The Terracotta Warriors in Shaanxi, China. In 1974, a Chinese farmer was digging a well when he discovered a life-sized clay soldier. Since then, 2,000 terracotta clay warriors have been excavated, and it is believed that 6,000 more remain buried underground. Each warrior has

Inflatable dummy tanks played an important role during World War II. When the Allies chose Normandy as the landing site for the invasion of Europe, they created a “Ghost army” to fool the Germans. This “Ghost Army” was made up of two divisions designed to look like 30,000

Dodos only laid one egg at a time, and they built their nests right on the ground, making them easy targets. Sources: Natural History Museum. “The dodo bird: The Real Facts About This Icon of Extinction.” London: Natural History Museum, n.d. Stein, Vicky. “Facts about the

Laika was the first living creature to orbit Earth. In October 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first satellite in space. This marked an important Soviet victory in the space race against the United States. The Soviet Union was set on quickly achieving another

Over 2,000 bog bodies have been found across Northwestern Europe. They are all exceptionally well-preserved, but many questions about their lives and deaths remain unanswered. Sources: Moesgård Museum. “The Bog Body Phenomenon.” Moesgaard Museum, n.d. Levine, Joshua.

The POWs also became political bargaining chips that the Soviets used in negotiations about Germany’s future. Sources: “What Happened to German Soldiers After World War II? Discussion of German and Soviet POWs During World War II.” Encyclopædia Britannica, video. Jander,

The 1980 Moscow Olympic Games were among the most controversial in history. The games was the first time a communist country hosted the Olympics. Just months before the event, the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. This attack sparked outrage and led to the

Margaretha Zelle (a.k.a. “Mata Hari”) was a Dutch exotic dancer and convicted spy. Margaretha Zelle was born in the Netherlands in 1876. At age 18, she married an officer in the Dutch army, and together they lived in the Dutch colony in Indonesia. They had a daughter together.

Caesar was the one and only witness to all the events, and he made the story known throughout Rome. Some of the details are perhaps exaggerated due to his skill for self-promotion. Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica Editors. “The Time Julius Caesar Was Captured by Pirates.”

The famous Mount Vesuvius volcano erupted in 1944. Mount Vesuvius is known for its deadly eruption in 79 AD that buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Vesuvius erupted many times in the centuries that followed. The last major eruption hit during World War II in

Why were telephone operators a completely female occupation? In the 1870s the telephone was introduced to the world. In the early days of the telephone, every call had to go through an exchange, or switchboard. A person sat there and manually connected you to the person you

By the 1600s the Scientific Revolution greatly challenged the work of alchemist. Chemists emerged as a new kind of scientist, and alchemy’s magical and philosophical way of working began appearing horribly outdated. The scientific discoveries of the era the development of what we

The “Mercury” streamliner trains were a series of passenger trains that ran in the American Midwest in the 1930s. Business was slow during the Great Depression, so train companies looked for ways to bring passengers back. The solution for many train companies were streamliner

Wernher von Braun played a key role in rocket development and space exploration, first in Germany in the 1930s and later in the United States. Born in Germany in 1912, von Braun loved reading science fiction as a child. These stories sparked his fascination with space

This clash eventually pushed China to move closer to the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s, as it feared the Soviet Union directly on its border even more. Sources: Wills, Matthew. “A Messy Divorce: The Sino-Soviet Split.” JSTOR Daily, January 17, 2024. Radchenko,

August von Mackensen (“The Last Husar”) was one of the most famous and successful German commanders during WW1. He was born in 1849 in what was then the country of Prussia. At 20, he joined a hussar regiment, a unit of fast-moving soldiers on horseback in the Prussian army.

A deadly black fog descended on London, England, in December 1952. The city was still heavily reliant on coal for heating , and in December 1952 a unique weather phenomenon prevented London's smog from rising into the atmosphere. Smog is form of air pollution that greatly

She was first buried with her husband, but in 1995 her remains were moved to the Pantheon in Paris, where many of France’s greatest citizens rest. She was the first woman placed there. When her remains were moved, the French radiation protection agency had to assist before anyone

What did Stonehenge look like before its restorations? In 1915, English businessman Cecil Chubb was sent to an auction by his wife. She wanted him to buy a set of curtains, but Cecil came back with something very different. He had purchased Stonehenge, the 5,000-year-old

Simo Häyhä is widely considered the most lethal sniper in history. He took out hundreds of Soviet soldiers during the Russo Finnish War of 1939 to 1940. Häyhä grew up in Finland near the Russian border and worked as a farmer. He spent most of his youth outdoors on long hunting