Did you know

Jesse and Frank James

Jesse and Frank James rarely robbed passengers on the trains they held up

Abuja

Abuja is a purpose-built city, created as the new capital of independent Nigeria

Kinshasa

Kinshasa, the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was originally named Léopoldville by journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley in honor of King Leopold II of Belgium who was the owner of the land

Religion

The term "religion" comes from the Latin word "religio," meaning "reverence for God or the gods, careful pondering of divine things"

Jainism

The understanding and implementation of ahimsa (non-violence) is more comprehensive in Jainism than in any other religion

Elf

The earliest preserved description of elves comes from Norse mythology

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of The Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina

Chauvet Cave

The Chauvet Cave contains the oldest human footprint that can be dated accurately.

Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton developed his famous deadpan expression that earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face" when he was just a small child

Mishima Yukio

Twentieth century Japanese author Mishima Yukio performed "seppuku"-ritual suicide-to end his life

Dogen

Dogen studied Zen Buddhism in China and then spread the teachings and practice of Zen meditation in Japan

Victorian era

The Victorian era was a time of unprecedented population increase in England

Pierre Curie

Pierre Curie's work was not recognized in France until he received the Nobel Prize for his work on radiation, together with his wife Marie Curie and Henri Becquerel, at which point he was given a professorship at the Sorbonne

Easter Island

Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, is famous for its massive stone sculptures known as "moai"

Abrahamic religions

The term "Abrahamic religions" refers to three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) that claim Abraham as their common forefather.

Id al-Fitra

The Eid celebration marking the end of Ramadan begins on the day of the first sighting of the crescent moon

Horse

In the wild, horse societies are matriarchal. At the center of the herd is the alpha or dominant mare (female horse).

Gentile

The word "gentile," used to translate the Hebrew "goy," derives from the Latin word "gentilis" meaning descended from a common ancestor

Bethlehem

Bethlehem means “house of meat” (Arabic) or “house of bread” (Hebrew)

Mass

The British Empire was known as "the empire on which the sun never sets"

Ahimsa

Ahimsa (nonviolence is the most essential religious duty in Jainism

Dybbuk

Belief in dybbuks, souls of the dead that attach themselves to living persons on earth, became widespread in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Harmandir Sahib

Harmandir Sahib (the Golden Temple of Amritsar) literally means "House of God"

Enrico Fermi

Enrico Fermi and other members of his team died of cancer incurred by their work on developing the first nuclear reactor

Hunnic Empire

Under Attila, the Hunnic Empire stretched from the steppes of Central Asia into modern Germany, and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea

Reserve Officers' Training Corps

ROTC in the United States began in 1916 with the passage of the National Defense Act that was intended to increase "preparedness" prior to the American entry into World War I.

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga's "cabin on chicken legs" may be based on real buildings.

Morean War

The Morean War against the Ottoman Empire was the Republic of Venice's last expansionist campaign

Eli Whitney

Eli Whitney is famous for patenting the invention of the cotton gin but he made no money from it

Big Ben

The nickname "Big Ben" refers to the largest bell in the Elizabeth Tower and not to the clock tower itself

Songhai Empire

At its height, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Songhai Empire was the largest empire in West Africa

Wild Bill Hickok

Wild Bill Hickok was shot and killed while playing poker in Deadwood, in what is now South Dakota

Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau's Civil Disobedience influenced later nonviolent reformers, particularly Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Abydos, Egypt

So rare is a full list of pharaoh names that the Table of Abydos has been called the "Rosetta Stone" of Egyptian archaeology

French Revolution

The French Republican Calendar, created and implemented during the French Revolution, declared 1792 as "Year I" and had a ten-day week

Balfour Declaration

The Balfour Declaration was described as a 'scrap of paper' that changed history

Halo

Plain round halos typically have been used to signify saints and angels while square halos were sometimes used for the living

Appalachian Mountains

The birth of the Appalachian Mountains predates the formation of the American continent

Tuareg

For over two millennia, the Tuareg operated the trans-Saharan caravan trade connecting the great cities on the southern edge of the Sahara to the northern Mediterranean coast of Africa.

Buckingham Palace

The first British monarch to live in Buckingham Palace was Queen Victoria

Banshee

The banshee's appearance may be that of an old hag or a beautiful young woman, but her cry has always been understood to herald death.

Fire

Learning to control fire was one of the first great achievements of hominids.

Aleut

Many Aleuts became Christian, joining the Russian Orthodox Church during the years when Russian fur traders settled in Alaska

Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi's name means "a bright collection of strange victories"