History | youaskedwhat?

12 questions

History5 May 2026

Why do we say "bless you" when someone sneezes?

Multiple competing theories, one of which involves plague, one involves souls, and one involves the Pope. The actual origin is probably lost. What is interesting is why the practice survived long after any of the reasons stopped making sense.

History5 May 2026

Why do we eat three meals a day — and who decided that?

History5 May 2026

Did you know Shakespeare invented over 1,700 words we still use today?

History5 May 2026

Did you know clocks had no minute hand until the 1680s?

History5 May 2026

Did you know the word "salary" comes from salt?

The word salary comes from the Latin salarium, connected to salt. The exact mechanism is debated, but the reason salt was worth paying soldiers in is not: for most of human history, it was one of the most valuable substances on earth.

History5 May 2026

Did you know Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire?

Teaching began at Oxford around 1096. The Aztec Empire was founded in 1428. This makes Oxford over 300 years older than the civilisation that built Tenochtitlan.

History5 May 2026

Did you know the shortest war in history lasted 38 minutes?

On the morning of 27 August 1896, Britain and Zanzibar went to war. By 9:40am it was over. The conflict lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, depending on which account you trust.

History5 May 2026

Did you know copyright was invented to control ideas, not protect artists?

The first copyright law, the Statute of Anne in 1710, was designed to break the printing monopolies of the Stationers' Company. Artists were an afterthought. They still might be.

History5 May 2026

Did you know the colour blue barely existed in ancient language?

Homer described the sea as wine-dark. The ancient Greeks had no word for blue. Neither did Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, or Hebrew. The explanation is not that they were colour-blind.

History5 May 2026

Did religion civilise us, or did it just take credit for it?

The honest answer involves admitting that the two are harder to separate than either side wants.

History23 Apr 2026

Did you know that 'democracy' began as an insult?

When Athenians coined the word demokratia, they didn't mean it as a compliment. The idea that ordinary people should make decisions was considered deeply suspicious. It still is, in some quarters.

History23 Apr 2026

Did you know the first computer bug was an actual insect?

In 1947, Grace Hopper's team found a moth trapped in a relay of the Harvard Mark II. They taped it into the logbook. The entry read: First actual case of bug being found. The term stuck.