Where Did the QWERTY Keyboard Layout Come From?

1950s typewriter keys

The QWERTY keyboard layout is so common that most of us never stop to question its unusual arrangement of letters. But when we do look down at our keyboards, we might find ourselves struggling to understand the logic behind the layout: Why does the top row begin with the letters Q, W, E, R, T, Y?

Found on nearly every computer, laptop, and smartphone worldwide (at least in countries that use a Latin-script alphabet), this seemingly random configuration of keys has an interesting history — though perhaps not the one most people have been led to believe.

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The Rise of the Typewriter

During the 19th century, inventors came up with various kinds of machines designed to type out letters. Most of these machines, however, were large and cumbersome, often resembling pianos in size and shape. In some cases, they proved highly valuable to people with visual impairments, but for general use they were inefficient, being much slower than simple handwriting.

Enter Christopher Latham Sholes, an American inventor who, in 1866, was working alongside Carlos Glidden on developing a machine for numbering book pages. Sholes was inspired to build a machine that could print words as well as numbers, and he and Glidden soon received a patent for their somewhat ungainly prototype. The contraption had a row of alphabetized keys that, when struck, swung little hammers with corresponding letters embossed in their heads. The keys, in turn, struck an inked ribbon to apply the printed letters to a sheet of paper. It was far from the perfect solution, however, so Sholes persevered.

Five years later, in 1872, Sholes and his associates produced the first-ever practical typewriter. Rather than an alphabetized row of keys, this new typewriter featured a four-row layout with what was then a QWE.TY keyboard (with a period where the R is today). In 1873, Sholes sold the manufacturing rights to the Remington Arms Company, which further developed the machine. It was marketed as the Remington Typewriter — complete with the slightly altered QWERTY key layout. It became the first commercially successful typewriter, and in so doing made the QWERTY keyboard the industry standard.

Why QWERTY?

Here’s where things get a little foggy. An often-repeated explanation for the QWERTY keyboard layout is that it was designed by Sholes to slow typists down in order to prevent typewriters from jamming. If you’ve ever used an old-fashioned typewriter, you might have noticed how easy it is to strike letters in quick succession, or simultaneously, which can cause the type bars to become stuck together.

But would Sholes really have sabotaged his own keyboard layout to hamper the speed of operators? In reality, there is little to no hard evidence of any deliberate slowdown. And the patent that first mentions the QWERTY layout contains no direct mention of why the keys were placed in such a manner. If it was indeed designed to cause fewer jams, this feature would likely have been a primary attribute of the patent. What’s more, at the time that Sholes patented the QWERTY layout, there were no “touch typists,” so no one was typing particularly quickly, let alone speed-typing.

So, why did QWERTY become standard? One convincing and particularly thorough answer comes from Kyoto University researchers Koichi Yasuoka and Motoko Yasuoka. In their 2010 paper “On the Prehistory of QWERTY,” the researchers conclude that the mechanics of the typewriter did not influence the keyboard design. Instead, the QWERTY system was a rather circuitous result of how the first typewriters were being used.

Among the most prominent early adopters of early typewriters were telegraph operators, whose priority was to quickly transcribe messages. These operators found an alphabetical keyboard arrangement to be confusing and inefficient for translating morse code. The Kyoto paper suggests the QWERTY keyboard evolved over several years as a direct result of the input provided by these telegraph operators. According to the researchers, “The keyboard arrangement was incidentally changed into QWERTY, first to receive telegraphs, then to thrash out a compromise between inventors and producers, and at last to evade old patents.”

In other words, QWERTY came about through a combination of factors. There was direct input from telegraph operators, as well as compromises made between inventors and producers — practical changes made by the manufacturers who actually had to mass produce the product. (The keyboard layout on Scholes’ original prototype, for example, was altered by the mechanics at Remington.) And then there were old patents to contend with. In 1886, a new company called Wyckoff, Seamans & Benedict (WS&B) released the Remington Standard Type-Writer No. 2. To avoid existing keyboard layout patents, the company slightly altered the design, placing M next to N and swapping around C and X. This became the QWERTY format keyboard we use today.

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The Persistence of an Imperfect Design

While the precise intentions behind Sholes’ QWERTY design are at least partially lost to history, there is undoubtedly a strong argument against the popular belief that it was designed to slow typists down.

What we know for sure is that the QWERTY layout is remarkable for its staying power. Despite the development of potentially more efficient keyboard layouts — most prominently the Dvorak layout, designed in the 1930s, which is supposed to be faster and more comfortable — QWERTY has remained the global standard. By the time alternative layouts were proposed, millions of people had already learned to type on QWERTY keyboards, and switching would have required massive retraining efforts for typists, not to mention a lot of grumbling from the general public.

So, for now at least, QWERTY is very much here to stay — at least on laptops and PCs. Researchers at the University of St Andrews in Scotland have developed a split-screen keyboard they claim can increase typing speeds for touchscreen users who type with their thumbs. Known as KALQ (the letters at the bottom right of that keyboard), its layout is a radical departure from the QWERTY system, which has been unchanged for about a century and a half. Will KALQ gain a foothold? Only time, and more typing, will tell.

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How Were the Egyptian Pyramids Built?

Engraving of the Pyramids of Giza

Ancient Egypt was home to more than 100 pyramids, many of which still stand today. One of the oldest monumental pyramids in Egypt, the Step Pyramid of Djoser, was built sometime between 2667 BCE and 2648 BCE and began a period of pyramid construction lasting more than a thousand years. The most famous monuments are found at the Giza complex, home to the Great Pyramid, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure, all built during the Fourth Dynasty around 2600 to 2500 BCE — the golden age of ancient Egypt.

The Egyptian pyramids stand as one of humanity’s most remarkable architectural achievements, and their incredible precision and massive scale have confounded researchers for centuries. Despite numerous theories and extensive archaeological research, the exact methods of their construction remain a subject of scholarly debate. How did ancient Egyptians erect pyramids using millions of massive blocks weighing as much as 2.5 tons each? And how, more specifically, did they move those blocks up the superstructure?

