. As a result, many words in the English language are descended from Old Norse. The Vikings adopted the Roman custom of naming the days of the week after gods, but replaced the Latin deities with gods from their own mythology. The Old Norse names of Tyr, Odin, Thor, and Frigg evolved over time to become the weekdays we use in modern English today.

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Two months of the year are named after Roman rulers.

Norse gods aren’t the only ancient figures whose names appear on modern English calendars: Two months of the year, July and August, are named after former rulers of ancient Rome. July was named in honor of Julius Caesar, the famed general and statesman who ruled Rome as dictator from 46 BCE to 44 BCE. The original name for this month was “Quintilis,” which is Latin for “fifth,” since that was its original place in the Roman calendar. But because Quintilis was Caesar’s birth month, the Romans renamed it in his honor upon his death in 44 BCE. August, meanwhile, is named after Augustus, Rome’s first emperor, who led Rome from 31 BCE to 14 CE. It was originally called “Sextilis,” Latin for “sixth,” but Emperor Augustus renamed the month after himself in 8 BCE. The names of July and August still endure from the days of ancient Rome, a testament to the power and influence of these historic rulers.

There’s an ancient pyramid in Rome.

  • Pyramid of Caius Cestius
Pyramid of Caius Cestius
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Author Darren Orf
September 12, 2023

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The word “pyramid” generally conjures up visions of the awe-inspiring stone tombs that dot Cairo’s skyline, but the ancient Egyptians didn’t have a monopoly on these triangular monuments. Pyramids can be found throughout Africa, India, and the Americas — and one can even be found in Rome, the ancient capital of the Roman Empire. Originally built around 12 BCE, and located only a mile south of the Roman Forum (at what is now a busy intersection), the Pyramid of Cestius is named after Caius Cestius, a little-known Roman magistrate who had an affinity for all things Egyptian. The structure stands less than 120 feet tall, which is almost four times smaller than the world-famous Great Pyramid of Giza, but it features far steeper slopes than Cairo’s collection of pyramids. Archaeologists believe this could be because Cestius simply had the wrong dimensions, or that he was inspired by tombs located farther south of modern-day Egypt in what is now Sudan, which feature similarly steep slopes. 

While the Pyramid of Cestius is the only surviving pyramid among Rome’s sprawling collection of ancient monuments, that wasn’t always the case. For centuries, the Meta Romuli, or Pyramid of Romulus, stood west of the Roman Forum and served as a kind of monumental twin to Cestius’ pyramid. In fact, during the Middle Ages, the Pyramid of Cestius was called the Meta Remi, and a legend grew that the two tombs housed the mythological founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. Unlike the Pyramid of Cestius, the Meta Romuli did not survive Rome’s Renaissance-era building craze, and it was demolished for its materials. Today, the lone “twin” is the only ancient pyramid still standing on the European continent. 

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Sudan has more ancient pyramids than any other country.

Egypt is home to nearly 140 ancient pyramids, and Mexico boasts around the same number, thanks to Mesoamerican empires such as the Olmecs, Maya, and Aztecs. However, both countries pale in comparison to Sudan, which is home to upwards of 255 ancient pyramids by some counts. These funerary structures were built by an ancient civilization known as the Kingdom of Kush, which thrived (in various forms) from around 1070 BCE to 350 CE. The Kushites ruled a land known as Nubia stretching from Aswan, Egypt, to Khartoum, Sudan. Nubian kings built these smaller pyramids (typically less than 100 feet high) 500 years after their Egyptian neighbors had stopped building pyramids. Today, the best-preserved and highest concentration of pyramids are in the Meroë, the former capital of the Kushite kingdom, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Women wrote nearly all early Japanese literature.

