Ancient World Oddities
This ancient civilization used cones of perfumed fat worn on the head at parties.
What is Ancient Egypt?
A day on this planet is longer than its year.
What is Venus?
George Orwell was born with this real name.
Who is Eric Arthur Blair?
Bananas are naturally radioactive because of this element.
What is potassium?
This composer continued writing music after going completely deaf.
Who is Ludwig van Beethoven?
Roman doctors prescribed this as a cure for epilepsy and arthritis—usually taken fresh.
What is gladiator blood?
Saturn would float in water—if you could find a bathtub big enough—because of this property.
What is low density?
Mary Shelley was only this age when she wrote Frankenstein.
What is 18?
This organ can regenerate itself even after losing 75% of its mass.
What is the liver?
Freddie Mercury was born in this country.
What is Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania)?
This civilization invented concrete that gets stronger when exposed to seawater.
What is Ancient Rome?
This moon of Jupiter has more water than all of Earth combined.
What is Europa?
This Shakespeare play contains the most words of any of his works.
What is Hamlet?
Octopuses have this many hearts.
What is three?
The longest officially released song is over 13 hours long by this band.
Who is Bull of Heaven?
The Antikythera Mechanism, often called the world’s first computer, came from this culture.
What is Ancient Greece?
Neutron stars are so dense that one teaspoon would weigh about this much on Earth.
What is about a billion tons?
The first novel written on a typewriter was this Mark Twain work.
What is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer?
This chemical compound gives hot peppers their heat.
What is capsaicin?
This classical composer died believing himself a failure, despite later fame.
Who is Franz Schubert?
In Sparta, newborns were inspected by elders at this location before being accepted.
What is Mount Taygetus?
This sound-like phenomenon from space is actually electromagnetic radiation converted to audio.
What are plasma waves?
This banned novel introduced the term “Big Brother.”
What is 1984?
The smell of rain has this scientific name.
What is petrichor?
This instrument was once banned in jazz clubs for being “too loud.”
What is the saxophone?