To this day, there is no known historical or archaeological evidence that resolves the question definitively. While popular speculation often veers into fantastical explanations — yes, including aliens — serious historians and archaeologists have given much thought as to how these monumental structures might have been erected using the technological capabilities of the time. Here are three of the most likely construction theories.

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The Herodotus Machine

The first historical account of the construction of the pyramids came from the ancient Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century BCE. In his Histories, he wrote that the Great Pyramid took 20 years to build and demanded the labor of 100,000 people. Herodotus also wrote that after laying the stones for the base, workers “raised the remaining stones to their places by means of machines formed of short wooden planks. The first machine raised them from the ground to the top of the first step. On this there was another machine, which received the stone upon its arrival and conveyed it to the second step,” and so on.

These “Herodotus Machines,” as they later became known, are speculated to have used a system of levers or ropes (or both) to lift blocks incrementally between levels of the pyramid. Egyptian priests told Herodotus about this system — but it’s important to note that this was a long time after the construction of the Great Pyramid, so neither the priests nor Herodotus were actual eyewitnesses to its construction. It is certainly feasible, however, that the machines he described may have been used, either by themselves or, more likely, in conjunction with other methods.

The External Ramp Theory

Archaeologists generally agree that a system of ramps must have been used, in some form or another, to drag the millions of blocks into their positions in the various pyramids. While there’s no remaining physical evidence of external ramps at the Great Pyramid, traces can be seen around some of the other Old Kingdom structures. One initial theory posited the use of a single, linear ramp built on one side of the pyramid, which would have been gradually raised as the pyramid progressed. But, considering that an 8% slope is about the maximum possible slope for moving such heavy blocks, a ramp such as this would have needed to be about a mile long to reach the top of the pyramid. That would mean constructing the ramp would have been as much of a task as building the pyramid itself, making the theory unlikely, especially for larger structures such as the Great Pyramid.

There are a few other ramp theories, however. One proposes that a series of switchback, or staircase, ramps could have been built, zigzagging up just one face of the pyramid. Traces of these have been found at the Sinki, Meidum, Giza, Abu Ghurob, and Lisht pyramids. Other archaeologists have speculated that a spiraling ramp could have been used, which would have wrapped around the entire pyramid. This is a popular theory, although it does have its problems. As with the straight or linear ramp, this ramp would potentially have been a mile long if it was used to build the Great Pyramid, making it in itself a massive construction project. It’s also not clear how workers could have maneuvered 2.5-ton blocks around the corners of the ramp. Archaeologist Mark Lehner did make a practical demonstration of how this could be done, but it was on a far, far smaller pyramid.

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The Internal Ramp Theory

In 2007, the French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin offered a new theory to solve the mystery of how Egypt’s Great Pyramid was built. Using archaeological research combined with 3D computer modeling, he argued that the Egyptians used an internal — rather than external — system of ramps to build the pyramid. Workers, he theorized, used an outer ramp to build the first 141 feet, then constructed a spiraling inner ramp to carry stones to the apex of the 482-foot-tall pyramid. Using this technique, Houdin argued, the pyramid could have been built by around 4,000 people instead of 100,000, as other theories suggest.

The internal ramp theory was met with much intrigue, with some archaeologists skeptical and others arguing that it’s as valid as any other concept. Interestingly, Houdin’s proposal would explain why no evidence of ramps has been found at the Great Pyramid: They could be still there, hidden inside the structure. He and his team continue to work on the hypothesis, in search of definitive evidence of internal ramp structures with the help of 3D scanning technology.

Whether concrete proof will ever be found to support one particular theory is yet to be seen. It’s entirely possible, of course, that the Egyptians utilized various construction techniques when building the pyramids, combining levers and both external and internal ramps — as well as other possible methods — to overcome whatever challenges came their way.

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What Did People Do Before Eyeglasses?

Old spectacles on a book

Somewhere in the vicinity of Pisa, Italy, around 1286, an unknown craftsman fastened two glass lenses to a frame likely made of wood or bone to create the first eyeglasses.

With approximately two out of three adults in the United States today requiring some form of visual aid, it’s safe to say that invention has been well received. But even though 1286 is well before any of us first discovered the splendor of improved eyesight, it’s relatively recent in the larger picture of human existence. So how did people with subpar vision get by before there was a convenient LensCrafters to pop into?

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There’s not much historical evidence explaining how our prehistoric ancestors fared in the absence of visual aids, so we’re left to use some combination of deduction and common sense to determine how, say, a sight-impaired individual would keep up with the pack in a group of hunter-gatherers.

A person with imperfect vision could still be useful to a group simply because sharp eyesight to read signs, documents, and the like wasn’t necessary in prehistoric times. As civilization progressed, those with visual impairments could even find their condition produced certain advantages. A myopic (nearsighted) person, for example, could find themselves steered toward a craftsman role for their ability to focus on detail.

That said, humankind used visual aids for many centuries before the first eyeglasses appeared in the Middle Ages. Here are a few of the tools that helped those dealing with hyperopia (farsightedness) and other sight-related challenges.

Early Lenses

Archaeological digs in the eastern Mediterranean area have uncovered the existence of plano-convex lenses (flat on one side and rounded on the other) made of glass and rock crystal that date back to the Bronze Age. The most well known example is the Nimrud lens, which was found in the remains of an Assyrian palace in modern-day Iraq. While it’s unknown what these lenses were used for, some of them magnify objects between seven and nine times, rendering them useful for work on items in close quarters.

In his book Renaissance Vision From Spectacles to Telescopes, Vincent Ilardi suggests that the presence of holes or “resting points” on some of these lenses indicates they may have been propped up in a way that allowed artisans to use their hands. Additionally, he offers the discovery of a 5,300-year-old Egyptian ivory knife handle with carved microscopic figures as evidence that ancient Egyptians had a means for providing vision enhancements.

These weren’t the only civilizations to discover uses for lenses. A 2.3-gram convex crystal lens was found in the tomb of a son of Chinese Emperor Liu Xiu, who lived in the first century CE. Its creation was fostered by the optical studies published centuries earlier by Chinese scholars, including the philosopher Mozi and King Liú Ān.

