In 1846, a 14 year old French peasant girl named Angelique Cottin was found to possess extraordinary electrical power. With a gentle touch she could knock over heavy pieces of furniture and even shock people near her.
17
Astronomer Percival Lowell believed that he was the first person to observe canals on Venus, but because of a faulty adjustment of the eyepiece on his telescope, he was in fact looking at the blood vessels in his own eye.
4
France’s King Louis XIV was offered biological weapons by an Italian chemist. He not only refused, but also paid the chemist an annual salary to never reveal the technology to anyone else.
21
Scientists have revived a flowering plant from a fruit stored away in permafrost by Arctic ground squirrel 32,000 years ago.
16
Rio de Janeiro was once capital of Portugal, making it the only European capital outside of Europe.
9
The dildo was invented at least 22,000 years before the wheel.
47
Napoleon Bonaparte thought torture should be abolished because the information obtained from it is worthless.
25