Approximately 25,000 workers died during the building of the Panama Canal, and approximately 20,000 of them contracted malaria and yellow fever.
14
Leonardo Da Vinci predicted the mass use of solar energy as long ago as 1447.
153
During WW2, captured German officers were sent to Britain as POWs and lived in luxury in Trent Park. This was done to make them feel relaxed. However, they were being listened to by 100 ‘listeners’. They revealed secrets about the holocaust, events in Berlin, Hitler's madness and V2 rocket bases.
17
English sailors were referred to as "limeys" because sailors added lime juice to their diet to combat scurvy.
69
There's no evidence that pirates made people walk the plank.
151
If a surgeon in Ancient Egypt lost a patient while performing an operation, his hands were cut off.
67
Cleopatra wasn't Egyptian; she was Greek.
107
Recently, archaeologists excavating in the old medieval town of Odense in Denmark uncovered 700-year-old barrels of poop - and, to their surprise, they still smelt.
11