Green Gemstones

The ancient Romans seemed to believe that emeralds and other green gemstones could be used as a means for soothing the eyes and possibly providing visual aid. One famous example appears in Pliny the Elder's Natural History, where the author notes how Emperor Nero watched a gladiatorial event with the assistance of a smaragdus — an emerald or similar gem. However, historians largely believe that the stone may not have magnified the spectacle so much as it helped to block the glare of the sun.

Water Globes

In his first volume of Naturales Quaestiones (Natural Questions), the Roman philosopher Seneca described the magnifying effect of water in glass: “Letters, however small and dim, are comparatively large and distinct when seen through a glass globe filled with water.” His contemporary Pliny the Elder also noted the lenslike qualities that resulted from combining these elements, although his observation was related to the potential for flammability when focusing the sun's rays through a glass water vessel. While the result may have been satisfactory, Seneca's lack of follow-up thoughts suggest that this particular method of magnification likely wasn't widely used.

Mirrors

In the same sentence describing the magnification qualities of the water vessels, Seneca wrote, "I have already said there are mirrors which increase every object they reflect." Indeed, concave metal, glass, or crystal mirrors could be used to magnify smaller texts for those with vision problems. As noted by Ilardi in Renaissance Vision From Spectacles to Telescopes, French author Jean de Meun wrote of the efficacy of this tool in the late-13th-century poem “Le Roman de la Rose,” although there aren’t many other documented uses of mirrors for this purpose.

Reading Stones

A major development in the area of visual tools came with the invention of reading stones. Often credited to ninth-century Andalusian scholar Abbas ibn Firnas, the concept of curved glass surfaces being used to magnify print was discussed at length in Arab mathematician Ibn al-Haytham's 1021 Book of Optics, which later received a wider audience with its translation to Latin.

Typically made from quartz, rock crystal, and especially beryl, reading stones were fashioned in a plano-convex shape, with the flat side against the page of a book and the rounded top providing a clear view of the lettering below. Initially used to assist the elderly with faltering vision, the stones became popular among younger readers as well, especially as beryl was said to possess magic and healing powers.

One surviving example of such reading stones are the 11th- to 12th-century Visby lenses discovered in Gotland, Sweden, in 1999. Along with providing excellent magnification of tiny text, many of these quartz lenses are mounted in silver, suggesting a decorative purpose as well.

It's unknown if the Visby lenses were the work of a local professional or somehow made their way from Muslim regions where other reading stones first appeared. Regardless, the quality of the images generated by these artifacts, and the craftsmanship that went into their creation, underscores how people were hardly left grasping in the dark for assistance in the days before eyeglasses became commonplace.

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5 WWII Fighter Planes You Should Know

Supermarine Spitfires, 1943

World War II was an unprecedented time for advancements in aviation technology, and fighter aircraft played a crucial role in the conflict’s outcome. Fighter planes — the so-called “knights of the sky”— were agile, powerful aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat, whether in dramatic dogfights against enemy fighters or while intercepting enemy bombers.

The demands of the war pushed fighter designs to new heights, resulting in planes that were faster, more maneuverable, and more lethal than ever before. And with air superiority often proving pivotal on any given front, from the Battle of Britain to the Battle of Kursk, these machines and their brave pilots helped shape the course of history.

Here we look at five World War II fighter planes — from Britain, the U.S., Germany, Japan, and Russia — that left an indelible mark on aviation history.

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Supermarine Spitfire

Both the Supermarine Spitfire and the Hawker Hurricane played crucial roles during the Battle of Britain, defending British airspace against wave after wave of German bombers and fighters. The sturdier Hurricane was often tasked with intercepting enemy bombers and engaging in ground attack missions, while the Spitfire, with its superior speed and agility, had the edge when engaging enemy fighters.

Both planes were vital, but the elegant Spitfire is regarded by many as the most iconic fighter aircraft of all time. The Spitfire evolved as the war progressed, from the early Mk I to, finally, the Mk 24. More powerful engines, improved armaments, and enhanced aerodynamics allowed the plane to remain competitive against newer Axis designs. Not only was it an engineering marvel, but the Spitfire also became an enduring symbol of British resistance and ingenuity.

Messerschmitt Bf 109

The Messerschmitt Bf 109 was the primary fighter aircraft of the German Luftwaffe throughout World War II. Designed in the mid-1930s, it was continually developed during the war to increase performance, stability, and firepower. For a time, it largely outmatched its enemies, including during the invasions of Poland and France. It met its first true rivals during the Battle of Britain, when it came up against the Spitfire and the Hurricane.

The Bf 109 was faster in a dive than both the Spitfire and the Hurricane and, in most circumstances, could also outclimb them. But the British fighters, in the hands of a skilled pilot, could outturn the Bf 109, and they also had greater range — a factor that proved crucial during the Battle of Britain. In total, some 34,000 Bf 109s were built, making it the most-produced fighter aircraft in history.

P-51 Mustang

The American P-51 Mustang is widely considered the finest all-around piston-engined fighter of World War II. Originally designed for the British, early models of the Mustang were not good at high altitude. That changed completely with the installation of the British Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, which transformed the aircraft into a world-class fighter. In December 1943, the first P-51B and P-51C Mustangs entered combat in Europe, providing vital long-range, high-altitude escort for the U.S. bombing campaign against Germany. This drastically reduced the previously crippling losses suffered by U.S. bombers.

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Mitsubishi A6M Zero

In 1937, the engineering team at Mitsubishi submitted a design for a lightweight, all-metal, low-wing monoplane that would match any other fighter currently in production. When the fighter went through trials two years later, it exceeded all expectations, demonstrating exceptional maneuverability, range, rate of climb, and acceleration. The Mitsubishi A6M Zero soon became the primary fighter aircraft of the Japanese during World War II.

When it first appeared in combat, the Zero could outmaneuver any plane it encountered. It wasn’t until 1943 that the Allies fielded fighters capable of defeating the Zero in aerial combat. These included new and much faster U.S. fighters such as the F6F Hellcat and F4U Corsair, which began to wrestle back air superiority from the Zero with its almost nonexistent armor. Toward the end of the war, many Zeros were converted into kamikaze aircraft.

