When did Britain become an island? It was connected to continental Europe by a land bridge that was destroyed 450,000 years ago. Some of the land bridge returned and that was submerged under the sea in about 6100 BC. If sea levels were a little lower than they are now, a lot more land would […]
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What happened at the Bay of Pigs? An American led attempt to overthrow the communist government of Cuba failed. The Bay of Pigs is on the southern coast of Cuba. It is 150 km away from the capital city of Havana. There are a lot of wild pigs in the area, which could be why
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When did ultra processed food start? Technically, humans have always processed food, but the modern style of processed food came into being in the middle of the 20th century. The literal definition of processing food is to “perform a series of mechanical or chemical operations on food in order to change or preserve it.” That
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When were AD and BC decided? AD probably started in AD 525 and BC probably started in AD 731. All of these are “probably” because there is no concrete evidence. AD is an abbreviation for anno Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, and means “in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ”. BC stands for Before Christ.
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Did Christopher Columbus really think he had landed in India? Not India, but the Indies, and, yes, he did. When Columbus said he was aiming for the Indies, he wasn’t thinking of India. He was thinking of the islands to the east of Asia, such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and New Guinea. There were no
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Did Shakespeare write the plays attributed to him? The available evidence shows that, in all probability, Shakespeare was a real person who wrote his own plays. William Shakespeare was definitely a real person. There is no record of his birth and his birthday of 23rd April was given to him by a much later biographer
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Why does the Leaning Tower of Pisa lean? It leans because the ground under the tower is not hard enough and has settled. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is 55.86 meters tall, and it leaned by 5.5 degrees off center at its peak. It was stabilized in the 1990s and its lean was reduced to
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What is a codex? A codex is a collection of ancient manuscripts in book form. The term originally just meant a book, but today we use it only to refer to books of ancient manuscripts. The word codex comes from the Latin “caudex”, which means “block of wood” or “book”. The codex marks the point
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Where did Freemasons come from? They are people who belong to an organization that has its origins in the local guilds of stonemasons that started in the 14th century. The Freemasons are a mysterious fraternity that includes some of the most powerful people in industry and governments. They have secret rituals, passwords, and rules that
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Why was Mesopotamia the cradle of civilization? Because its climate slowly changed and the people had to learn to cope with it. Mesopotamia was located where Iran, Kuwait, Syria, and Turkey are today. People started living in the region in about 10,000 BC. They were called the Sumerians and the Akkadians. They began to group
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