18th 19th facts
While investigating facts about 18th 19th, I found out little known, but curios details like:
A study about class differences in 18th & 19th century England, showed that on average, a wealthy 16-year old boy was 8.5 inches taller than a poor 16-year old boy, as a result of malnourishment and living standards
Margaret Ann Neve is history's first recorded supercentarian, having lived in the 18th, 19th and 20th century.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 49 of the best facts about 18th 19th I managed to collect.
-
Medieval chastity belts are a myth. A great majority of examples now existing were made in the 18th and 19th centuries as jokes.
-
The arrow symbol (→) is a rather recent invention. The first arrow symbols were used sporadically in the 18th century and arrow symbols only became widely used in the late 19th century. Pointing hand symbols were used for centuries before the arrow symbol was invented.
-
In the 18th and 19th century, squirrels were among the most common household pets in America. While colonial Americans kept many types of wild animals as pets, squirrels were the most popular being relatively easy to keep.
-
From the late 18th to mid-19th century, it was considered bad for women to read novels based on the belief that women were not "able to differentiate between fiction and life."
-
Dutch Ovens "...were so valuable that wills in the 18th and 19th centuries frequently spelled out the desired inheritor."
-
Several former U.S. Presidents were born in Ohio including: 18th President Ulysses S. Grant (born in Point Pleasant and served from 1869 to 1877), 19th President Rutherford B. Hayes (born in Delaware and served from 1877 to 1881), 20th President James A. Garfield (born in Orange and served in 1881), 23rd President Benjamin Harrison (born in North Bend and served from 1889 to 1893), 25th President William McKinley (born in Niles and served from 1897 to 1901), 27th President William H. Taft (born in Cincinnati and served from 1909 to 1913), and 29th President Warren G. Harding (born in Corsica = now Blooming Grove - served from 1921 to 1923).
-
"at the close of the 18th and in the early part of the 19th century the London Times actually printed the details of gruesome murders and more salacious sex crimes in Latin so that only the clergy and other educated citizens could read them"
-
The phrase "Mad as a hatter" is from the 18th and 19th centuries when mercury was used in felt production. Felt was used for making hats and the workers often ended up with dementia from being exposed to small amounts of mercury on a daily basis and ending up with mercury poisoning
-
In 18th and 19th century ugly people had their own "ugly clubs" where they meet up and handsome people were`nt allowed in
-
The Manhattan Company, a New York bank from the 18th to 19th Centuries, caused massive outbreaks of cholera in New York via supplying sewage-laden water. They later became JP Morgan.
What is true about 18th 19th?
You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.
Seven different chemical elements were discovered in a mine and quarry outside of the village of Ytterby, Sweden in the 18th & 19th centuries.
We call turkey legs drumsticks because using the word "leg" wasn't polite table talk in the 18th and 19th century - source
From the late 18th centuty to the mid 19th century there was a "machine" known as the mechanical turk that claimed to be an automated chess machine until it was exposed in the early 19th century as an elaborate hoax with the machine containing an actually skilled chess player - source
About Resurrectionists, legally employed grave robbers who dug up bodies for anatomical research in the 18th-19th centuries. The public hated them, and frequently attacked them. The profession came to an end when several people were murdered for anatomical research.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, masturbation was thought to cause insanity. Most chastity belts were bought by parents to prevent their daughters from driving themselves mad. - source
The last U.S. state to ratify the 19th Amendment was Tennessee, giving women the right to vote as of August 18th, 1920.
The "Napoleon pose" of putting your hand inside your shirt/coat was a common 18th-19th century Western portraiture pose that was meant to convey calm and calculated leadership. Not because they had ulcers nor were they feeling their own nipples.
Hunger artist or starvation artists were performers, common in Europe and America in the 18th, 19th and early 20th century, who starved themselves for extended periods of time, for the amusement of paying audiences.
Eye gouging was a popular fighting style in the 18th and 19th century. Some fighters were so good, they would pluck out the opponents eyes with "one good thrust of the thumbs".
Soft, white-colored fibers of lacebark were often used for the manufacture of veils, shawls, dresses, purses and frills during the 17th, 18th and 19th century. King Charles II and Queen Victoria have worn clothing made of lacebark.
For much of the late 18th & 19th centuries, a chess-playing robot known as the “Turk” won worldwide fame and even won in matches against the likes of Benjamin Franklin & Napoleon Bonaparte. The supposed robot was actually a hoax, but it fooled onlookers for over 80 years.