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George Washington spent an entire campaign budget on booze.

  • George Washington in 1776
George Washington in 1776
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Author Michael Nordine
July 19, 2023

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Before he was the first President of the United States, George Washington was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1758 until 1775. He actually lost his first election, however, and “attributed his defeat to his failure to provide enough alcohol for the voters,” according author Daniel Okrent. At the time, it was common for candidates to woo voters by plying them with food and liquor. Washington avoided the same mistake during his second run, spending nearly the entire campaign budget on 28 gallons of rum, 50 gallons of rum punch, 34 gallons of wine, 46 gallons of beer, and two gallons of cider royal served to 391 voters — nearly a half-gallon per voter. (He also spent 3 pounds on dinner for friends, which very likely also included booze.) His campaign even rolled barrels of liquor to polling places on Election Day, a custom in Virginia at the time. The practice of winning over voters with booze was widespread despite being technically illegal, and was known as “swilling the planters with bumbo.”

Washington didn’t need to woo anyone in order to become President; quite the opposite, in fact, as he did no campaigning and had to be convinced to even accept the role, despite being unanimously elected. He also planned to retire after his first term but was persuaded to remain in office, running unopposed in the 1792 election and once again winning unanimously. Politicians today could only dream of such popularity.

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George Washington’s teeth weren’t made of wood.

You probably already knew that Washington had dentures, but you might not know what partially necessitated them in the first place: walnut shells. The founding father badly damaged his original set of chompers by using them to crack walnut shells, and he was only 24 years old the first time he had a tooth pulled. He suffered from various dental maladies for the rest of his life, and rarely smiled because he was self-conscious about his teeth — but not because they were made of wood, which they weren’t. Washington’s dentures were mostly made from human teeth, including those of his enslaved workers, as well as ivory, cow teeth, and various alloys made of lead, tin, copper, and silver. By the time he was inaugurated at the age of 57, he was down to his last natural tooth.

The Statue of Liberty’s torch was damaged in an explosion during World War I.

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The Statue of Liberty
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Author Darren Orf
July 17, 2023

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For nearly 140 years, the Statue of Liberty has been an inspiring symbol and a beacon of hope for those seeking a new life. But many don’t realize that the iconic landmark was also a victim of one of the largest sabotage attacks in U.S. history. In the early hours of July 30, 1916, two years into World War I, German saboteurs blew up a munitions stockpile on New Jersey’s Black Tom Island, not far from Lady Liberty in New York Harbor. The resulting explosion was the equivalent of a 5.5 magnitude earthquake, and tossed shrapnel far and wide. Although most of the statue survived the attack, Lady Liberty’s torch wasn’t so lucky. Before that destructive night, tourists could actually go inside the torch, but after the structural damage caused by the explosion, authorities permanently closed the torch to visitors (and replaced it entirely in 1985). 

It might seem strange for the U.S. to be the target of an attack many months before even entering World War I, which it joined in April 1917. But since the beginning of the war, America had funneled food, supplies, and weapons to Allied powers, including Britain, Italy, and Russia. Hoping to curtail the United States’ support, Germany inflicted an estimated $500 million in damages (in today’s dollars) with the attack, while causing little loss of life. Unlike the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Black Tom explosion didn’t drive the U.S. to join the First World War right away. It wasn’t until British operatives intercepted the Zimmermann Telegram, a German message to Mexico offering it U.S. territory in exchange for its support in the war, that America finally joined the fight. 

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Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s license plate displayed the date of Armistice Day.

On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand — heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire — was assassinated while driving around Sarajevo in his open-topped touring car. The event was one of the first dominoes to fall in a complicated geopolitical web of alliances that eventually culminated in the Great War. In a striking coincidence, on the day the archduke was assassinated, the license plate number on his car displayed “A III 118.” Many have since pointed out that the number could be read as “Armistice 11/11/18,” a reference to Armistice Day, the day World War I came to an end in Western Europe. Even though the German word for “armistice” starts with a “w” (“waffenstillstand”) and the three characters on the license plate are actually the letter “I” rather than the number “1,” the plate has long been seen as a prophetic message foreshadowing the war.

Europeans feared tomatoes for centuries, believing they were poisonous.

