A man named Heraclitus had an illness that made his body swell up with water. To try to sweat it off, he buried himself in a steaming pile of animal poo, but then overheated and died of dehydration.
18
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
An underwater forest off the coast of Alabama that is 50,000 years old was uncovered by Hurricane Katrina.
16
There’s a Swedish power metal band called “Sabaton” who teach history through their music, including an album devoted to teaching about World War Two.
30
In the 1830s, a Greek prime minister tried to spread the potato in Greece but people weren't interested so he put armed guards in front of shipments of potatoes so people would think they were important. People then started stealing these potatoes so much that the crop spread to all of Greece.
29
The ancient Egyptians thought the function of the brain was to produce snot.
16
Romans used a plant called Silphium as contraception. They had so much sex that they drove it into extinction.
24
The rarest motorcycle in the world was found behind a brick wall in Chicago and has engine technologies well ahead of its time. The “Traub” is still running to this day.
14