History

Student caring for practice baby at Cornell University
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Home economics (today more commonly named family and consumer sciences) is a subject dealing with running a household. Typical matters taught at home economics (usually abbreviated as home ec in the U.S.) classes are nutrition, family finance, human development, interior design. Home economics is present in many countries as a mandatory or voluntary course, usually in high school. Historically, it was also taught in universities. It was more focused on

Beer
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Hammurabi was a king of Old Babylonian Empire who reigned from circa 1792 to 1750 BC. Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian code of law. The laws were inscribed on a stele, a huge boulder over 2 meters tall (7 ft). The stele was made of diorite rock which is quite hard. As a result, we can have an insight into laws of ancient Mesopotamia which are almost 4 thousand

Airmail navigation concrete arrow
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Scattered across American deserts, plains, sometimes fields, sometimes in the middle of nowhere: giant arrows made from concrete. The mysterious arrow signs were kind of forgotten for some time, but recently explorers rekindled their for discovering more and more of the arrows all over the United States.

Mousetrap with a gun
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Ever since humans transitioned from hunter-gatherer society to agriculture, they had to learn to overcome food storage issues. Mold, fermentation or pests could destroy one’s grain. Lack of solutions sometimes resulted in famine. Civilization came up with many ideas for fighting rodents considered as pests: house mice, rats and others. Cats were domesticated over 9,000 years ago, and archeological findings suggest that they were used for pest control in Egypt

A pound coin floating in mercury
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Mercury is a chemical element. It is a metal, but has peculiar physical properties. It’s one of few metals that is liquid in standard temperature and pressure (imagine normal room temperature conditions). Mercury is commonly known as quicksilver. Other than its cool sounding name (almost like a superhero, Captain Quicksilver), and interesting physical properties, mercury and most of its compounds are toxic. Mercury poisoning can be a result of vapors

Holodomor memorial statue
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Europe enjoyed a long period of prosperity between 11th and 13th centuries. European population grew from 56.4 million in year 1000 to 78.7 million in year 1300. The idyll (if anything in medieval times was an idyll) ended abruptly between years 1314 and 1315. Many regions of Europe reported prolonged periods of rain in 1314. It rained most of the time in summer and autumn of 1314 in Great Britain.

Castle Eltz
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Burg Eltz is a medieval castle located in Mosel river valley in Germany. It has not only been owned by the same family (named Eltz, duh) for over 860 years, but has also remained largely intact since its completion. 33 generations of various branches of Eltz family have lived in the castle, and still live today. The 80-room castle has enough space for multiple families living there comfortably at the

Isaac Newton's apple tree
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Back in year 1666 Isaac Newton had to return to his family home from Cambridge University. The University had been closed due to the Great Plague of London which had killed estimated 100,000 people. In Woolsthorpe Manor, which was also his birthplace, Sir Isaac Newton performed multiple experiments with light and optics. He also relaxed in the garden, where he observed a falling apple, and started wondering why everything fell

Ogre eating children in Switzerland
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The Kindlifresserbrunnen (Swiss German for Child Eater Fountain) is a fountain in the Old Town of Bern, Switzerland. The monument depicts a seemingly angry man (or perhaps an ogre) biting off a baby’s head, with a bag of terrified babies waiting for their turn to be eaten.