  • Queen Margherita
Queen Margherita
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Author Michael Nordine
July 17, 2023

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There’s a reason why the humble tomato used to be known by the far more sinister moniker of “poison apple”: Europeans feared tomatoes for centuries and believed they were poisonous. As recently as the 18th century, it was thought that aristocrats were falling ill and even dying after eating tomatoes — a misconception stemming from the use of pewter plates, which contained high lead content. The fruit, which is highly acidic, would leach that lead and then poison the unlucky eater. The fear of tomatoes was just as prevalent across the pond, where some American farmers believed that the green tomato worm was “poisonous as a rattlesnake” (in the words of one New York farmer). An entomologist named Benjamin Dann Walsh eventually set the record straight, writing that the insect in question was “merely an ugly-looking worm which eats some of the leaves of the tomato,” and by the late 1800s, more people began to appreciate tomatoes for the nutritious treat they are.

That change of heart was thanks in part to the increasing popularity of pizza, of which Italy’s Queen Margherita (sound familiar?) was known to partake. It’s believed by some that Raffaele Esposito, a baker from Naples often credited with inventing the modern pizza, used the Italian flag’s three colors as inspiration: red tomatoes, white mozzarella, and green basil. If anything explains an entire continent overcoming its irrational fear of tomatoes, it makes sense that it would be pizza.

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Tomatoes have been grown in space.

A little more than 600 people have been to space. So have tomatoes. Seeds for Red Robin dwarf tomatoes were delivered to members of the International Space Station in November 2022 as part of NASA’s Pick-and-Eat Salad-Crop Productivity, Nutritional Value, and Acceptability to Supplement the ISS Food System (try saying that five times fast) initiative, essentially a program meant to give astronauts more food options while in orbit. The seeds, which were delivered in specialized grow bags called “plant pillows,” require a controlled-release fertilizer to grow in zero gravity and take longer to sprout than they would on Earth. Good things are worth waiting for, especially in orbit.

The year 46 BCE was the longest year in history, at 445 days.

  • Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
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Author Darren Orf
July 17, 2023

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In the first century BCE, Rome’s calendar was a mess. The timekeeping system was first instituted around 700 BCE (back when Rome had kings), and from the start, the calendar had some issues. The year was 355 days long with an extra month added at the discretion of the pontifices, high-ranking priests who were in charge of the calendar. As the system was imprecise and subject to mismanagement, over time the calendar became misaligned with the seasons. What’s more, pontifices often abused their power by lengthening the terms of their allies and curtailing them for adversaries. 

When Julius Caesar became dictator of Rome in 49 BCE, he decided a change was in order, both to limit the pontifices’ power and to create a more effective calendar for administering a growing empire. With the help of Greek astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria, Caesar instituted the eponymous Julian calendar on January 1, 45 BCE. But to make the switch to the new calendar, Romans had to withstand what’s now known as the “last year of confusion.” At this point, Rome’s calendar was roughly three months out of whack with the seasonal harvest festivals, so Caesar inserted three extra months into the year 46 BCE, known as “intercalary months,” to get his 365-day calendar realigned with the solar year. For those living within Rome’s borders, 46 BCE — at 445 days long — became the longest year in history. 

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The year 1752 was the shortest year in American history.

The Julian calendar was a major mathematical improvement over its predecessor, but it was still 11 minutes and 14 seconds behind the solar year. This small error grew bigger with each passing year, and the calendar was a full 10 days behind by the 16th century. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII, with the aid of Italian astronomer Aloysius Lilius, instituted the modern Gregorian calendar to correct this. But because of religious differences between Catholic Rome and Protestant Britain, the British Empire — which included the American colonies at the time — didn’t make the switch until the mid-18th century, mostly at the insistence of British astronomers. At that point, the year 1752 jumped from September 2 to September 14, making it only 355 days long and the shortest year in U.S. history. Although the empire lost 11 days, the change brought about the modern calendar that is still in use today.

The United Nations was nearly built near Greenwich, Connecticut.

