Here are 50 facts from FunFact's “History” topic, all checked. Each one cites its source (swissinfo.ch, nationalgeographic.com, en.wikipedia.org…) and the date it was checked. This topic is free in the app.
Around 2800 BC, soap-like products were already being made, and a Sumerian tablet from 2500 BC gives a formula.
The recipe involved heating oil with wood ashes. It is the oldest chemical reaction recorded in writing. These were “proto-soaps,” different from our soaps today.
Source: Wikipédia (Soap) · Checked on October 26, 2026
The epidemic reached Europe in 1347 aboard ships from the Black Sea.
Some cities lost half their inhabitants. It took Europe's population more than 150 years to return to its earlier level.
Source: Medieval History Society — Black Death Impacts · Checked on October 24, 2026
On that day in 1810, the priest Miguel Hidalgo issued the “Cry of Dolores,” a call to rise up against Spain.
Independence itself was won in 1821: on September 27, Iturbide's army entered Mexico City, and the declaration of independence was proclaimed the next day. The Cry is reenacted every evening on September 15.
Source: iExplore — How to Celebrate Mexico's Independence Day: Grito de Dolores · Checked on October 26, 2026
He lost his sight around 1638, near the end of his life. His first observations of the Sun, near the horizon or by projection, could not have damaged his eyes.
According to this astronomer from San Diego State University, he went blind from a combination of cataract and glaucoma. Yet the Sun story circulates everywhere, even in textbooks.
Source: Université d'État de San Diego (SDSU, département d'astronomie) : « Galileo, solar observing, and eye safety » · Checked on October 26, 2026
He held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, which he handed over to Newton, then about 26 years old.
It is said that Barrow was impressed by the mathematical work of his young colleague. He then devoted himself to theology for the rest of his life, while Newton took his place at Cambridge.
Source: MacTutor — Isaac Barrow · Checked on October 26, 2026
It also destroyed about 87 parish churches and St Paul’s Cathedral, roughly 15% of the city’s housing.
The figure of six deaths is the traditional toll, drawn from incomplete records: historians think it is an underestimate, and some suggest hundreds of deaths, notably from hunger and cold after the fire.
Source: Royal Museums Greenwich — The Great Fire of London · Checked on October 26, 2026
Ignaz Semmelweis required students to wash their hands with a chlorine solution; mortality fell from more than 10% to about 2%.
His colleagues rejected his conclusions because the existence of germs was still unknown. He died in 1865 in an asylum. The later work of Pasteur and Lister confirmed that he had been right.
Source: Epidemiology and Infection — What happened at Vienna's Allgemeines Krankenhaus after Semmelweis's contract as… · Checked on October 24, 2026
The Roman city was buried by Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
In 1599, workers digging an underground channel to divert the Sarno River came across painted walls and ancient inscriptions carved in stone.
Source: Pompeii Archaeological Park — History of Discovery · Checked on October 24, 2026
The people of Neuchâtel chose the King of Prussia in 1707. Neuchâtel joined Switzerland in 1814, but the monarchy fell only on March 1, 1848.
A royalist coup attempt failed in 1856, and the king’s claims were lifted through the mediation of the European powers, including Napoleon III. Neuchâtel thus became a republic well after joining the Confederation.
Source: leregardlibre.com — L’émancipation progressive de la principauté de Neuchâtel · Checked on October 26, 2026
The 1996 law applies to all crimes, including in wartime. The abolition was later written into the Constitution.
So until 1996, the death penalty still existed in Belgian law, even though it had not been carried out in peacetime for more than a century. Belgium now condemns it in its diplomacy.
Source: SPF Affaires étrangères (Belgique) · Checked on October 26, 2026
Back home in 1666 at Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire, he performed many of his famous experiments there, mainly on light and optics.
The falling apple often linked to this manor is more tradition than established fact. What matters lies elsewhere: those months of work away from the university fed his theories of light and gravity.
Source: National Trust — Woolsthorpe Manor History · Checked on October 26, 2026
Born in Britain, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates at 16 and taken to Ireland, where he remained a slave for six years.
He then escaped, studied, and returned to Ireland to spread Christianity. These facts come from his own writings, the Confession. Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated on March 17.
Source: National Geographic — Who was Saint Patrick and why does he have a day? · Checked on October 26, 2026
The warrior aristocracy of the Land of the Rising Sun followed a very strict code of honor.
Wearing a long sword (the katana) together with a short sword (the wakizashi), a pair called the daishō, was the exclusive privilege of the samurai warrior class under the shogunate.
Source: Tokyo National Museum — Samurai Arms and Armor · Checked on October 24, 2026
In 1899, two men from Chattanooga obtained the right from Asa Candler for $1, then opened the first bottler.
