00:00Back in the 12th and 13th centuries, Bologna used to look like modern-day Manhattan.
00:06No one knows exactly how many towers resembling skyscrapers it used to have, but the most
00:11likely number is at least a hundred.
00:14The tallest of them was around the same height as Big Ben.
00:17When the towers were built, Bologna was one of the largest cities in Europe.
00:22Construction projects were massive and ambitious.
00:26They built cathedrals and town halls, and the richest noble families also erected towers,
00:31possibly as a symbol of status and wealth.
00:35There was no place in the city center to build grand castles, so they had to go up with the
00:40construction.
00:41They didn't actually live in those towers, but in smaller structures next to them.
00:46The towers served for defensive purposes.
00:50It took between three and ten years of work to build one tower, and it was a really tedious
00:55process.
00:56Each of them had a steady foundation deep underground and a base made of big blocks
01:02of selenite stone.
01:04The rest of the tower was becoming thinner and lighter the higher it went.
01:08In the 13th century, they demolished many of the towers, and others just collapsed by
01:13themselves.
01:14Some of them were later reused as city towers, shops, or residential buildings.
01:19Now you can see only 22 towers still standing in the center of Bologna.
01:24Two of them have become the unofficial symbol of the city, mentioned in every guidebook.
01:31Another historical surprise coming from Italy is that gladiators weren't only male.
01:37Gladiatrix were rare, but they did exist.
01:39There is evidence that several women took part in Rome's public games.
01:44In ancient texts, these women were often called ludia, or mulieris, but not ladies.
01:52Some scholars think it means that it was mostly lower-class women in the arena.
01:57The term gladiatrix wasn't used in ancient times.
02:00It was first coined in the 1800s.
02:03Women who chose to become gladiators seemed to do so for independence, fame, financial
02:08rewards, and probably debt remission.
02:11They were most likely honored like male gladiators.
02:15All this was a bit tricky to accept in Roman society at that time, and women's roles
02:20in it.
02:21At the beginning of the current era, the Roman Senate passed a law prohibiting free-born
02:25women under 20 from taking part in arena games.
02:29Emperor Septimus Severus banned all women from the arena in the year 200 of the current
02:34era.
02:35He was probably afraid that women might want to compete in the Olympic Games.
02:40It would seriously mess up the existing social order.
02:45Pineapples were once the equivalent of designer bags and watches today, a symbol of wealth
02:50and status in Britain.
02:52You can still see them at the top of the western towers of St. Paul's Cathedral, one of the
02:56most famous landmarks of London.
02:59Explorers who came back from the Americas described pineapples with so much enthusiasm
03:04that everyone was dreaming about trying the King of Fruits, as it was called.
03:10Pineapples need very high temperatures and years to mature.
03:14And despite the cold and rainy climate of England and Scotland, you could see pineapples
03:19growing in any wealthy country house garden by the end of the 18th century.
03:24They even installed special greenhouses, called pineries, with heating systems.
03:29A single pineapple was worth up to 80 pounds, which is about 15,000 bucks today.
03:35Of course, people would hardly eat this expensive beauty, but send it as a gift or display on
03:40a dining table until it would rot.
03:43Folks who couldn't afford to buy a pineapple would sometimes rent one to show off wealth
03:47at a party.
03:48The King of Fruits became a part of various designs and tableware for the rich.
03:54Stone pineapples on gateposts and the pineapple atop the Wimbledon Trophy are living memories
03:59of that time.
04:01Around 1820, there were so many pineapples imported from abroad that they started losing
04:06their luxury status.
04:09A hundred million years ago, there were giant crocodiles living in the Sahara Desert.
04:15In the 1990s, paleontologists found fossilized skeletons of primitive crocodiles, including
04:21the so-called supercroc.
04:24They discovered several partial skeletons from 110 million years ago.
04:29This prehistoric giant with a head as large as an adult human was about 40 feet long.
04:36That's about two times as tall as a giraffe.
04:39The croc thrived both in water and on land as part of a diverse ecosystem of ancient
04:45North Africa.
04:46The expeditions to the Sahara found a whole lost world of ancient crocodiles, with some
04:52species that resembled modern animals.
04:55One of them was the dog croc.
04:57With its tall legs and keen sense of smell, it moved through the surroundings much like
05:02a dog.
05:04Another fascinating find was the duck croc, a three-foot-long crocodile with duck-billed
05:08platypus-like features.
05:10It was adapted for life on land rather than water.
05:14And then there was also the rat croc, a small, two-foot-long crocodile.
05:19This species had front teeth, perfect for digging up insects.
05:24These prehistoric creatures were more agile, active, and probably more intelligent than
05:28today's crocs, who are passive hunters.
05:33If noise-canceling headphones had been invented in the 19th century, they would have come
05:37in really handy.
05:39On the 27th of August, 1883, the island of Krakatoa in Indonesia experienced a catastrophic
05:47eruption.
05:48It produced what is believed to be the loudest sound ever recorded.
05:54As Krakatoa collapsed, it triggered tsunamis with waves reaching 151 feet that traveled
06:01as far as South Africa.
06:03Krakatoa was an uninhabited volcanic island that had interrupted for two centuries before
06:09this terrible day.
06:11The eruption took the lives of over 30,000 people and caused extreme fluctuations in
06:16air pressure, perceived as sound.
06:19A barometer at a gasworks a hundred miles from Krakatoa recorded 172 decibels.
06:26An average human can withstand up to 130 decibels of sound without getting in serious trouble.
06:32This intense pressure ruptured the eardrums of sailors on the British ship, Norham Castle,
06:37which was 40 miles away from Krakatoa.
06:41The sound wave from it circled the globe, and people could still hear it even 3,000
06:46miles away where it resembled cannon fire.
06:50The late 1800s were a golden era for grand mustaches.
06:55But there was one problem.
06:56You couldn't enjoy a cup of tea with this kind of facial hairstyle.
07:00The heat from the tea would melt mustache wax and make the ends droop.
07:04One gentleman had to struggle because of it until the invention of the mustache cup.
07:10Harvey Adams, a British potter, likely invented the mustache cup in the 1870s.
07:15He patented a butterfly-shaped ledge inside the cup with a hole to sip through.
07:20Thanks to it, the mustache didn't get wet.
07:23These cups quickly became a hit, first in the UK and then across Europe.
07:28In the United States, they were sold at stores like Sears and Marshall Fields, now part of
07:32Macy's.
07:33Mustache cups came in various shapes and sizes.
07:36Some, like farmer's cups, could hold up to a pint of tea.
07:40Others were smaller porcelain pieces shaped like conch shells or decorated with the owner's
07:45name.
07:46They often came with matching saucers.
07:52Lord Byron, one of the greatest British poets, kept numerous dogs and cats and a whole bunch
07:58of exotic animals.
07:59There was a monkey, a crocodile, a fox, peacocks, a bear, and several badgers.
08:05When Byron attended Trinity College, Cambridge, college rules prohibited keeping dogs on the
08:10grounds.
08:11He got really angry and decided to go around the rules.
08:15Byron brought a tame bear as his pet.
08:19The college authorities argued with him, but since the statutes did not specifically mention
08:23bears, they had no legal grounds to remove either the bear or its owner.
08:28Byron walked the bear on a chain, talked to it, and even considered applying for the
08:33bear to become a student at the college.
08:36We still don't know how and where Byron got the bear, but when he left Cambridge, he took
08:40the bear with him to his estate in London.
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