  • U.N. headquarters in NYC
U.N. headquarters in NYC
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Author Bennett Kleinman
May 15, 2024

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The United Nations has called New York City its home since the 1950s, but the global peacekeeping organization once considered developing its headquarters in nearby Connecticut. In June 1945, a committee formed to determine where to build the offices of the newly chartered U.N., and the group conceived of a 100-square-mile campus located in parts of North Greenwich and Stamford, Connecticut, as well as North Castle, New York. This proposed community was dubbed “UNOville,” for United Nations Organization, and it would have involved the construction of skyscrapers, highways, railroads, and airports. The discussions, however, were largely conducted in secret without consulting locals, and when a scoop was finally published in Greenwich Time, it led to widespread opposition.

In January 1946, Greenwich town official and future U.S. Senator Prescott Bush — the father of George H.W. Bush — informed reporters about the UNOville proposal. Upon learning that 500 to 1,000 residents would be displaced by this international mega-campus, members of the community fought back to preserve their sense of regional identity. This led to a public referendum on February 23, which shot down the proposal by a vote of 5,505 to 2,019. With Greenwich no longer a viable option, cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco vied to become the new home of the U.N. But in December 1946, John D. Rockefeller Jr. purchased land along the East River in Manhattan and gifted it to the United Nations. Construction on the U.N. headquarters began in 1949, and employees moved into the building the following year.

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Connecticut and Rhode Island were the only two states to reject the 18th Amendment.

Ratified in 1919, the 18th Amendment established a national ban on the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol. Only Connecticut and Rhode Island voted against the amendment. Both states had actually tried and failed to ban booze decades earlier amid the temperance movement; Rhode Island enacted statewide bans from 1852 to 1863 and from 1886 to 1893, while Connecticut embraced prohibition from 1855 to 1857. But those state laws were all repealed amid public outcry. By the time the 18th Amendment rolled around, Connecticut and Rhode Island had seemingly learned how futile alcohol bans were, and also expressed concern about federal law infringing on state’s rights. 

The “Mona Lisa” once hung in Napoleon’s bedroom.

  • Mona Lisa at the Louvre
Mona Lisa at the Louvre
Eric TERRADE/ Unsplash
Author Adam Levine
July 17, 2023

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Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” has been on display at the Louvre Museum since 1804, but before that it hung in a rather less accessible location: the bedroom of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. After Leonardo died in 1519, the “Mona Lisa” eventually passed into the possession of the artist’s patron, King Francis I of France, and it remained the property of the French monarchy for more than 250 years. During the French Revolution (1789 to 1799), the painting was requisitioned by the rebelling public and officially became the property of the French Republic. However, this did not mean that the average French citizen was able to view Leonardo’s masterpiece. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, who rose to power in revolutionary France, had become enamored with the mysterious woman in the portrait — he even took to referring to her as “Madame Lisa” and the “Sphinx of the Occident.” In 1800, he ordered that the painting be transferred to his private bedchambers at Tuileries Palace in Paris. Since Napoleon was, well, Napoleon, nobody argued with him, and he enjoyed the privilege of having one of the world’s most famous works of art hanging by his bedside for four years. In 1804, the “Mona Lisa” was transferred from Napoleon’s bedroom to the Grand Gallery of the Louvre Museum, and since then no individual has had the audacity (or power) to add it to their private collection. It remains on public display to this day.

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Pablo Picasso was once arrested on suspicion of stealing the “Mona Lisa.”

One Tuesday morning in 1911, a French artist visited the Louvre Museum and noticed the “Mona Lisa” was absent from its usual spot on the gallery wall. After a thorough search of the entire museum, authorities realized that the painting had been stolen. The theft of the “Mona Lisa” caused an immediate sensation, and visitors began flocking to the Louvre just to see the empty spot on the wall where Leonardo’s masterpiece once hung. During their investigation into the theft, French authorities arrested a young artist named Pablo Picasso. Picasso had a history of purchasing stolen art from the museum, so he immediately came under suspicion. After an appearance in court, during which he made an emotional protestation of innocence, Picasso was cleared of suspicion, and two years later the painting was located in Italy, where the real thief, former Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia, was caught trying to sell it to an art dealer in Florence.

People thought trains would cause “railway madmen.”

  • Train at railway station
Train at railway station
Credit: RockingStock/ iStock
Author Kerry Hinton
May 7, 2024

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During the Victorian era, rail travel was instrumental in England’s rapid transformation from an agrarian culture to an urban, industrialized society. It generally improved life for a large segment of society, leading to new opportunities in travel, transporting goods, business development, and the growth of towns and cities. But flaws in the fledgling railway system posed both minor and major dangers. Only first-class passengers enjoyed the luxury of windows, and third-class carriages did not have roofs until 1844. More seriously, most railway carriages were unlit and had no aisles, making passengers vulnerable to a variety of criminals, from pickpockets to con artists.

