Things About History I Learned from Mental_Floss

So, I'm reading The Mental Floss History of the World, and I figure since this is a list blog, I'll do this as a countdown.  Everytime I read a chapter, I'll write down a couple of cool things I learned from it.


Here's Mental_Floss's website. It's kind of the inspiration for this blog.

Chapter 1

Africa and After

So the first neat little story from this chapter was when they were talking about Oetzi, the frozen caveman they found in the Alps.

Page 24:

The body, discovered in 1991, was first thought to be a recent murder victim....  The Austrians damaged Oetzi as they pried him out of the ice with a jackhammer, letting passerby carry off various objects as souvenirs.

I thought this was interesting because, really, why did they use a jackhammer?  Who thought that was a good idea?  The other thing I thought was, would you really want a piece of a 5300 year old dead guy as a souvenir of your trip to the Alps?

Well, to continue on the subject of old dead people, the second neat thing I learned from Mental_floss was what some slightly stupid Europeans did with mummies.

Page 29:

From the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries CE, wealthy, not-so-bright Europeans paid top dollar for "mummia" to make tea or eat straight up for any variety of ailments, including epilepsy, paralysis, bruises, and migranes.

Wow.  Why would anyone think this is a good idea?  You're basically eating dead people.  Just the fact that people were still doing this as late as the 1800s is kind of disturbing.  You'd a thunk people were smarter by then.

Well, the last cool little bit of history was from earlier in the chapter.  During New Year's, the Babylonians had a ritual where the king would go to the temple of their main god, Marduk, and tell him he hadn't done anything wrong the past year.  Then...

Page 6:

The high priest then slapped the king, but good; if the king's eyes teared up from this unjust punishment, he was telling the truth, and Marduk approved him to rule for another year.

This really isn't that bad of an idea, but wouldn't it be easy to fake tears after getting slapped?  It's just not fool-proof.  Oh well, it's still better than eating mummies.

Sometimes history is stranger than fiction, which is why I like it.  What do you think?

Chapter 2

Chaos and Control

So the first cool little story from the second chapter I just thought was funny.

Page 45:

According to legend, King Zhao was lured into Chu territory with the promise of seeing a rare bird.  Being a nice guy, the king of Chu guaranteed Zhao's safety during the visit, and being incredibly naive, Zhao believed him.  Only after crossing into Chu did Zhao realize it was a trap.  He died trying to flee across the Han River in a leaky old boat.

Now see, this is why you don't believe people who might possibly have a reason to want you dead.

The next thing I thought was cool didn't really have all that much to do with history, but it's neat to know anyway.

Page 49:

It takes twenty-five thousand silkworm cocoons to produce a pound of silk, with each cocoon producing a single silk thread up to nine hundred meters long!

And then finally, the last cool thing from this chapter...

Page  60:

At one time iron was considered more valuable than gold.  Iron daggers were among the crown jewels buried with the dead pharaoh Tutankhamen, and the ancient Egyptians called the metal "black gold from heaven," in reference to its meteoritic origins.

Makes sense.  Why is gold even considered valuable anyway?  We use iron a lot more, so in theory shouldn't it be more valuable?  Oh, well.

Chapter 3 and 4

Page 80:

The Etruscans...wrote back and forth across the page-from left to right for the first line and right to left for the second.  Weirder yet, the "backward" lines were literally written in reverse, with letters appearing as if reflected in a mirror.

This makes more sense than what we do.  I hate when you're reading, but then you skip a line on accident.  This would make it so much easier.

Page 111

The wedding customs of having a "best man" and of carrying the bride across the threshold probably date from the third-century practice of Germanic men abducting brides from neighboring villages and carrying them home, with the aide of a loyal companion.

Neat.