Genghis Khan exempted the poor and clergy from taxes, encouraged literacy, and established free religion, leading many peoples to join his empire before they were even conquered.
28
Romans used a plant called Silphium as contraception. They had so much sex that they drove it into extinction.
24
The site where the Parthenon was built had to be cleared of hundreds of dinosaur bones (then called giants' bones) before construction could begin.
13
In 1897, Bayer, who is the maker of Aspirin, marketed the drug heroin.
56
Allegedly, Chrysippus, the Greek philosopher, died of laughter after getting his donkey drunk and watching it try to eat figs.
47
Pierre Jaquet-Droz, a watchmaker, 240 years ago invented a robot that could write, and the parts could be interchanged to say whatever you want.
13
In Ancient Greece, if a woman watched even one Olympic event, she was executed.
40
