12773. History Facts

In the 1990s, fashionable women in Europe who wanted to look thin wore corsets laced so tightly that their ribs were sometimes broken!

12774. History Facts

In the nineteenth century, a school headmaster in York, England, massacred his pupils and hid their bodies in cupboards.

12775. History Facts

During the Great Plague that struck England in 1665–66, boys at Eton school were punished for not smoking – smoking was thought to protect them from the disease.

12776. History Facts

Before written or computerized records helped us to keep track of criminals, many countries marked criminals with a tattoo or a branding iron – a red hot iron used to burn a pattern, letter or picture into their skin.This meant that everyone could see what they had done.

12777. History Facts

Bird faeces called guano were collected and sold from Peru, Chile and Bolivia for hundreds of years. It was used as a fertilizer for plants.

12778. History Facts

A common way of attacking a besieged castle or city in the Middle Ages was to catapult dead animals, corpses or even the heads of enemies over the walls.

12779. History Facts

The Greek emperor Draco died when he was smothered by the hats and cloaks that admirers threw over him at a party.

12780. History Facts

Pope Clement VII tried eating a death cap toadstool in 1534; it killed him.

12781. History Facts

In 2,350 BC the Mesopotamian king Urukagina demanded that thieves be stoned to death with stones carved with their crime.

12782. History Facts

It took over two months to make an Egyptian mummy. After removing the internal organs and brain, the body was covered with a kind of salt for two months to dry out, then treated with resin, packed with sand and sawdust and wrapped in bandages.

12783. History Facts

Mongol leader Tamerlane the Great (1336–1405) executed anyone who told him a joke he had already heard.

12784. History Facts

Roman prisoners condemned to fight to death with each other or wild animals often tried to kill themselves before the fight. One man pushed a wooden spike down his throat – it was used for holding the sponge people cleaned themselves with in the lavatory.

12785. History Facts

Anglo-Saxon peasants sometimes wove clothes made out of dried stinging nettles.

12786. History Facts

Anyone who rebelled against the Mesopotamian king Ashurnasirpal could expect to be skinned or buried alive. We know this because he buried some rebels inside a column and carved the story of their crime on the outside.

12787. History Facts

In Ancient Rome, vestal virgins were young girls who served in a temple and could not be touched. If they committed a crime their punishment was to be buried alive as it could be done without anyone touching them.

12788. History Facts

The Romans had criminals torn apart by wild animals while the public watched. Dogs or lions were usually used, but sometimes more exotic animals were brought in.

12789. History Facts

The Roman king Tarquin crucified anyone who committed suicide – even though they were already dead – to show other people what would happen to their bodies if they did the same.

12790. History Facts

In the time of King Charles II of England, who reigned from 1649 to 1685, dead people had to buried in a shroud made of wool, to boost business for the wool trade.

12791. History Facts

In Anglo-Saxon England, people who died in a famine were eaten by their neighbours!

12792. History Facts

In 1740, a cow found guilty of witchcraft was hanged.

Fact
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