Candler only wanted to sell syrup and saw bottling as secondary. The contract, too vague, caused Coca-Cola legal problems for decades.
Source: Coca-Cola United — History (Chattanooga) · Checked on October 26, 2026
The Congress of Vienna declared it on March 20, 1815. The Treaty of Paris of November 20, 1815 recognized it and guaranteed the inviolability of Swiss territory.
The declaration states that this neutrality is in the interest of the European states: it is not only a Swiss choice. The 1907 Hague Convention later set out the law of neutrality in wartime.
Source: Swissinfo — Le jour où la Suisse est devenue neutre · Checked on October 26, 2026
Built in the 14th century under King Charles V of France, at the gates of Paris, it stands about 52 meters (171 ft) tall, the height of a 15-story building.
The keep served as a royal residence, treasury and prison. The philosopher Diderot and the revolutionary Mirabeau were held there. The king had fitted out apartments above the guard rooms, with fireplaces and an oratory.
Source: Office de tourisme Vincennes Marne-Bois — Château de Vincennes · Checked on October 24, 2026
The eccentricities of some Roman despots have left their mark on historical chronicles.
According to the Roman historian Suetonius, Incitatus had a marble stable, a purple blanket, and servants assigned to him, and Caligula even planned to make him a consul, illustrating the tyrant's contempt for the Senate.
Source: Suetonius — Lives of the Caesars (Caligula) · Checked on October 24, 2026
The Glarus government declared her innocent in August 2008, more than two centuries after her execution. She had been accused of poisoning.
The trial, run by the Protestant Church council, was irregular: that body had no legal power, and the law did not provide for death for a non-fatal poisoning. The title of “last witch” remains a reputation.
Source: swissinfo · Checked on October 26, 2026
Amundsen had left a letter there for the King of Norway, politely asking Scott to deliver it.
Scott reached the Pole on January 17, 1912 with four companions. All five men died on the way back; their bodies, diaries and photographs were found eight months later.
Source: National Geographic — 100th Anniversary of Roald Amundsen Reaching South Pole · Checked on October 26, 2026
The March 1942 appeal sought images from all over France, so as not to reveal the targeted beaches. By 1944, more than ten million images had been collected.
A child sitting on the sand or a woman in the water showed how steeply the beach sloped underwater. Several of these photos are held by the Imperial War Museum in London.
Source: Liberation Route Europe : « Civilian photography appeal – mapping the beaches » · Checked on October 26, 2026
When she moved her bag from her left arm to her right, it meant she wanted someone to come interrupt and end the conversation.
Her entourage would then politely step in. These codes are reported by the historian Hugo Vickers and have not been officially confirmed by the palace. According to the British press, she also set her bag on the table to signal that she would leave in about five minutes.
Source: TODAY (NBC) : « Royal code! How Queen Elizabeth uses her handbag to send secret messages to staff » (2017) · Checked on October 26, 2026
The 1803 Act of Mediation brought Switzerland to 19 cantons. Vaud, Ticino, Aargau, Thurgau, St. Gallen and Graubünden became full cantons.
After the centralized Helvetic Republic (1798-1803), each canton regained its constitution and a large share of its sovereignty. In 1815, Neuchâtel, Valais and Geneva joined the Confederation, which then had 22 cantons.
Source: DFAE (About Switzerland) · Checked on October 26, 2026
Cortés sent a troupe of Aztec ballplayers to Spain; the German artist Christoph Weiditz drew them in 1528.
The game, ōllamalīztli, had been played for centuries in Mesoamerica. Weiditz stayed in Spain in 1528-1529 and drew many costumes and scenes there.
Source: National Gallery of Victoria — Paraphernalia for the ceremonial ball game in ancient Mexico · Checked on October 26, 2026
In 1921, Midgley discovered that adding lead to gasoline prevents engine “knock.” He also developed the first CFC, sold under the name Freon.
Lead polluted the air worldwide and harms children's brains. CFCs destroy the ozone layer and have been banned since the Montreal Protocol (1987). One historian even described him as the single living organism that has done the most harm to the atmosphere.
Source: Dayton Innovation Legacy — Thomas Midgley Jr. · Checked on October 26, 2026
The first illustrated postcards are believed to have appeared around 1870, in the army.
Small printed cards decorated with military illustrations, they quickly caught on with soldiers, who could use them to send news to their families cheaply.
Source: Musée de la carte postale — Une histoire de la carte postale (Google Arts & Culture) · Checked on October 24, 2026
In 2010, the song “Mejores Días” hid in its melody the message “19 freed. You are next. Keep courage,” broadcast on public radio stations.
The idea, from a colonel and advertising people, was to slip past the captors, who also listened to the radio. The Morse code was masked by guitar and drums. The song is credited to the duo Natalia Gutiérrez and Angelo.
