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.
6
In 1700s, the deer skin was a common medium of exchange between the trading settlers and the native Red Indians in America. This is how a buck became a slang for a dollar.
28
Ice cream cones were popularized in America during the 1904 World’s Fair in Saint Louis when an ice cream vendor ran out of cups and asked a nearby waffle vendor to roll up his waffles to hold the ice cream.
17
If Earth's history was condensed into twenty-four hours, life would've appeared at around 4am, land plants at 10:24pm, dinosaur extinction at 11:41pm, and human history would’ve began at 11:58:43pm.
21
In 1518, a "dancing plague" struck Strasbourg, Alsace, whereby hundreds of people danced fervently in the streets over the period of a month. Some suffered heart attacks or strokes, and many others died from sheer exhaustion. It remains unexplained.
19
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
There's a bar in Ireland (presently named Sean’s Bar) that was opened in 900AD.
32
During the Black Plague, it was thought that bad smells were the cause of the plague. "Plague Doctors" therefore wore masks with long beak-like noses stuffed with flowers or smoke to hide the smells.
19