Another perceived threat to public safety was the rise of the “railway madman.” An 1864 New York Times article entitled “A Madman in a Railway Carriage” warned readers of a train passenger who seemingly had a mental breakdown once the train began moving. He accused other riders of stealing from him and eventually attempted to jump out of the moving train, requiring his fellow passengers to strap him to his seat for the rest of the journey. Even though the article mentioned that onlookers believed the man to be suffering from a “violent attack of delirium tremens,” a slew of sensational newspaper pieces from other outlets led readers to believe that England was beset by an epidemic of “railway madmen” caused by traveling at high speeds. Some physicians warned that the jolts and bumps of frequent train riding could cause brain damage, leading some to lose their minds, and medical journals discussed finding methods for identifying a latent “railway madman” before he struck. Ultimately, the phenomenon faded from the collective consciousness as inexplicably as it began. Though scattered attacks and incidents continued to be reported sporadically over the next few decades, the panic faded, and train travel became a staple of modern life.

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The first railway created an economic frenzy.

In 1830, the world’s first intercity passenger railway line was completed, running from Liverpool to Manchester, England. Although horse-drawn carriages enjoyed wide use for another hundred years, the new railway line was widely popular and extremely lucrative. Investors clamored to get a piece of the burgeoning industry, and the increased market value attracted even more investors before being cut short by the Panic of 1837. In the 1840s, speculation began once more, creating an economic bubble — as the stock price increased, developers and speculators overbuilt thousands of miles of railway lines. Middle-class investors as well as celebrities such as Charles Darwin and the Brontë sisters invested heavily in railroads. The bubble burst in 1845, leaving one-third of the proposed rail lines unbuilt, and many investors penniless.

Stonehenge was bought at auction in 1915.

  • Stonehenge circa 1930
Stonehenge circa 1930
Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy Stock Photo
Author Adam Levine
July 11, 2023

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Stonehenge has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986, but back in 1915 it was privately owned by one man — a barrister named Cecil Chubb, who purchased the prehistoric monument at an auction for £6,600 (more than $1 million in modern U.S. currency). Stonehenge had been privately owned since the reign of Henry VIII, passing from one wealthy proprietor to the next. According to popular legend, Chubb purchased the monument as an unusually extravagant gift for his wife, who purportedly sent him to bid on a set of curtains and got more than she bargained for when he instead returned with one of the most famous structures in the world. 

The more likely reason for the purchase is that Chubb, hearing that an American was interested in buying and relocating the monument, wanted to ensure that the iconic landmark remained in the possession of locals. In fact, in 1918, Chubb donated Stonehenge to the British public. In recognition of this generous gift, Prime Minister David Lloyd George elevated Chubb to the level of nobility, and he became Sir Cecil Chubb, First Baronet of Stonehenge. The Neolithic monument is now owned by the British monarch and managed by English Heritage, which charges tourists a small fee to visit. Locals, as Chubb insisted over a century ago, still get in for free. 

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Stonehenge is built to align with the solstice.

While nobody knows for sure what the exact purpose of Stonehenge was — it was built around 5,000 years ago, after all — archaeologists have discovered several features of the monument that suggest it was, in part, meant to serve as a solar calendar, as the positioning of the stones aligns perfectly with the summer and winter solstices. When standing in the center of Stonehenge as the sun rises on the first day of summer, an observer will see the sun shine directly into the center of the monument, and the largest stone in the henge will cast a shadow that also extends directly into the center. There’s also strong archaeological evidence that Stonehenge once featured a structure that precisely framed the setting sun on the winter solstice, just before it dipped below the horizon. 

Antarctica had a rainforest 90 million years ago.

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Cretaceous Antarctica
J. McKay/ Alfred-Wegener-Institut (CC-BY 4.0)
Author Darren Orf
July 11, 2023

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It’s difficult to comprehend within our limited, double-digit life spans, but Earth is a dynamic planet that is constantly changing. The continents have crashed together and separated a handful of times now (Pangaea is the latest supercontinent, but not the only one), and the planet’s atmosphere, oceans, and orbit are all temporary and movable. Take, for instance, Antarctica, arguably the most inhospitable place on the planet. Not long ago (geologically speaking), the icy continent wasn’t frozen at all. In fact, it was filled with temperate rainforests teeming with life. 