Yakovlev Yak-3

The Yakovlev Yak-3 was a single-engine, single-seat Soviet fighter that entered service relatively late in the war, with the first iteration not flying until March 1944. Despite its late arrival, the Yak-3 quickly gained a reputation as one of the war’s finest dogfighters. One of the smallest and lightest fighter aircraft of the entire conflict, it had an impressive power-to-weight ratio, was highly agile, and was easy to maintain, making it popular among pilots and ground crews alike.

In combat, the Yak-3 proved more than a match for the best German fighters, including the Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190. During one large dogfight in June 1944, 18 Yak-3s clashed with about 24 German aircraft. The Yaks downed 15 German aircraft while losing only one of their own. Despite seeing less action than some other World War II fighters due to its late introduction, the Yak-3 stands as one of the war’s most effective and influential designs.

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Why Do Older Movies Look Faster?

Charlie Chaplin, 1914

When we think about old, silent films, we’re likely to picture the choppy, fast-paced movements of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, or perhaps the newsreel footage of Babe Ruth hitting a home run and seemingly zipping around the bases at 40 miles per hour. As talented as these individuals were, they weren’t capable of moving at speeds far beyond the range of normal people. So why do they appear that way on film?

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Film Only Provides the Illusion of Movement

To answer this question, we need to go back to some of the basics of filmmaking. Throughout the history of cinema, movie cameras have never been able to faithfully capture real-life movement. Rather, they record a series of still images in rapid succession, and replay them at speeds fast enough to trick the human mind into perceiving movement.

The number of individual images (or frames) displayed in one second of film is known as the frame rate, measured in frames per second (fps). Thomas Edison, who patented (but didn’t invent) the movie camera, noted that film needed to be shown at a speed of at least 46 fps to provide the illusion of movement. But in the early days of cinema, this proved too pricey to be practical, and some filmmakers found that the visual illusion could be sustained — and expensive celluloid film stock conserved — with frame rates closer to 16 fps, or even as low as 12 fps. While this speed was considered fast enough for a movie camera of that era, it is noticeably slower than the 24 fps rate that later became commonplace for both filming and projecting. And when old footage filmed at 16 fps or lower is accelerated for replaying at modern speeds, it will make the objects on screen move noticeably faster.

Some Films Were Sped-Up on Purpose

In the 1920s, the major Hollywood studios largely used the Bell and Howell 2709 movie camera. This model featured a hand crank that churned through half a foot of film with each revolution. As such, turning the handle twice per second equated to a shooting speed of 16 fps, which became the general standard for the era.

That said, many silent film directors deliberately ordered sequences shot at slower or faster speeds — “undercranked” or “overcranked” — for effect. A scene filmed at a slower speed (i.e. 16 fps) and then projected at a faster speed (i.e. 24 fps) will appear sped up, while the effect of slow motion comes when something is filmed at an even faster speed and then slowed to a standard speed for projection.

Studios often provided theaters with specific instructions for projection speeds that were higher than the filmed speed to make the motion look faster than normal, generally for comedic purposes or action sequences. And yet many of these theaters projected the films at even higher speeds in order to cram more showings and boost the number of paying customers in a single day. The end result of a film shot at, say, somewhere between 14 and 18 fps and projected at 22 fps or faster is the sped-up motion typical of movies from this era.

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Sound Changed the Standard for Speed

Though Edison and other innovators had previously attempted to match sound to moving pictures with limited success, the successful rollout of the Vitaphone with the Warner Bros. features Don Juan (1926) and The Jazz Singer (1927) showed that “talkies” were here to stay.

The Vitaphone solved the problem of sound and picture synchronization with a mechanical turntable that simultaneously powered a phonograph record alongside a film projector. A 16-inch record played at a speed of 33.3 rotations per minute (rpm) delivered 11 minutes of sound, matching the 11 minutes of visuals produced by 1,000 feet of film played at 24 fps. As sound ushered in a new era of cinema, Hollywood studios sought to standardize film speeds to preserve the uniform quality of their expensive productions, and 24 fps became the standard frame rate across the industry (notably slower than Edison’s original recommendation of 46 fps).

The reason for this exact number varies: Some sources note the depreciation of audio fidelity at lower speeds, or the fact that 24 is divisible by several numbers, enabling cinematographers to easily mark off smaller increments of film. Yet it’s likely that 24 fps was accepted throughout the industry largely because of Vitaphone's initial success at that number.

The Filming Speed Today

Naturally, the equipment that once was considered cutting edge in Hollywood has long since been replaced by new and better creations. The all-important Vitaphone quickly became obsolete with the emergence of sound-on-film technology in the 1930s, and the Bell and Howell 2709 camera fell out of production by 1958. Even the longtime staple of celluloid film was largely pushed aside by major studios with the rise of digital movies in the 2000s.

Yet the old-fashioned 24 fps film rate remains standard across the industry, despite the ability of modern cameras to shoot at far greater speeds. One major reason for this is simply that audiences have become accustomed to the distinct look of movies shot at that speed (as evidenced by the critical uproar over the visuals from the 48 fps version of 2011’s The Hobbit).

This means we’ll likely continue watching movies filmed at this standard for the foreseeable future. And in the meantime, we can also enjoy the old clips of Charlie, Buster, and other luminaries of the silent era, the jerky movements and clumsy intertitles serving as a reminder of how far this beloved form of storytelling has come over the past century.

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5 Inventions You Didn’t Realize Came From Ancient Rome

Codex-style book

In 500 BCE, Rome was nothing more than a minor city-state on the Italian Peninsula. But with its eyes set on expansion, Rome began to conquer its neighbors until it controlled all of Italy. It didn’t stop there. It became an empire in 27 BCE, and at its height — around 100 CE — the vast and immensely powerful Roman Empire stretched from Britain to Egypt.

Rome’s influence on the world was both widespread and long-lasting. The Romans were great innovators and inventors, sometimes appropriating and advancing aspects from other cultures, and other times inventing entirely new technologies and systems. These innovations covered a wide range of fields, including state institutions, cultural practices, and engineering techniques.

The Roman Empire eventually fell in 476 CE, but its legacy and influence carried on — all the way to the present day. Some of Rome’s most famous innovations, such as sanitation systems and road networks, are well known and still very much in evidence; in the United Kingdom, for example, many modern roads still follow the routes laid down by the Romans. Other Roman innovations, however, are more obscure. Here are five inventions that continue to shape our modern world, but that many people don’t realize originated in ancient Rome.

