Slap concert
On March 31, 1913, a concert performance in Vienna ended with a riot and a famous slap.
Asterix and the Alexandrine
The Asterix comics are notorious for obscure puns, but the most obscure may be the one used in Asterix and Cleopatra.
Born king
John I the Posthumous was the King of France for five days, from the time he was born until the time he died.
Fake Moon dust
How do you test Moon landers, or lunar excavation and construction processes? Get some fake moon dust, of course.
Shot by Australia’s first camel
The first camel in Australia shot its owner, the English explorer John Horrocks.
Snowball fighting champions
In 1989 the residents of Sōbetsu, Japan, formalised rules for competitive snowball fighting. Thirty-one world championships have since been played in the town.
Oldest rose
The oldest living rose bush has been growing on the side of Hildesheim Cathedral for several hundred years.
First female film director
Alice Guy-Blaché was the first female film director, the creator of the first film to feature an all-African-American cast, and the co-founder of the largest pre-Hollywood film studio in the United States.
Prehistoric mathematics
The Ishango bone, found in what is today part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and dating back 20,000 years, may contain some of the earliest evidence of mathematical thought.
Rose engine lathe
What do the first postage stamps, Fabergé eggs, and watch backs have in common? Rose engine lathes.
Spite houses
Some people will go to absurd lengths to get revenge on their neighbours – including building houses purely out of spite.
Chess of love
The earliest fully recorded game of modern chess – from the 15th century CE – is a poem about love.
Flying saucer mashup
The 1956 novelty song “The Flying Saucer” was one of the first mashup records. The words of the first spaceman ever to land on Earth? “A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-lop-bam-boom!”
The Tamil bell
In 1836 a missionary in New Zealand learned of a strange artefact that had been in Māori possession for several generations: a bronze bell with an unfamiliar script. The script was Tamil, the bell came from Sri Lanka, and it was hundreds of years old.
First fatal plane crash
Thomas Selfridge was a passenger in one of the Wright brothers’ early planes when it crashed in 1908; he was the first person to die in a plane crash.