Facts in category: In the past...
| Many sailors used to wear gold earrings so that they could afford a proper burial when they died. |
| The Chinese used silk to make their paper. |
| Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice. |
| Human skulls had been used as drinking cups for hundreds of years. The muscles and flesh were scraped away, the bottom was hacked off and then they were suitable to hold any beverage. |
| According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Egyptian men never became bald. The reason for this, Herodotus claimed, was that as children Egyptian males had their heads shaved, and their scalps were continually exposed to the health-giving rays of the sun. |
| Limelight was how we lit the stage before electricity was invented. Basically, illumination was produced by heating blocks of lime until they glowed. |
| The Chinese, in olden days, used marijuana only as a remedy for dysentery. |
| The ancient Egyptians recommended mixing half an onion with beer foam as a way of warding off death. |
| The pharaohs of ancient Egypt wore garments made with thin threads of beaten gold. Some fabrics had up to 500 gold threads per one inch of cloth. |
| More than 5,000 years ago, the Chinese discovered how to make silk from silkworm cocoons. For about 3,000 years, the Chinese kept this discovery a secret. Because poor people could not afford real silk, they tried to make other cloth look silky. Women would beat on cotton with sticks to soften the fibers. Then they rubbed it against a big stone to make it shiny. The shiny cotton was called "chintz." Because chintz was a cheaper copy of silk, calling something "chintzy" means it is cheap and not of good quality. |
| The Aztec Indians of Mexico believed turquoise would protect them from physical harm, and so warriors used these green and blue stones to decorate their battle shields. |
| Doors in London in the eighteenth century had up to ten keyholes to confuse burglars. |
| The British aristocracy suffered its greatest disaster on October 14th 1066 when 50% of its membership was killed at the Battle of Hastings. |
Page 2 of 4