The First Bound Books

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In the ancient world, the first written documents were typically recorded on clay or wax tablets, or on sheets or scrolls of papyrus. The Romans also used scrolls, but during the first and second centuries CE, a new form of storing and accessing information emerged: the codex-style book. These notebooks, known as pugillares membranei (roughly translating to “parchment book”), were formed by stacking pages — typically made of vellum or papyrus — that were then joined along one set of edges, much like modern books. They were mainly used for personal writing, and represent the first true form of the bound book. The codices soon became popular throughout Western Europe and the Middle East, eventually superseding scrolls and tablets.

Precision Medical Instruments

The Romans were great pioneers in the field of surgery. We know from archaeological evidence — including well-preserved artifacts found in the buried remains of Pompeii and Herculaneum — that the Romans used precision medical instruments including bone forceps, catheters, obstetrical hooks, scalpels, and surgical scissors. The level of technology found in some of these tools is not so far from their modern counterparts. The Roman version of the vaginal speculum, for example, did not change significantly until the 20th century. The Romans also had a medical military corps with specialized field surgeons who were tasked with keeping the legions fit, healthy, and alive.

Underfloor Heating

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Heated floors might seem like a modern luxury, but the Romans started using them 2,000 years ago. Ancient Romans used an underfloor heating system known as a hypocaust, which drew in hot air from a wood-burning furnace outside the house and channeled it into a chamber below the floor. This not only warmed the floor itself but radiated heat throughout the home. Many examples of hypocausts can still be found in the foundations of villas and townhouses in Roman centers in Germany and England, where cold winters would have made the toasty floors especially inviting.

The Shopping Mall

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Markets have long been prevalent throughout the world as a gathering place for people to sell and buy all sorts of goods and produce. But the first permanent and covered shopping mall was likely built by the Romans: Trajan's Market (Mercatus Traiani), constructed between 100 and 110 CE. Made of red brick and concrete, it had six levels that housed around 150 different shops, as well as government offices and living accommodations. A street on the upper level, meanwhile, was named Via Biberatica after the Latin word for “drink,” suggesting that even the Romans needed to unwind after a hard day’s shopping.

Our Calendar

Most of the world now uses the Gregorian calendar, first introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. But credit for the modern calendar should really be given to the Romans. The Gregorian calendar is based on the much earlier Julian calendar (which itself owed a lot to the Egyptian solar calendar), introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BCE. The calendars share many similarities, though one of the main differences is the treatment of those pesky leap years. The Gregorian calendar handles them more precisely, resulting in a discrepancy between the two calendars that is currently 13 days, and will become 14 days in 2100.

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How Did People Wake Up on Time Before Alarm Clocks?

Man waking up to alarm

Timekeeping technology has come a long way from ancient Egyptian sundials, and with it, so has the ability to wake up at whatever precise time might be needed for work, school, or appointments — even if we often ignore a ringing alarm in favor of snoozing for just 10 more minutes. While the demands of modern society are certainly more rigid than they once were, people have long had various reasons to keep a tight schedule, and at times they had to rely on more than just the crow of the rooster or the chirping of birds at dawn to make sure they were up to meet the day.

The most basic way people woke up before the invention of alarms was strictly biological in nature. Long before the advent of mechanical clocks or artificial light, people lived in harmony with the natural rhythms of day and night. Two biological processes dictate this natural sleep-wake cycle: homeostasis and circadian rhythms. Homeostasis governs our body’s drive for sleep, which increases the longer we’re awake and dissipates once we fall asleep, eventually signaling when it’s time to wake up. Circadian rhythms, meanwhile, control alertness and drowsiness throughout the day, influenced by light (more alert) and darkness (sleepy time).

This isn’t the only internal body process that served as a primal wake-up call before alarm clocks: Some people relied on their bladders. In biographer Stanley Vestal’s 1984 book about the life of 19th-century Lakota warrior White Bull, he noted, “Indian warriors could determine in advance their hour of rising by regulating the amount of water drunk before going to bed.” Of course, these bodily functions still exist as natural wake-up calls, but circadian rhythms often get disrupted by modern light sources such as screens, and given the strict nature of our 21st-century work schedules, one’s bladder might not be the most reliable alarm.

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5 Common Items From Colonial America You’ve Never Heard Of

Student with hornbook

Life in colonial America was undeniably challenging, and early settlers had to be resilient and resourceful in order to survive. Many of the items that colonists used in day-to-day life were either brought from Europe or based on tools they had used in their old lives. While some remnants of the colonial era, such as spinning wheels and quill pens, remain a part of our collective memory, many lesser-known items have faded into obscurity or been replaced by modern innovations. Here are five once-common objects you may not have heard of before, each of which served an important role in sustaining family life and building communities in colonial America.

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Hornbook

A simple, durable tablet used as a primer for children’s studies, the hornbook originated in England around 1450 and was a staple of early childhood education in colonial America. Hornbooks were crafted by affixing a single page of parchment or paper onto a paddle-shaped wooden board and covering it with a translucent protective sheet made from an animal’s horn. This was created by soaking the horn in cold water to separate the parts, then heating and pressing the needed part into a thin, clear layer. A fundamental lesson was printed on the paper, such as the alphabet in lowercase and capital letters, simple vowel-consonant combinations, Roman numerals, and religious texts. Hornbooks remained popular well into the era of mass-printed books because they were both sturdy and functional.

Salt Cellar

Dating back to ancient Greece, the salt cellar (or salt-box) was a practical and decorative piece of tableware that colonists brought with them to the Americas. Traditionally, a salt cellar was not only useful for storing salt, but could also signify the hierarchy of those who were seated at the table. Those who were seated “above the salt,” typically closer to the host at the head of the table, were considered esteemed guests, while individuals of less prominence, including children, were seated “below the salt,” toward the middle or opposite end of the table from the host.

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Sugar Nippers

Sugar was considered a luxury in colonial America. The crop was generally harvested by enslaved people on sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean, then shipped to refineries where it was processed and shaped into cones that were wrapped in paper and distributed throughout the colonies. Sugar nippers were specialized steel tools that were used to cut chunks off a sugar “loaf,” which could weigh as much as 10 pounds. The smaller pieces were then crushed into granulated sugar using a mortar and pestle.

