Genghis Khan exempted the poor and clergy from taxes, encouraged literacy, and established free religion, leading many peoples to join his empire before they were even conquered.
28
France’s King Louis XIV was offered biological weapons by an Italian chemist. He not only refused, but also paid the chemist an annual salary to never reveal the technology to anyone else.
21
Early Romans used to use porcupine quills as toothpicks.
27
Pilgrims did not eat with forks. They only used spoons, knives and their fingers.
44
The Titanic was the first ship to use the SOS signal.
149
India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.
59
In the 1830s, a Greek prime minister tried to spread the potato in Greece but people weren't interested so he put armed guards in front of shipments of potatoes so people would think they were important. People then started stealing these potatoes so much that the crop spread to all of Greece.
29
In the great fire of London, in 1666, half of London was burnt down but only 6 people were injured.
78