12744. History Facts

Before the days of lipstick, women used to colour their lips red with cochineal, a paste made from crushed beetles.

12745. History Facts

The law system drawn up by the Roman emperor Draco made every crime a capital offence – one for which the criminal could be executed.

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.

12766. History Facts

In Sparta, Greece, in 600 BCE the law required that a child born imperfect – disabled or deformed – be killed immediately.

12767. History Facts

Birching was allowed as a punishment in Britain until the 1940s. It consisted of being beaten on the bare buttocks with a bunch of twigs.

12768. History Facts

Toad-eaters were people employed by men selling medicine at fairs and markets.The toad-eater had to swallow a toad – supposed to be deadly poisonous – and then take the medicine.Their survival encouraged people to buy the medicine.They may or may not have actually swallowed the toads…

12769. History Facts

In Ancient Egypt, women kept a cone of grease on their head. During the day, it melted in the hot sun and dripped down, making their hair gleam with grease.

12770. History Facts

Victorian child chimney sweeps sometimes had to crawl through chimneys as narrow as 18 centimetres (7 inches). If they didn't go quickly enough, their bare feet were pricked with burning straws.

12771. History Facts

Mary Stuart, queen of England from 1553 to 1558, had 274 people burned at the stake just for being Protestant Christians.

12772. History Facts

In 1856, the USA passed a law saying that its citizens could claim any uninhabited island anywhere in the world if it contained large deposits of bird faeces.

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.

12793. History Facts

A medieval trial of guilt required a suspected criminal to plunge their hand into a pan of hot water and take out a stone, or carry a red-hot iron bar. The injured arm was bandaged and inspected after three days. If it was healed the person was considered innocent. If not, they were guilty and were punished.

Fact
To take an oath, ancient Romans put a hand on their testicles…that’s where the word “testimony” comes from.      .. More >>