What is Greek fire? It was a burning material that was invented as a weapon by the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century. We call it Greek fire, in English, but it was not really Greek. The Byzantine Empire was created when the Roman Empire split into Western and Eastern halves. The eastern half became […]
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When did people start sending postcards? The first postcard that we would recognize today as a postcard was sent in 1861, and by the end of the 1860s, they were being commercially made and posted. We have probably all sent and received a postcard in our lifetime. You go to a nice destination, you buy
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What is the Antikythera mechanism? It is a machine that was found in an ancient shipwreck near the island of Antikythera, a Greek island on the edge of the Aegean Sea. It is thought to be a machine to predict eclipses, model the lunar phases, and track astronomical cycles. It is also said to be
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How did a Roman aqueduct work? An aqueduct works by moving water from an area of higher elevation to an area of lower elevation using the force of gravity. The word aqueduct comes from Latin, and we still use several Roman aqueducts, but the Romans didn’t invent the aqueduct. The word is made from “aqua”,
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What are the Olmec colossal heads? The Olmec colossal heads are a group of 17 giant heads carved out of stone by the Olmec people in sometime before 900 BC. The Olmec people were an early civilization living in what is now the Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, in the south of Mexico, near
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Why did Napoleon invade Russia? Napoleon invaded Russia because he wanted to force back Russian troops and consolidate all of his power in Europe. He assumed that he would be able to defeat the Russians and, as Hitler did later on, underestimated them. Napoleon had come to power through a coup in 1799 and made
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When did knights stop wearing armor? Knights stopped wearing armor when muskets began to be used more widely in battles. There are many types of armor, and it has evolved over the centuries. We are all familiar with the iron and then steel armor that knights often wear in movies. We have also probably seen
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Why were the Easter Island Moai statues built? The Moai statues were built on Easter Island by the Polynesians to embody the spirits of their ancestors, not to appease the gods as their island died. There are 887 known statues on the island at the moment, but there are more that are still buried and
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Did the Hundred Years War last for a hundred years? No, the Hundred Years War didn’t last a hundred years. In fact, it lasted for 116 years. The thing we need to understand before we start talking about the Hundred Years War is that it was not one continuous war that lasted for over a
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How did the Incas build their roads? The Incas built an extensive road network by using a labor tax, but they used different construction techniques depending on the landscape they were building through. We have a lot of roads today. It is estimated that there are 200 million km of roads around the word at
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