Leonardo Da Vinci made a robotic lion in 1515 that would walk, sway, open its mouth and move its tail - it even had a compartment that opened to present flowers.
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In 1799, a boy found a 17lb. rock in a creek in North Carolina and used it as a doorstop. It was actually gold.
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Shakespeare invented over 1,700 words that we use today.
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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
Napoleon Bonaparte thought torture should be abolished because the information obtained from it is worthless.
25
Instead of McDonald's tearing down a ~200-year-old Georgian mansion, citizens of a small NY town forced them to renovate it instead, resulting in a uniquely historic franchise location.
8