Warming Pan

Shaped like a frying pan with a long handle and hung by the fireplace when not in use, a warming pan was typically made of wrought iron and fitted with a decorative brass or copper lid. Warming pans were popular throughout Europe by the 17th century, and were indispensable household items for settlers in the northern American colonies during the harsh winter months. Before retiring for the evening, a family would fill the warming pan with hot coals or embers, place it between the layers of bedding, and gently move it around to warm the sheets. The pans themselves were considered valuable family heirlooms that were handed down from generation to generation.

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Flail

The flail is an ancient hand tool that colonial farmers used for threshing grain, such as wheat, barley, and oats. Commonly used until the widespread availability of mechanical threshers in the mid-19th century, the flail consisted of two wooden sticks of different lengths joined by a short, flexible thong made of rope, leather, or chain. The longer rod, called a handstaff or helve, provided leverage, while the shorter rod, called the beater, was used to strike the grain over and over, separating the edible part of the grain from the husks or chaff. Using a flail, one person could thresh around seven bushels of wheat, 15 bushels of barley, or 18 bushels of oats in one day.

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What Did People Use Before Toothbrushes?

Women brush their teeth

Since the fourth millennium BCE, when urban civilizations first appeared in ancient Mesopotamia, humans have strived to achieve proper dental hygiene. Yet the nylon-bristled toothbrush we use today didn’t come along until the 1930s. For the thousands of years in between, people relied on rudimentary tools that evolved with scientific knowledge and technological advancements over time. Some of the earliest toothbrush predecessors date as far back as 3500 BCE. Here’s a look at how people kept their teeth clean before the modern toothbrush.

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Chew Sticks and Toothpicks

Sometime around the year 3500 BCE, the ancient Babylonians (located near modern-day Iraq) created a tool known as a “chew stick.” This simple, handheld piece of wood is considered the earliest known direct predecessor to the toothbrushes we use today. Chew sticks were simple wooden twigs cut to approximately 5 or 6 inches long. One end of the stick was then softened in boiling liquid to help separate the fibers, creating an almost brushlike effect. Individuals would chew on these sticks to freshen their mouths, as the frayed fibers would slide between the teeth and help loosen debris. Many early Arab cultures used a specific shrub called Salvadora persica (also known as the “toothbrush tree”) to create their chew sticks, which they called miswak. The shrub was particularly aromatic in nature and thought to have a stronger mouth-freshening effect than other plants.

Around this same time, civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and elsewhere in the ancient world also used early versions of a toothpick to keep their teeth clean. These were often made of thin pieces of wood, though in later years, wealthy individuals began crafting toothpicks from brass and silver for added opulence and durability. In ancient Greece, toothpicks were known as karphos, roughly meaning “blade of straw,” suggesting the Greeks may have used coarse fibers such as straw in addition to wood.

Toothpaste Predated Toothbrushes

Before handheld teeth-cleaning devices became widespread, many ancient civilizations relied on a dental cream made of various ingredients, including the ashes of oxen hooves, myrrh, egg shells, and pumice. This cream was first developed in ancient Egypt sometime before 3000 BCE, and was mixed with water and then rubbed into the teeth to help remove debris. Around 1000 BCE, flavorful ingredients such as herbs and honey were added to the mix by the Persians. Another thousand years after that, the ancient Greeks and Romans improved the cream even further by adding abrasive elements such as crushed bone and oyster shell to really help get rid of stuck-on debris.

The First Hog’s Hair Toothbrush

The world of dental hygiene was forever changed thanks to the ingenuity of ancient China. During the Tang dynasty (618 to 907 CE), coarse hair fibers from the back of a hog’s neck were attached to a handle made of bamboo or bone, creating an early handheld toothbrushing device. Centuries later in 1498, Emperor Hongzhi of the Ming dynasty formally patented this hog’s hair toothbrush. For the next several centuries, artisan toothbrush makers around the world drew inspiration from ancient China and continued to heavily rely on coarse boar’s hair. In fact, toothbrush bristles didn’t see another major change until the middle of the 20th century.

Credit: Smith Archive/ Alamy Stock Photo

Toothbrushes Go Mainstream in Europe

Boar’s hair toothbrushes didn’t really take off in Western Europe until the 17th century — before that, Europeans often relied on toothpicks, as well as rags rolled in salt or soot, as they believed the coarse substances helped remove debris from teeth. But around the mid-1600s, French dentists began pushing people to take better care of their teeth as they made scientific advances on the topic of dental hygiene. In 1649, an English politician named Ralph Verney, who was living in Paris at the time, was asked by a friend back in England to see if he could get his hands on some French-made “little brushes for making cleane of the teeth,” which were becoming more common throughout the region.

There was a bit of pushback in British society against using toothbrushes, however, as some people worried about the cost and hassle of replacing these devices that wore down over time. Instead, some promoted cheaper alternatives that could be easily crafted at home — the 1741 British text The Compleat Housewife advised wrapping a cloth around your finger and using that to clean your teeth instead, a process that had also been used in ancient Greece and Rome. But these detractors were in the minority, and the production of handheld tools began to expand. By 1780, Englishman William Addis realized how to improve upon the available toothbrushes of the time, which were using animal fibers sourced locally. Addis began importing boar’s hair directly from Siberia and northern China, as the boars from those cold climates had coarser, more durable hair to withstand the elements, which was believed to be more effective at cleaning teeth. Addis founded his namesake company shortly thereafter — which is still in operation today — and began successfully producing toothbrushes on a much larger scale.

How Toothbrushes Took Off in America

As brushing one’s teeth became increasingly popular in Britain, that fervor spread to the British colonies in the Americas. Toothbrushes even caught the eye of future Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, the latter of whom instructed a London-based colleague to bring him “½ doz. Tooth brushes, the hair neither too strong nor too weak” as well as “½ doz. do. with the strongest hair, such as hog’s bristle.”

