12746. History Facts

In the Middle Ages, the boys who looked after dogs used for hunting had to sleep in the kennels with them.

12747. History Facts

Before the invention of real footballs, kids used to stuff a pig's bladder with peas to kick around.

12748. History Facts

Ancient Romans used to make themselves sick during a banquet so that they could eat more after they were full. A special slave had the job of clearing up the mess.

12749. History Facts

In England, suicide used to be illegal.The punishment for trying to kill yourself was death.

12750. History Facts

In medieval France, a cockerel that was found sitting on an egg (which only hens normally do) was found guilty of being a devil and was burned at the stake.

12751. History Facts

In 1808, Tommy Otter was hanged for killing his girlfriend. His body was left chained in a tree and a year later a pair of blue tits made a nest in his skull and reared eight chicks.

12752. History Facts

To honour the goddess Teteoinnan at the time of harvest, the Aztecs skinned a woman as a sacrifice. Her skin was then worn by a priest at a harvest festival.

12753. History Facts

In the 1800s, Mongolian prisoners were fastened into a wooden box little larger than a coffin where they were left to die. Some were given food for years, but never allowed out.

12754. History Facts

Houses in many parts of the world have been made from a mixture called wattle and daub – horse manure and straw.

12755. History Facts

Archaeologists in Peru have found skeletons of victims tied up and left to be eaten by vultures, perhaps as a sacrifice.

12756. History Facts

Biological warfare has been used since 600 BCE when the Greek city Cirrha was besieged by Solon. He poisoned the water supply with hellebore roots and stormed the city while the citizens had diarrhoea.

12757. History Facts

During the 900 days of the siege of Leningrad in the Second World War, 1,500 people were accused of cannibalism.

12758. History Facts

Vikings used rancid butter to style and dress their hair.

12759. History Facts

In Palestine 8–9,000 years ago, a dead relative was buried under the floor of the family's house – except the head. The flesh and brain were removed from the head and the skull used as the base for a plaster mould of the person's head, which was decorated and kept.

12760. History Facts

After a massacre carried out by Indian soldiers in 1857, the British soldiers made the Indians clean up the blood – and those who refused had to lick it up.

12761. History Facts

Slaves sometimes had to fight to the death in a Roman arena.To make sure they weren't just pretending to be dead, they could be prodded with a red-hot poker and hit on the head with a huge hammer.

12762. History Facts

The Greeks played the game knucklebones with real bones from the knuckles of animals that have cloven feet – like pigs, goats and antelopes.

12763. History Facts

Theban king Mithradites (132–63 BCE) took small doses of poison regularly to develop immunity and protect himself from poisoners. When he later wanted to kill himself, the poison he took did not kill him.

12764. History Facts

Wig-makers suffered during times of plague as people thought the disease could be caught from wigs made of human hair. So many second-hand wigs were infested with fleas that they were probably right!

12765. History Facts

Inuit people used to make trousers out of the gullet – wind-pipe – of a seal or walrus, using one for each leg.

Fact
The longest Monopoly game ever played was 1,680 hours long, which is seventy straight days      .. More >>