The Mesolithic roughly lasted from about 10,000 to 4,000 years ago. Also called the Middle Stone Age, it was a tough time to be human. The last ice age was losing its grip, and the climate was harsh.

Even so, recent discoveries showed a surprising adaptability spiced with a few unexpected crafts and building skills. Mesolithic archaeology is also packed with rare artifacts, mysteries, and murder. The most intriguing contribution could be the mysterious key to the history of Stonehenge.

10 Rare Squares

The Cheddar caves in Somerset are an important archaeological site. There, the track record of great discoveries includes the world’s oldest scientifically dated graveyard (10,200 to 10,400 years old). This cache of skeletons was found in 1914 in Aveline’s Hole.

When simple engravings were found in Long Hole Cave in 2005, the discovery paled in comparison but only to the untrained eye. The art consisted of three seemingly insignificant squares.

In truth, the geometric trio was rare. Only twice before did something similar show up in Britain. The Cheddar panels also resembled others found across Europe, which roughly dated to the same time.

Most likely created with stone tools, the squares could be as old as 10,000 years. This means they were created right after the last ice age. Scientists love studying this time due to cultural and environmental shifts.

The Cheddar caves were clearly important to Mesolithic communities. The squares could add a little context to this ancient fascination with the place, but first, the meaning of the panels must be deciphered.^[1]

9 Face Of A Teenager

When a community buried one of their own in a cave in Greece, they could never have guessed that people would see 9,000 years later the way she had looked during her lifetime. Nobody knows her story, but the woman was around 18 years old when she died of an unknown cause. Archaeologists found her grave in the 1990s and nicknamed her “Avgi.”

Her discovery was not a complete surprise. She rested in a place called Theopetra, an archaeological site with a history of finds from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic periods. In the girl’s cave alone, artifacts covering a slice of 45,000 years have been recovered.

Recently, doctors and professionals from many fields have come together to reconstruct Avgi’s face. After carefully sculpting the muscles back onto a replica of her skull, things like skin, hair, and eye color were based on regional genetics.^[2]

Once completed, researchers got their first good look at a Mesolithic teenager. Avgi had a long face, prominent jaw, and close-set eyes. Her dark looks were also very Mediterranean.

8 They Ate Caviar

A ceramic bowl proved that the Mesolithic menu was not brutish. At least, not in Germany. Contrary to the popular portrayal that people’s culinary skills were restricted to roasting a carcass, a 2018 study found that ancient Germans cooked very well.

The vessel was tested for proteins, and the results were something right out of a high-class restaurant—poached caviar. Residue analysis soon revealed what the chef had whipped up that day. The 6,000-year-old meal consisted of fresh carp roe with herbs. Traces of fish stock suggested that the recipe called for the roe to be cooked in this extract (water in which fish was boiled).

A crust of some kind was also found. When viewed through an electron microscope, the material was identified as leaves. The type could not be determined with certainty. If not herbs, researchers feel they served a simpler purpose as a kind of cover to keep the food warm.^[3]

Either way, it shows that Mesolithic cooks were far from primitive. If anything, they prepared meals nearly as well as today.

7 Oldest Thames Carpentry

MI6’s headquarters hug the River Thames in south London. In 2011, they sent an armed response to confront what somebody reported as a group bearing rocket launchers in front of the building. Instead, the security team found excited archaeologists with tripods.

While puttering about in the silt, the researchers had discovered the Thames’s most ancient wooden structure. Not only was the age significant, but it also came offering a mystery.

The trees were chopped down between 4790–4490 BC when the silt-flooded area was probably dry land. The heavy timbers suggested a permanent residence when people were nomadic hunter-gatherers. They certainly did not make a habit of raising solid structures.^[4]

Unfortunately, the purpose of the building was lost. The timbers could not reveal the type, either, although it was likely domestic. Researchers suspect that the location was important, perhaps in a religious way, or maybe the area was so rich in natural resources that a permanent home was not a bad move.

6 Snake Stones

In 2016, archaeologists visited Ukraine to excavate an ancient site. Called Kamyana Mohyla I, it was filled with sandstone. Two rocks had strange shapes, which turned out to be artificial.

The stones were crafted to resemble snake heads. The older one had a yellow hue and measured 13 centimeters (5 in) by 6.8 centimeters (3 in). Apart from a flattened bottom, the rock was triangular, with eyes and a mouth line.