It wasn’t until the 19th century, however, that toothbrushes really became popular among everyday Americans, who previously relied on coarse clothes, toothpicks, and other rudimentary methods that were common back in Europe. This was in part due to the rise of a middle class with disposable income to spend on dental care products. The Industrial Revolution also increased commercial production of toothbrushes, which made the product available on a wider scale. On November 7, 1857, dental school graduate H.N. Wadsworth became the first American to successfully patent a toothbrush design, and large-scale production of toothbrushes began throughout the country by the mid-1880s. One of the earliest known American-made toothbrushes was produced by the Florence Manufacturing Company of Massachusetts. Known as the “Pro-phy-lac-tic,” the brush looked quite similar in design to many modern toothbrushes, though coarse animal hair was still used for the bristles.

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The First Nylon Toothbrush

On February 24, 1938, the U.S.-based DuPont chemical company changed the world of dental care with the debut of a new toothbrush featuring delicate nylon bristles instead of coarse hog’s hair. This was the first nylon toothbrush in the world, fitting since DuPont invented nylon to begin with. The synthetic bristles were just as effective at cleaning teeth, if not more so, and made using the tool more pleasurable. The first commercial nylon-bristled toothbrush was called Dr. West’s Miracle Tuft, and DuPont maintained exclusive rights to nylon bristles until the 1940s. Once that exclusivity expired, other manufacturers began incorporating the material into their own designs, and nylon bristles eventually became the standard.

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The Fascinating History of Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada sign

Since the middle of the 20th century, Las Vegas has been known as the capital of the American id. Gambling has long been at the center of its appeal, as nicknames such as “Sin City” and “Lost Wages” suggest. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is the city’s well-known slogan, while others have remarked, “Las Vegas is where losers come to win, and winners come to lose.”

Rising up from the Nevada desert, the city’s built environment is so extravagant that it’s difficult to imagine a time when its spectacle did not exist, fully formed. Let’s go back and trace the origins of this uniquely American city.

A Desert Oasis

Even though Las Vegas occupies a unique place in American culture, its metropolitan origin was sparked by the same thing that gave rise to many other U.S. cities: the development of the railroad. The area that includes present-day Nevada became a United States territory with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ended the U.S. war with Mexico. Despite its location in the basin of the Mojave Desert, the site of what is now Las Vegas was a sort of oasis — a valley that included a water source in the form of artesian springs.

The water source was the selling point for railroad magnate and U.S. Senator William Clark. In 1902, he bought 2,000 acres of land and water rights in order to create a waypoint for the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad he incorporated to connect those cities. The railroad line through Nevada began construction in 1904, and the following year, Clark auctioned off parcels of his land, which was located east of the railroad tracks.

Around the same time, civil engineer John T. McWilliams was attempting to build a township west of the railroad tracks. Though he was working with far less acreage than Clark — 80 acres to Clark’s 2,000 — the development provoked competition and intensified Clark’s efforts to build his township. Clark offered refunds on the $16 train fare to town in order to attract buyers. Newspaper advertisements promised, “Get into line early. Buy now, double your money in 60 days,” though accounts differ on which of the two were commissioning that ad.

Ultimately, McWilliams couldn’t really compete. After all, Clark owned the water rights and far more land, and he had a major stake in the railroad. On September 5, 1905, a fire almost completely consumed McWilliams’ townsite, and ensured that the competition between the two was short-lived; development would be concentrated west of the railroad tracks. Clark formed the Las Vegas Land & Water Company with his partners, and vowed, “I will leave no stone unturned and spare myself no personal effort to do all that lies within my power to foster and encourage the growth and development of Las Vegas.”

Gambling, Divorce, and the Hoover Dam

Clark’s dramatic statement might sound like a natural lead-up to building the bombastic city we know today. But that’s not quite what happened. Over the next 25 years, Las Vegas settled into an existence as a quasi company town, with railroad and mining as the main industries and a population of about 2,300. Clark sold his share of the railroad to Union Pacific in 1921, living in retirement for four more years until his death at age 86.

The 1920s were a tumultuous decade for Las Vegas nearly from the outset. In 1921, Union Pacific cut 60 jobs in the wake of its acquisition of the railroad. President Warren G. Harding’s incoming administration also meant new appointments to the Railroad Labor Board, and the board approved a series of wage cuts for railroad workers. In the meantime, a post-World War I downturn in mining further impacted Las Vegas. Then, in what is largely viewed as a retaliatory move, Union Pacific moved its repair shops out of Las Vegas and to Caliente, Nevada, costing hundreds of jobs.

With a dire economic outlook impacting the entire state, Nevada revisited the legalization of gambling, which had been legal from its statehood in 1869 up until 1910. With greater public support for relegalizing gambling than previous efforts had, a bill to legalize “wide open” gambling passed in both the state Assembly and Senate, and on March 19, 1931, Governor Fred Balzar signed it into law. That same year, divorce laws were loosened to permit anyone with a six-week residency in the state to legally divorce. And just one year earlier, construction had begun on the Hoover Dam, bringing an influx of thousands of workers to the area, many of whom would take the short trip to Las Vegas to try their luck with the newly legalized games. With this confluence of events, the Las Vegas we know today began to take shape.

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Organized Crime and the Strip

The decriminalization of gambling made Las Vegas an attractive destination to experienced gambling operators, some of whom were running criminal enterprises in other states. One such figure was the archetypal crooked cop Guy McAfee, a Los Angeles vice squad officer who fled to Las Vegas to escape prosecution for running gambling and prostitution rings — the exact vice he was supposed to be policing. Arriving in town in 1938, he bought the Pair-O-Dice Club on Highway 91 and renamed it the 91 Club, delaying its grand opening to 1939 in order to coincide with Ria Langham's six-week residency for divorcing Clark Gable.

McAfee was responsible for two enduring pieces of Las Vegas culture: He opened the Golden Nugget on Fremont Street, ushering in an era of grandiose casinos, and he is also credited with nicknaming Highway 91 “the Strip.” The Golden Nugget opened in 1946, about a year after the Nevada Legislature created the first casino license stipulating a 1% tax rate on gross gaming revenue in excess of $3,000.

