Where are Dante’s remains? Dante’s remains are in the city of Ravenna in Northern Italy, not Florence, which has an empty tomb for him. Dante was exiled from the city state of Florence in March 1302 because he was found guilty of corruption and financial wrongdoing. He was never able to return to the town […]
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What did Marie Curie win two Nobel Prizes for? She won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 for her research in radiation (shared with her husband), and she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 for discovering radium, polonium, and isolating radium. Marie Curie is not the only person to have won two
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Why were so many pharaohs buried in the Valley of the Kings? So many pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings because it is fairly well hidden, close to the capital, in a very religious place, and it became the done thing. The Valley of the Kings is very close to the city
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Where do lily-livered, carpetbagger, mad as a hatter, pleased as punch, turncoat, bigwig, rule of thumb, and skeleton in the cupboard come from? All of these expressions have fascinating origin stories. Let’s look at them one by one. Lily-livered is a British phrase that means someone is cowardly. If you are not British, you may
When did cigarettes become mainstream? Cigarettes increased in popularity after their manufacture was automated, but they became mainstream after World War 1. Tobacco wasn’t known in Europe until the Spanish brought it back from South America in the 15th century. Before tobacco arrived, people in Europe had other drugs to smoke, but they were more
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Why did people stop using castles? People stopped using castles because they were hard to defend as warfare changed, feudalism ended, they were expensive, and they were not very comfortable. Castles evolved from forts, which in turn evolved from rough fortifications. In fact, the word castle comes from the Latin word “castrum”, which means “fortified
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Why did Copernicus decide that the sun was at the center of the solar system? Copernicus decided that the sun was at the center of the solar system because it made the most sense when he observed the motion of the other planets. Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Poland in 1473. He was very well
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What happened to JFK’s sister? JFK’s sister, Rosemary Kennedy, was permanently incapacitated by a failed lobotomy in 1941, leaving her with the mental age of a two-year-old. Rosemary Kennedy was the third of nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy and his wife Rose Fitzgerald. They are known as the Kennedy family, and Rosemary was
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What was the gold standard? The gold standard was a system that tied the value of a country’s currency to a fixed amount of gold. It is often said that it ended in 1971, because that was when the United States stopped converting dollars into gold for foreign governments and central banks, which was the
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Why is Savile Row in central London famous for tailors? It became the centre for high-quality, custom-made men’s suits in the 19th century, as famous tailoring houses established themselves there and drew others in. Henry Poole & Co began in 1806, but it did not move onto Savile Row itself until 1846, which is when
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