1. John Scott Harrison is the only person to watch both his father and son become president of the United States.
2. In June of 1520, England’s Henry VIII and France’s Francis I threw a joint 18-day party that cost $19 million by today’s standards.
It was so expensive because the two leaders kept trying to outdo the other. Each feast served 50 different dishes of the time’s finest and rarest foods, including swans and dolphins.
3. People were so afraid of being buried alive in the 18th and 19th century that inventors patented safety coffins that would give the "dead" the ability to alert those above ground if they were still alive.
4. Speaking of being buried alive, military genius Alexander the Great may have been.
The historical record of his death is filled with unusual details, including that his body didn't decompose at all in the six days following his supposed death (a fact many attributed to his divinity). Today, doctors believe it is possible he'd become paralyzed due to a neurological disorder called Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and was mistaken as dead as a result.
5. Until the 18th century, it was common practice to put animals on trial for crimes (from theft to murder), and they were routinely sentenced to death.
6. Saddam Hussein was given the key to the city of Detroit in 1980.
7. In the 19th century, dentures were commonly made using teeth pulled from the mouths of dead soldiers. Many came from 1815's Battle of Waterloo, where 50,000 or so soldiers died.
8. Chopsticks predate the fork by some 4,500 years.
The first forks were used by the ruling class in the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire around 1,000 A.D. They were frowned upon in Europe, though, for the next several hundred years because they were thought to be a tool of the devil.
9. Chain letters have their origins in ancient times — even Ancient Egypt's Book of the Dead included a section that promised "great benefit...in heaven and earth" to anyone who copies a specific image.
10. Approximately 750,000 men died in the Civil War, which was more than 2.5% of America's population at the time.
11. The world's oldest pub — Sean's Bar located in Athlone in central Ireland — has been in business since the Dark Ages.
12. In the year 1800, the world population totaled 1 billion. Today — 220 years later — the world's population is nearly eight times larger (7.6 billion).
13. In Boston on January 15, 1919, a massive storage tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses broke and sent a 15-foot tall flood of the sticky stuff flowing through town, killing 21 people.
14. We may flush urine away today, but in Roman times, urine was used for many purposes — including to wash clothes and even to clean teeth as a mouthwash.
15. Billionaire Jeff Bezos is today's richest person with a net worth of $100+ billion, but, according to modern estimates, historical figures like Augustus Caesar and Mansa Musa were likely trillionaires by today's standards.
