Before 1800

Ancient, medieval and early modern. 15 stories, a few minutes each.

1. Why Honey Never SpoilsWhen archaeologists opened tombs in Egypt, they found jars of honey sealed thousands of years ago that were still perfectly edible.
2. The Dancing Plague of 1518In July 1518, a woman named Frau Troffea stepped into a narrow street in Strasbourg and began to dance. She did not stop.
3. TarrareIn the late 18th century, a French man with an insatiable appetite became one of history's strangest documented medical cases. Known only as…
4. The Voynich ManuscriptIn 1912, an antiquarian book dealer named Wilfrid Voynich purchased a strange medieval codex from a Jesuit college in Italy. No one could read it.…
5. Tulip ManiaIn the winter of 1637, a single tulip bulb sold for 6,000 florins in the Netherlands—enough to buy a luxurious house on an Amsterdam canal. A few…
6. The Antikythera MechanismIn 1901, sponge divers exploring a shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera pulled up a corroded lump of bronze. For decades, it sat in a…
7. How Champagne Was Invented by AccidentThe legend goes like this: Dom Pérignon, a Benedictine monk working in the cellars of the Abbey of Hautvillers in the late 1600s, accidentally…
8. Shakespeare Has No Living DescendantsWilliam Shakespeare had three children. Susanna, the eldest, was born in 1583. Twins Hamnet and Judith followed in 1585. By 1670, every direct line…
9. The Phantom Time HypothesisIn 1991, a German historian named Heribert Illig published a paper arguing that 297 years of human history never happened.
10. How the Guillotine Was Designed to Be HumaneBefore the French Revolution, the method of execution in France depended on social class. Nobles were beheaded by sword, a relatively quick death…
11. The Paris CatacombsBeneath the streets of Paris lies a network of tunnels containing the remains of roughly six million people.
12. The Invention of the ForkThe fork is one of the most common objects in the Western world, yet it took roughly a thousand years to catch on. For most of European history,…
13. The Hermitage CatsThe Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, is one of the largest art museums in the world. It houses over three million items, including works…
14. The Real Robinson CrusoeIn September 1704, a Scottish sailor named Alexander Selkirk asked to be put ashore on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific.
15. Why Stradivarius Violins Sound So GoodBetween roughly 1680 and 1720, Antonio Stradivari built about 1,100 string instruments in his workshop in Cremona, Italy.