Fact Book
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. 12794. History Facts
The scarab beetle was treated as holy by the Ancient Egyptians. Scarab beetles roll themselves in a ball of faeces and lay their eggs in it. 12795. History Facts
In 167 BCE, a Roman commander had a group of soldiers trampled to death by elephants for deserting (running away from battle). 12796. History Facts
The Mongolian ruler Ghengis Khan imposed the death penalty for urinating in water because water was so precious in the Mongolian desert. 12797. History Facts
Lord Nelson (1758–1805) admiral of the English fleet, slept in a coffin in his cabin.The coffin was made from the mast of an enemy French ship. 12798. History Facts
The Spanish Inquisition was set up to find people who committed crimes against the church and its teachings. They often questioned and tortured people until they confessed. In the case of a child under 10, though, they could go straight to the torture and not bother with the questions. 12799. History Facts
In India, people used to believe that the eyes from a slow lorris – a nocturnal creature like a monkey with no tail – could work as a love potion. 12800. History Facts
An Ancient Egyptian cure for burns involved warming a frog in goat dung and applying it to the burn. 12801. History Facts
During the time of Henry VIII of England, who reigned from 1508 to 1547, the punishment for poisoners was to be boiled alive. 12802. History Facts
To make violin strings, the gut of a sheep – which could be 30 metres long (over 98 feet) in length – was removed intact. The blood, flesh and fat were then scraped off the outside, the halfdigested grass was squeezed out and it was washed out carefully. The wider end was used as sausage skins, the rest for violin strings. 12803. History Facts
The Roman emperor Valerian was captured by visigoths (a barbaric tribe) invading Rome in 260 CE, who skinned him alive and then displayed the skin as a signal of their triumph. 12804. History Facts
Ancient Greeks used to blow up a pig's bladder like a balloon and use it as a ball. 12805. History Facts
An Anglo-Saxon cure for baldness was to rub the ash from burnt bees into the head. 12806. History Facts
Soldiers fighting in the trenches in World War I often suffered from trench foot (spending too long in cold, wet trenches made their feet rot). Some had to have their feet amputated because of it… 12807. History Facts
When Sir Walter Ralegh was executed in 1618, his wife had his head embalmed. She carried it around with her for 29 years, until her own death. 12808. History Facts
A French medieval torture involved trapping a person in the stocks – a wooden structure that held their ankles while they sat on the ground – pouring salt water over their bare feet and letting a goat lick it off. 12809. History Facts
The servants of a dead Egyptian pharaoh were often killed and buried with him or sealed alive in his pyramid. 12810. History Facts
The poet Shelley drowned off the coast of Italy in 1822. His body was washed up, half eaten by fish, and cremated on the beach by his friends. One of them cut his heart from the burnt body and gave it to Shelley's wife who kept it all her life. 12811. History Facts
The Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathori killed more than 600 young girls in the 1500s in order to drink and bathe in their blood. 12812. History Facts
A Saxon cure for madness was a beating with a whip made from the skin of a dolphin. 12813. History Facts
Ancient Egyptians sometimes brought a mummified body to banquets to remind diners that one day they would die. 12814. History Facts
Monks in Sicily, Italy, mummified dead bodies until 1920. A display of 6,000 can be seen in catacombs in Palermo, standing around or lying on shelves. 12815. History Facts
Hanging, drawing and quartering was a punishment for the worst crimes in England from 1241. The prisoner was nearly strangled by hanging, then cut open and had his innards removed and cooked in front of him, and finally chopped into four pieces. By the mid-1700s, prisoners were killed before the drawing and quartering. 12816. History Facts
Early Colonists in America used to clean their windows with rags dipped in urine. 12817. History Facts
In the Middle Ages, butchers often killed animals for meat in their shops, then threw the innards out into the street. 12818. History Facts
Romans who killed a relative would be executed by being tied in a sack with a live dog, cockerel, snake and monkey and thrown into a river. 
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