There is no shortage of leaders who have wondered if they might break under the pressure of their responsibilities. King Charles VI of France (1368-1422) wasn’t being rhetorical when expressing this concern, […]
Originally posted on History of Sorts:
Regicide is the deliberate killing of a monarch, or the person responsible for the killing of a person of royalty. Through the ages there have been a…
Dancing is typically associated with happiness and celebration. If you see someone dancing, you are safe to assume that person is having a good time. You would have been wrong in your […]
When Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell said the famous line, “Houston, we have a problem,” the words triggered alarm throughout NASA and around the world. If Apollo 13 had been manned by […]
Whenever the name Napoleon Bonaparte is mentioned, it inevitably brings up images of a short man, laboring under the psychological burden of his diminished physical stature. There’s only one problem with this […]
Do you think you know which nation has the most time zones? Think again, because the answer may surprise you.
Everyone likes money because of the value it has in itself. Coin collectors like certain kinds of money because of rarity or historical value. Every once in a while, currency comes around […]
Benjamin Franklin is credited with some of the greatest ideas of all time. Not only was he the inventor of bifocal glasses, the Franklin stove, and lightning rod, but as one of […]
The oldest bridge in Paris, France is Pont Neuf. The name means “New Bridge.”
William Rufus King may have risen to the highest political office of any person from Alabama, but history has all but overlooked the man who had the singular distinction of twice being […]
Half of all male babies born in France in 1890 were killed or maimed during World War I. source
The world record for the longest novel ever published goes to A la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust. It was published in 13 volumes beginning in 1912. With an estimated 9,609,000 characters […]
The longest tournament chess game, in terms of moves, ever to be played was Ivan Nikolic vs. Goran Arsovic in Belgrade, Serbia in 1989. The game lasted for 269 moves and took […]
Pierre de Fermat (1605-1665) wrote in the margin of a book, next to the equation xn + yn = zn, “I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem which this margin […]
A French lady to an American who was trying to converse in French: “How wise of you not to attempt the French accent!” source
Commonplace Fun Facts 