  • The Tale of Genji book
The Tale of Genji book
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Author Michael Nordine
September 12, 2023

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There’s a good chance you already knew that The Tale of Genji was the world’s first novel, but it’s less likely that you knew it was written by a woman. Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting at the imperial Japanese court, was the author in question, and she began a trend that lasted for centuries: women penning nearly all early literature that was written in the Japanese language. Aristocratic men eschewed their native tongue in favor of Chinese during the Heian period (794–1185), leaving women who were denied a formal education to rely on Japanese for personal and creative expression. The hiragana script, one of the language’s three syllabaries, was even referred to as onna-de, or “women’s hand.”

Shikibu wasn’t the only woman of her era to have a massive influence on Japanese literature. Of nearly equal importance were Sei Shōnagon, who wrote a book of observations on imperial court life called The Pillow Book, and the poet Izumi Shikibu. Considered by many to have been the foremost poet of her era, she’s especially well remembered for love poems such as “If the One I’ve Waited For”: “If the one I’ve waited for / came now, what should I do? / This morning’s garden filled with snow / is far too lovely / for footsteps to mar.” As the Heian period ended and the Kamakura period began, women found themselves in a lower position under the feudalistic government and had fewer opportunities to write. The literature of this era, which was written almost entirely by men, reflects the many wars that Japan experienced. 

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Haiku were originally part of longer poems.

The brief, evocative haiku has long been famous for its three-line structure and strict syllable count (five in the first line, seven in the second, five in the third). Though one of the world’s oldest poetic forms, it wasn’t originally intended as a stand-alone work. Haiku actually began as the opening of a renga, a “linked poem” written by several authors working together, which first appeared some 700 years ago. The first stanza was the hokku (“starting verse”), which consisted of three lines and 17 syllables and was written by one poet; the second stanza, composed by a different poet, was a couplet with seven syllables in each line. The third stanza mirrored the structure of the first, the fourth mirrored the second, and so on and so forth for as many as 100 stanzas. The haiku proved popular enough to eventually become its own form of poetry in the 16th century.

Shakespeare’s wife was named Anne Hathaway.

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Shakespeare's farewell
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Author Adam Levine
September 12, 2023

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The actress Anne Hathaway is well known for starring in hit films such as Les Misérables, The Princess Diaries, and The Devil Wears Prada, but what’s less well known is that she was named after the wife of famed playwright William Shakespeare. That Anne Hathaway was born in 1556, and grew up on a large farm in the village of Shottery, England, about a mile and a half away from Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway were married in 1582, after which Anne moved with William into the Shakespeare family home in Stratford.

Anne and William had three children: Susanna, born in 1583, and twins Judith and Hamnet, born in 1585. William spent much of his time away from his family working as a playwright in London, and it’s unknown whether he was at Anne’s side after the couple suffered a tragic loss when their son Hamnet died at the age of 11. In fact, little is known about the nature of Anne and William’s marriage. One of the few details historians have is that upon the Bard’s death, he left his wife his “second-best bed” in his will.  In England at that time, the best bed was typically reserved for guests, while the second-best bed was a couple’s marital bed, meaning William might have been giving Anne a sentimental gift to acknowledge the life they shared together. When Anne Shakespeare died in 1623, she was buried next to her husband in Stratford.

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Most of Uranus’ moons are named after Shakespeare characters.

In our solar system, most planets and the moons that orbit them are named after figures from Greek and Roman mythology. But the moons of Uranus are a notable exception: They take their names from characters in English literature, the vast majority of which are from Shakespeare plays. The planet’s two largest moons, Titania and Oberon, are named after the king and queen of the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Others include Ophelia (Hamlet’s doomed lover in Hamlet), Cordelia (the king’s youngest daughter in King Lear), and Miranda (one of the principal characters in The Tempest, the daughter of the sorcerer Prospero). Three of the names — Umbriel, Ariel, and Belinda — are characters from the poetry of Alexander Pope. But since Ariel is also a character in The Tempest, either 24 or 25 of the 27 moons of Uranus are named for Shakespeare characters, depending on how you count it.

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