Source: The Verge — The Colombian army sent a hidden message to hostages inside a pop song · Checked on October 26, 2026
On March 17, 1892, villagers and a doctor exhumed Mercy Brown; her organs were burned and the ashes mixed into a drink for her sick brother.
The doctor had noted normal decomposition of the body. The brother died two months later. At the time, tuberculosis was poorly understood, and the deaths of several members of one family fed the fear of the undead.
Source: Smithsonian Magazine — The Great New England Vampire Panic · Checked on October 26, 2026
The Protestant theologian Johann Hinrich Wichern created it in Hamburg for children: one candle per day, thicker on each Sunday of Advent.
Homemade calendars followed around 1851 in Protestant families: one picture hung up each day, or 24 chalk lines with one erased each day. The first printed calendar dates from 1903, by Gerhard Lang.
Source: Hamburg Tourism — The Advent wreath - Four candles conquer the world · Checked on October 26, 2026
Many had been convicted of petty theft. This “transportation” began after the loss of the American colonies.
France did the same with New Caledonia (1864–1897), where convicts and Communards (participants in the Paris Commune uprising) such as Louise Michel were sent. These convicts built part of the first infrastructure of those colonies.
Source: National Library of Australia — Convicts research guide · Checked on October 24, 2026
On December 2, 1804, at Notre-Dame de Paris, Napoleon takes the crown from the altar and places it on his own head, in front of Pius VII.
He then crowns his wife, Joséphine. The pope had made the trip from Rome, but he merely blessed the insignia and the ceremony. The gesture, agreed in advance, showed that the emperor did not owe his power to the Church.
Source: Musée du Luxembourg — Sacre de l'empereur Napoléon et couronnement de l'impératrice Joséphine · Checked on October 24, 2026
About 2,500 years separate her from the Pyramid of Khufu, and about 2,000 years from the iPhone.
The Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) was built around 2560 BC; Cleopatra died in 30 BC. So the pyramids were already more than 2,000 years old in her day. For example, she lived closer to the iPhone (2007) than to the building of the Great Pyramid.
Source: British Museum — Egyptian Chronology · Checked on October 24, 2026
Julie-Victoire Daubié took the exam in Lyon, after being turned down in Paris, and earned a university degree in the humanities (licence ès lettres) in 1871 (diploma received in 1872).
Self-taught and from a modest family, she had to prepare for the exam on her own. She also wrote a book on the condition of poor women. Girls were not admitted to state high schools (lycées) until 1880.
Source: Fondation Napoléon — Daubié, Julie-Victoire (1824-1874) · Checked on October 24, 2026
The barter deal also included two oil tankers, a frigate, a cruiser, and a destroyer. The old warships were scrapped.
A second deal called for 85 ships, but only 10 more arrived before the fall of the USSR (the Soviet Union) in 1991. So Pepsi never had a powerful navy: the idea of the “world's sixth-largest military” is a legend.
Source: Foreign Policy — The Doomed Voyage of Pepsi's Soviet Navy · Checked on October 26, 2026
Created under the Sui dynasty around 605, the imperial examination was based on the Confucian classics and was abolished only in 1905, under the last Qing rulers.
The idea was to become a mandarin through merit rather than birth. In practice, only families able to pay for years of study took part, and very few candidates passed.
Source: Cambridge University Press — The Political Economy of China's Imperial Examination System · Checked on October 24, 2026
Albert's and Elsa's mothers were sisters and their fathers were cousins: Elsa was both his first cousin and his second cousin.
They married on June 2, 1919, three months after his divorce. Elsa had taken the name Löwenthal through a first marriage, then went back to Einstein after her divorce in 1908.
Source: Wikipédia (Elsa Einstein) · Checked on October 26, 2026
Injured in the eye at age 3 in his father's workshop and totally blind by about age 5, he drew inspiration from a code of dots by the officer Charles Barbier.
He simplified a 12-dot system into a 6-dot code, easier to read with a fingertip. The system was not officially adopted by the Paris Institute for Blind Youth until 1854, two years after his death.
Source: National Geographic — How Louis Braille revolutionized a writing system · Checked on October 24, 2026
From 1987 to 1991, concerts and mass sing-alongs became a form of resistance. Estonia declared its independence on August 20, 1991.
In September 1988, huge crowds sang at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds. In 1989, about two million people formed a human chain across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania: the Baltic Way.
Source: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict — Estonia's Singing Revolution (1986–1991) · Checked on October 26, 2026
Hans Vollenweider was guillotined in Sarnen on October 18, 1940. The death penalty disappeared from civil law only on January 1, 1942.
The people had approved abolition in 1938, with 54% yes, but the law took effect only in 1942, hence the controversy. He had been convicted of murdering a policeman from Obwalden and had confessed to two other murders.
