Things You Might Not Have Known About History

Over 2,400 years ago a Greek writer named Herodotus collected and reported eye-witness accounts of battles and other past events. He then analyzed their causes and effects. This essentially marked him as the world’s first true historian. Herodotus journeyed across Greece and the Mediterranean collecting all kinds of info, such as local customs and culture.

In 440 BC, Herodotus ‘published’ his work by reading aloud to spectators at the Olympic Games. He called this work ‘Histories’ which means ‘inquiry’ in ancient Greek. His work tells us a lot about life in ancient times, but not all of his stories are reliable. For example, he described one-eyed men from northern Europe who fought griffins or dragons for gold.

So what is history and its best definition? One source defines “History is the study of change over time, and it covers all aspects of human society. Political, social, economic, scientific, technological, medical, cultural, intellectual, religious and military developments are all part of history.” Another: “the study of past events, particularly in human affairs. The whole series of past events connected with someone or something.”

History is a way of finding out about the past, but the past can get lost on the way to the present so historians have to be like detective, examining evidence or the source to find out what really happened. Evidence consists of tools, archaeological finds, human remains, diaries, letters, books, or anything they can use to find out what happened. The most important rule of history is never trust a single source to tell the whole story.

So we all know that history did not begin at year one. There’s lots of stuff that happened before that – wars, famine, crime, fashion, exploring, politics (of course) and stuff. Early Christian historians made the year of Jesus Christ’s birth ‘Year One’, as we know of course. The first writer to use the initial AD for the years after the birth of Jesus was an English monk named Bede who wrote the ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’. AD is Latin for Anno Domini. We all remember that right?

A Scythian monk calculated the birth year of Jesus as Year One, but today’s historians think Jesus was actually born up to seven years before that. However, today many prefer CE and BCE instead of AD and BC. And boy does this get confusing when trying to understand dates. CE stands for ‘in the Common Era’ and ‘Before Common Era’. Then there is ‘c’’. This stands for the Latin word ‘circa’ meaning ‘around’ and goes in front of dates of which historians are unsure.

Ever wonder why purple was considered the epitome of royalty? For thousands of years, the only way to get purple dye was from the decomposing bodies of sea snails, called murex, once plentiful on the Mediterranean coast. It was produced almost exclusively by Phoenicians living on the east coast of the Mediterranean. Phoenicians began making the dye in around 1500 BC. There were many murex pits in Tyre, the main port of Phoenicia. To produce the dye, snails were left to rot in the pits. It took 12,000 rotten murex snails to produce enough dye to cover a handkerchief-sized piece of fabric. The dye was definitely worth its weight in silver. Only wealthy people could afford to wear clothes with purple trim, and only the wealthiest of all dressed entirely in purple. No wonder Purple is the essence of royalty.

See those pretty spring flowers – the first of all blooming plants to emerge after the long winter season? They used to cost more than mansions. In the early 17th century, tulips were new to Europe and very rare. Meanwhile the United Provinces (now called Netherlands) had become the richest country in Europe. With more cash to splash, the Dutch began buying tulip bulbs and the prices began to rise. This was the start of ‘tulip mania’. At different times during tulip mania, one bulb cost the same as: 34 barrels of ale; or 1,000 pounds of cheese; 12 fat sheep, the cost of feeding a crew on a ship for a year; or 1 extravagant mansion with a coach house. Talk about GOLD! But sadly, or fortunately for us, in February 1637, the price collapsed because too many bulbs had been imported. Buyers began to refuse to pay the high prices. Tulip mania was over.

So did you realize the New World shaped the design of axes? The axes that the first settlers brought from Europe were based on a pattern that hadn’t changed for centuries. They had short straight handles with a big round eye and a long blade which resulted in an unstable swing. Over time the settlers developed a new improved design to better chop down their trees. This new design had a long, curving handle, a narrow triangular eye and a short blade balanced by a heavy poll. This allowed them to chop down trees three times faster and is still used around the world.

During the 2nd World War, the German Air Force sent unmanned flying bombs, known as V-1s, over the sea to explode in British cities. British fighter pilots discovered a dangerous but reliable way to stop the bombs – literally nudging them with their wings. Pilots would fly alongside the bomb, match its speed, and then flip the bomb’s wings from underneath. This knocked the bomb into a spin, so most bombs were sent crashing into the sea or into empty fields. This was preferable to shooting at the bombs, which risked the pilots getting caught in the resulting explosion.

A game of cricket was the first ever sports match between two nations. On September 24, 1844, St. George’s cricket club in Manhattan hosted a two-day match between the USA and Canada. This match is the oldest recorded sporting contest played by teams representing rival countries. Around 5,000 people gathered to watch the match. Between them, they bet over $100,000 on the outcome. In the end, Canada won by 23 runs. Of course cricket is no longer popular in Canada or the U.S. A new game raised its head that is faster and requires less equipment. Baseball became the sport to play in the late 19th century. The things you can learn from a book.