I learned this today. The Portuguese royal court moved to Brazil in 1807 to avoid being deposed by Napoleon. Spain and Portugal both started exploring the Southern Americas from the late 15th century. Portugal claimed the area that is now Brazil for the King of Portugal in 1500. The Portuguese explorer who claimed Brazil for […]
#145 Why did the Portuguese royal family end up in Brazil? Read More »
I learned this today. The first drink put in a can was beer in the 1930s, but it took a while before drink canning could be perfected. The process of canning was invented by Nicolas Appert in France in 1809. He was responding to a challenge by Napoleon Bonaparte for anyone that could come up
#143 When did people start putting drinks in cans? Read More »
I learned this today. The different rocks of Stonehenge came from three different places. Stonehenge was probably built between 3000 and 2000 BC. Originally, it was constructed with wood. Wooden posts dating from 8000 BC have been found there, suggesting that it has been a place of significance for a long time. The first Stonehenge
#141 Where did the stones of Stonehenge come from? Read More »
I learned this today. There have been six mass extinctions on Earth that experts know about. The Great Oxidation Event about 2.4 billion years ago. The Ordovician-Silurian Extinction 440 million years ago. The Devonian Extinction 365 million years ago. The Permian-Triassic Extinction 250 million years ago. The Triassic-Jurassic Extinction 210 million years ago. The Cretaceous-Tertiary
#139 What are the six great mass extinction events? Read More »
I learned this today. The Jolly Roger was the flag used by pirates, but nobody really knows why it was called the Jolly Roger and there were many different versions of it. We generally think of pirates as being people like Blackbeard and Captain Kidd and most of these pirates operated in the Caribbean. The
#138 Did pirates really use the Jolly Roger flag? Read More »
I learned this today. A letter of marque was a license from a government for a private citizen to attack and capture vessels of an enemy nation in order to gain reprisal for that country’s actions in a war. It was very expensive for a country to have a standing navy and a lot of
#136 What is a letter of marque? Read More »
I learned this today. The first account of a crime syndicate that was an American Mafia was published in the New Orleans Times in 1869. It could be argued that the Mafia started in Italy during the end of the 16th and the start of the 17th centuries. Its vertical structure, with a don at
#132 When did the Mafia come to America? Read More »
I learned this today. We have 24 hours in a day because of Hipparchus. We have 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour because of Claudius Ptolemy, Al-Biruni, and the Babylonians. Before we look at this topic, we have to remember that needing to know the time exactly is a fairly
I learned this today. Machu Picchu was most likely a royal estate for Inca emperors and nobles that was probably built in the 1420s and abandoned a little over 100 years later. The Incas had no written language, so all information about the site has been deduced by modern archaeology. The Incan Empire came into
#125 What was Machu Picchu built for? Read More »
I learned this today. The first prime minister of the UK to live in 10 Downing Street was Sir Robert Walpole in 1735. 10 Downing Street is located in the City of Westminster, in London. In 960, an abbey was built there, and the area became known as “west minster” to differentiate it from the
#123 When did UK prime ministers start living in 10 Downing Street? Read More »