Source: swissinfo · Checked on October 26, 2026
Susan was given to her in 1944, for her 18th birthday, and went with her on her honeymoon in 1947.
According to Wikipedia, the corgis the queen owned descended from Susan. Elizabeth II had more than thirty in her lifetime, and these dogs became a symbol of the royal family.
Source: Vanity Fair — Queen Elizabeth and Her Corgis: A Love Story · Checked on October 26, 2026
On May 30, 1791, the young deputy gives a speech against capital punishment, but the Assembly does not follow him.
The Assembly keeps the death penalty but makes it the same for everyone: it chooses beheading, then the guillotine. A few years later, Robespierre would be one of the main figures of the Reign of Terror.
Source: Assemblée nationale — Débat de 1791 sur la peine de mort (séance du 30 mai 1791) · Checked on October 24, 2026
About fifteen B-24s dropped some 400 bombs on this neutral Swiss city: around forty dead. They were aiming for Ludwigshafen, Germany.
Bad weather, strong winds and failed radar misled the crews: Schaffhausen, on the north bank of the Rhine, was mistaken for the German city. Roosevelt wrote a personal letter of apology to the mayor, and $4 million was paid as early as October 1944.
Source: swissinfo · Checked on October 26, 2026
In 1810, the pirate fleet counted more than 300 ships and 20,000 men; at her surrender, more than 17,000 pirates laid down their arms.
The figures of 40,000 to 70,000 pirates refer to the entire pirate confederation of 1805, and remain very uncertain. Ching Shih (also called Zheng Yi Sao) took command of the Red Flag Fleet after her husband's death.
Source: The China Project — China's pirate queen Zheng Yi Sao's final success: retirement · Checked on October 26, 2026
Between December 1770 and January 1772, Struensee, physician to the ailing king, issued at least 1,069 cabinet orders, more than three per day.
His reforms included abolishing torture, forced labor (the corvée), and press censorship. He ran the country in place of King Christian VII, whose will was weakened.
Source: NNDB — Johann Friedrich Struensee · Checked on October 26, 2026
This medicine peaked in 16th-century Europe; in Germany, it was still occasionally sold in the early 20th century.
The practice, sometimes called “medicinal cannibalism,” was accepted by the medicine of the day. A last case in Germany in 1908 is often cited, but that date comes from secondary sources and remains uncertain.
Source: Smithsonian Magazine — The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine · Checked on October 26, 2026
Invited by King Francis I in 1516, he settled at the Clos Lucé, where he died on May 2, 1519, and he is buried at the Château d'Amboise.
He is said to have brought the Mona Lisa and other paintings with him, which partly explains why France holds the work today. Francis I paid him a comfortable pension and gave him complete freedom to study and draw.
Source: vinci-closluce.com — La vie de Léonard · Checked on October 24, 2026
Napoleon reinstated a salt tax in 1806. It disappeared for good only through a law of December 31, 1945.
Under the Ancien Régime (France before the Revolution), the gabelle varied greatly from one region to another, which made it very unpopular. Salt was then essential for preserving food.
Source: Assemblée nationale — Rapport d'information n° 3868 sur la taxation des produits agroalimentaires · Checked on October 24, 2026
The German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen is traditionally credited with the term “Seidenstraße” (1877), which refers to a network of trails, not a single road.
Merchants rarely made the whole journey: silk, spices, glass or horses passed from hand to hand between middlemen over thousands of kilometers. Religions and technologies also traveled along these routes. Some historians note that the phrase existed before Richthofen and only became popular in the 20th century.
Source: JSTOR Daily — Inventing Silk Roads · Checked on October 24, 2026
His treatise Al-jabr (around 820) gave us “algebra,” and the Latinized form of his name, “Algoritmi,” gave us “algorithm.”
Al-Khwarizmi worked at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. He also explained how to calculate with Indian numerals. His works, translated into Latin in the 12th century, helped lay the foundations of mathematics in Europe.
Source: MacTutor (University of St Andrews) — Al-Khwarizmi · Checked on October 24, 2026
Budai is the nickname of a historical Chinese monk from the Later Liang dynasty (10th century); in the West, he is often mistaken for the Buddha.
In the Chan (Zen) tradition, he is considered an incarnation of Maitreya, the Buddha of the future, not of the historical Buddha, Gautama. He is almost always shown smiling or laughing, with an enormous belly.
Source: Cleveland Museum of Art — Budai · Checked on October 26, 2026
Arriving in Orléans on April 29, 1429, she drives the English out on May 8; the siege had begun on October 12, 1428.
This victory changed the course of the Hundred Years' War and made possible the coronation of Charles VII at Reims on July 17, 1429. Joan was wounded by an arrow during the assault of May 7, then returned to the fight.
Source: Larousse — Sainte Jeanne d'Arc · Checked on October 24, 2026
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