The lucrative gaming industry began to attract heavier organized crime players beyond McAfee. Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel arrived in Las Vegas intending to create a base of operations for the notorious Syndicate, which, at the time, was led by Meyer Lansky during a period when Salvatore “Lucky” Luciano was in prison. Using funds from the Syndicate, Siegel became the primary stakeholder in the construction of a casino on Highway 91 to rival the Golden Nugget. Siegel wanted it to depart from the Old West aesthetic of most casinos of the time, and instead be patterned after the tropical resorts the Syndicate backed in Havana, Cuba. He dubbed it the Flamingo, and hoped to set a new standard for opulence in line with Siegel’s own worldview. “Class, that’s the only thing that counts in life," he once said. “Without class and style, a man’s a bum, he might as well be dead.”

Lavish attention to detail and poor business management contributed to enormous cost overruns, and bad luck compromised the Flamingo’s opening and its ability to quickly recoup costs. Maybe because of the money, maybe for a number of other possible motives that are debated to this day, Bugsy Siegel was gunned down while reading the newspaper in a Beverly Hills mansion on June 21, 1947. The murder was a national sensation, covered in tabloids and TIME magazine alike. LIFE magazine ran a gruesomely iconic full-page photo of the crime scene in its article about the murder. The case, Crime Case #46176 in the Beverly Hills Police Department, is still open and unsolved.

In a tellingly quick matter of minutes after Siegel’s murder, other Syndicate bosses took over the Flamingo. The resort eventually became profitable — so much so that the Syndicate began building more casino-resorts on the Strip. Organized crime had taken hold in Las Vegas, and the era of the swanky, entertainment-oriented hotel-casino was born. The mob invested in more casinos; the Sands Hotel and Casino opened in 1952 and brought in the “Rat Pack” (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford) for a high-profile residency. The Dunes, Riviera, and New Frontier opened in 1955; the Tropicana followed in 1957, and the Stardust opened a year later. Each had ties with organized crime syndicates from around the country.

The Fall of the Mob

Despite the sensational murder of Bugsy Siegel, the mob’s involvement in casinos, hotels, restaurants, and other Vegas businesses expanded, and more gangsters arrived in the city throughout the 1960s and ’70s. But in the late ’60s, billionaire Howard Hughes bought a series of mob-connected casinos — the Desert Inn, the Sands, Castaways, Frontier, the Silver Slipper, and Landmark — that shifted the balance of casino ownership in the city from mob-connected to corporate-owned. In 1969, the Nevada Legislature promoted corporate ownership of casinos, and in 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (commonly known as RICO), which aided the U.S. Justice Department in cracking down on organized crime.

During the ’70s, high-profile car and restaurant bombings between rival gangs unsettled the city to the point of attracting the attention of the FBI. The Nevada Gaming Commission and the Nevada Gaming Control Board refocused on organized crime, and Governor Mike O’Callaghan made it a point of emphasis. A RICO case focused on mobster Anthony Spilotro and Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, whose connections ran from Chicago mob families to others throughout the Midwest. By 1981, Spilotro’s operations had been broken up, and the mob was all but finished in Las Vegas.

Credit: Frank Edwards/ Archive Photos via Getty Images

The Rise of the Corporate Mega-Resort

Billionaire businessman Kirk Kerkorian bought the Flamingo in 1967, and in 1969, he opened the massive International Hotel. It was the largest hotel in the country, with 1,500 rooms and a 4,200-seat showroom. For its grand opening, he brought in Barbra Streisand, and then followed that by bringing in Elvis Presley for a famed residency — 837 consecutive sold-out performances over seven years — that set an enduring record. The same year, Kerkorian bought Hollywood’s venerable MGM Studio, and set out to build a themed resort in Las Vegas based on the production house.

With all of the buying and building, Kerkorian incurred enormous costs, so to help balance the ledger, he sold the Flamingo (and later the International Hotel as well) to the Hilton Hotel Corporation. The success of the Flamingo Hilton caught the attention of other major hotel corporations, such as Sheraton and Holiday Inn, and they too began opening casino-hotels in the city. In 1973, Kerkorian opened the MGM Hotel-Casino, which eclipsed the International Hotel in grandeur, boasting 2,100 rooms, eight restaurants, two showrooms, and the (at the time) world’s largest casino. It was the largest resort in the world, and Las Vegas’ first mega-resort.

During the rest of the ’70s and into the ’80s, development on the Strip stagnated. But Las Vegas itself was growing: From 1985 to 1995, the city’s population nearly doubled, increasing to around 368,360. Using junk bonds in 1989, developer Steve Wynn reinvigorated the Strip by building the most ostentatious mega-resort yet: the Mirage Resort and Casino. A 29-story Y-shaped tower with 3,044 rooms, a 1,500-seat showroom, and waterfalls, it also had a simulated volcano that would “erupt” every 15 minutes after sundown. That same year, Kerkorian announced plans for a new MGM Grand, which was completed in 1991 and took the mantle as Las Vegas’ largest casino, with even more over-the-top touches including a lion zoo and heavyweight boxing arena.

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An Entertainment Capital

The 1990s were a transitional era in Vegas, as many of the midcentury casino icons were razed in favor of constructing new family-friendly mega-resorts, representing a commitment toward broader entertainment tourism, rather than singular gambling. The Sands was imploded and replaced by the Venetian; similarly, the Dunes was replaced by the Bellagio, and the Hacienda was replaced by Mandalay Bay Resort. In true Las Vegas fashion, each implosion was a spectator event. The Hacienda implosion was even scheduled at 9 p.m. on December 31, 1996, in order to coincide with the new year on the East Coast. Most of the casino implosions were televised, and the videos can still be viewed on local TV news channel websites.

Today, Las Vegas continues to broaden its scope. Professional sports leagues have ended their historical aversion to placing teams in the city, as seen by the NHL awarding the expansion team the Las Vegas Golden Knights in 2017, the WNBA’s San Antonio Stars relocating to Las Vegas and becoming the Aces in 2018, and the NFL’s iconic franchise the Raiders relocating to Las Vegas in 2020. Major League Baseball’s Athletics are likely to follow. Las Vegas is now known as a city with an excellent fine-dining scene, with a number of chefs up as semifinalists for 2024 James Beard Awards. And the only place in town the mob exists now is in a museum.

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