How did John Harrison’s clock allow longitude to be used? John Harrison’s clocks were the first clocks that worked accurately on ships. To calculate longitude, it is necessary to know the time difference between where the ship is and the place it left from. That is only possible with a clock that can keep accurate […]
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When did commercial aviation become common? Commercial aviation “took off” in the 1950s, but it wasn’t just changes in airplanes that made this possible, it was changes in society and the way people thought as well. And by common, I mean used by ordinary middle-class travelers. Commercial aviation started not long after the Wright brothers
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Why did Captain Scott’s Antarctic expedition fail? Captain Scott’s Antarctic expedition basically failed because of mismanagement and the weather. Captain Robert Falcon Scott was a British naval officer and explorer. He led two major Antarctic expeditions. The first was the Discovery Expedition (1901–1904). It produced a large amount of scientific work, but it did not
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Why did the Spanish Empire end? The Spanish Empire came to an end because of, amongst other things, mismanagement, the economic situation, involvement in too many wars, and overexpansion. The Spanish Empire is generally considered to have come to an end in 1898, but it was the result of things that had been going on
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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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