Some 90 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period — the tail end of the age of dinosaurs — Antarctica was home to a completely different habitat, known as the “Cretaceous hothouse.” The Earth was much warmer due to increased carbon dioxide levels (sea-surface temperatures in the tropics were at an incredible 95 degrees Fahrenheit, for example), and the world’s oceans were a staggering 558 feet higher than they are today. Estimates suggest that Cretaceous Antarctica had a climate similar to today’s Italian peninsula and was filled with plant and animal life, including dinosaurs. The southern continent’s hospitality didn’t end with the dinosaurs, either; it continued on into the Eocene Epoch around 56 million to 34 million years ago. It was then that marsupials likely migrated across Antarctica from South America into modern-day Australia before the continents separated. So while Antarctica is pretty inhospitable to humans now, it may just be a phase.

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There’s a place in Antarctica that hasn’t seen precipitation for nearly 2 million years.

Earth wouldn’t be much without water. When you see our home from space, the entire planet seems filled with the stuff — from vast oceans to continent-spanning weather systems. But there is one place where precipitation holds no sway, and that’s Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys. According to scientists’ best estimates, these valleys haven’t seen rain in nearly 2 million years. The area is so parched thanks to a phenomenon called katabatic wind, also known as downslope wind, in which gravity pulls cold, moisture-filled mountain winds down and away from these valleys — blowing away all the precipitation with it. The lack of moisture and extremely low temperatures in the Dry Valleys make the place a near-perfect analog for the Martian surface, and scientists use experiments in the region to help them understand how extremely cold, dry environments work.

Ancient Olympic athletes competed naked.

  • Ancient Olympia
Ancient Olympia
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Author Kevin McCaffrey
July 10, 2023

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Many aspects of the ancient Olympics are similar to what we see in our modern competition, but there’s at least one notable difference: Today, all Olympians wear clothes. For ancient Greek athletes, nudity functioned as something of a national uniform, an intentional contrast to their Persian rivals, who traditionally found it against decorum to appear naked. Competing in the nude (often while covered in olive oil) was also seen as a way to show off status. According to historian Donald Kyle, “In Archaic Greece, disrobing fully to become naked for sport became an assertive communication of maleness, ethnicity, status, freedom, privilege, and physical virtue.” Some athletes also considered performing naked a tribute to Zeus. In fact, the words “gymnasium” and “gymnastics” both come from the Greek word “gymnasion,” which refers to a place to train or exercise naked. 

While competing naked became a Greek tradition, it wasn’t always that way; some ancient vases from the Minoan period (which ended around 1200 BCE) depict Athenian athletes competing in loincloths. According to accounts by various scholars, the first naked competitor appeared in the 15th Olympiad in 720 BCE. Orsippus of Megara was said to have lost his loincloth during a race, and then ran on to victory. An epitaph of Orsippus, attributed to the poet Simonides of Ceos, reads, “First of the Greeks in Olympia was he crowned while naked; Before him, all contestants were girdled in the stadium.” In the modern Olympics, things have changed a little bit, and now competitors wear clothing —  though on rare occasions, some modern runners will still go without shoes.

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The prize for winning the first documented Olympics was an apple.

While the modern Olympic Games play host to an excess of 30 sports and well over 300 events, the very first competition in 776 BCE had only one event: a 630-foot race called the “stade,” won by a cook named Coroebus of Elis. (The name “stadium” derives from the stade, which was also a standard unit of measurement in ancient Greece.) Instead of a gold medal, Coroebus was awarded an apple. The apple was a sacred symbol in several Greek legends, including the legend of Atalanta and Melanion, in which Atalanta promises her hand in marriage to whichever suitor is able to beat her in a race. Her competitor, Melanion, receives apples from the goddess Aphrodite, and throws them at Atalanta to slow her down. Beginning in the seventh Olympiad, victors were given olive wreaths instead, in a tradition that continued until the event’s discontinuation in 393 CE. Gold medals as we know them did not become the standard first-place prize until the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis.

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