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
Iceland has been so culturally isolated through history since the Vikings, that compared to other Scandinavian counties, people who speak Icelandic can still read the old Norsk sagas.
4
The exact cause of death and burial site of Genghis Khan is unknown, because all of the 2000 funeral guests and 800 soldiers were killed in order to preserve the secret.
16
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
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
It's still possible to see the division between East and West Germany due to different light bulbs.
5
Scientists are excavating the ruins of a major civilization which pre-dates both the pyramids and Stonehenge by over 7,000 years. In 15 years, they have uncovered only about 5% of the site.
21
There is a 600 year old 240 paged book called the Voynich Manuscript, that’s written language is still completely unknown today.
15