Luckily, it was found near a hearth. Researchers used the fireplace’s organic material to date the figurine to 8300–7500 BC. The younger head also turned up next to a fireplace, which aged it to around 7400 BC.^[5]

This stony reptile’s head was flat and round with something of a neck and two slits for eyes. This one was also smaller, measuring 8.5 centimeters (3 in) by 5.8 centimeters (2 in).

Interestingly, just a short distance away from the site, a fish stone head turned up. Although researchers suspect that the art was ritual, there could be a simpler explanation. Maybe the carvers just wiled away some free time by the fireplace.

5 The Underwater Monolith

A project in 2015 mapped the seafloor around Sicily. To everyone’s surprise, they found what resembled a man-made object at a depth of 40 meters (131 ft) at the Pantelleria Vecchia Bank. Although broken in two, the monolith reached 12 meters (39 ft), was a single stone, and did not match those around it.

It also had three large holes, all with similar diameters. One reached all the way through the rock. If this was caused by nature, the process is unknown to science. A better explanation would be that somebody made the artifact, most likely locals from the Mesolithic.

One theory suggested that the monolith was a coastal lighthouse with a torch inside the deepest hole. The exact time it was crafted remains as mysterious as its true purpose, but it was probably over 9,500 years ago.^[6]

Sometime after this date, sea levels rose all over the world. The event drowned an archipelago between Sicily and Tunisia where researchers suspect that the builders originally came from. It remains unknown how a hunter-gatherer society made a monolith that required advanced building skills.

4 A Mesolithic Murder

Around 50 years ago, a skull and burned bone were found in Poland. The 8,000-year-old remains turned up next to a river, together with flint tools that suggested the man was a hunter. After investigating the scorched bone and the badly shattered head, researchers concluded that the twentysomething was the victim of cannibals.

In 2018, a new study discovered the real story. It was not much of an improvement. Evidence showed that the man had been murdered. During an altercation, somebody had delivered a devastating blow to his forehead. Despite the horrific impact, he did not die immediately.^[7]

Scans detected healing around the edges of the fractures. Judging by the progress of the recovery, the man had suffered a drawn-out death that lasted over a week. This solidly ousted the cannibalism theory.

The unfortunate man’s remains carry the distinction of being the only healing bones found in Mesolithic Poland. The era included both burials and burnings. A fiery funeral could be why the bone found with the skull showed scorch marks.

3 An Eco Home

A surprising find turned up near Stonehenge in 2015. About 1.6 kilometers (1 mi) away from the famous monument, researchers found what could pass for an eco home (in Mesolithic terms).

Around 6,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers found a spot where a massive tree fell over. Showing surprising innovation, they kept the base as a wall and tiled the surface with flint. The hole left by the toppled tree was given a cobbled floor. Some distance away, a wooden pole was staked to support a roof. The latter was probably made of grass or skin.

Unexpectedly, the family had a sophisticated way to keep warm. Big stones were heated in a fireplace (located well away from the roof) and placed near the beds to provide warmth. The wooden post dated to 4336–4246 BC, which could change the backstory of Stonehenge.^[8]

Many feel that the monument’s Neolithic builders arrived from the continent to find an empty landscape. But this home suggested that they encountered a local Mesolithic community.

2 Oldest British Journey

Blick Mead is an ancient camp near Stonehenge. When archaeologists found a 7,000-year-old dog’s tooth at the site, it revealed the country’s earliest journey. Analysis of the canine’s enamel showed that it drank water from the Vale of York region. To reach Blick Mead, the dog and his Mesolithic owner traveled some 402 kilometers (250 mi).

As the campsite’s history is vague, the discovery was a big one. Together with other artifacts found earlier, it is now believed that people made a beeline for Blick Mead in ancient times. Not just a few times, either. For some reason, travelers took on grueling distances to reach the camp—a trend that lasted nearly 4,000 years (7900–4000 BC).

This unusual attraction to a location is a first for Europe. The popularity could have meant that the site was a meeting place to share information, trade, and find marriage partners. Researchers believe that Blick Mead is a piece of Stonehenge’s puzzling origins, although the two do not yet fit together.^[9]

1 Remarkable Climate Survivors

When the last ice age ended, the climate was volatile. The first people to move back into Britain were a Mesolithic group who left behind Star Carr, a priceless archaeological site. Found in the 1940s, the location produced Britain’s oldest house and some of the most ancient carpentry ever discovered.

A 2018 study revealed that the mysterious villagers were more amazing than already believed. Past arguments insisted that the dramatic climate shifts that happened around 11,000 years ago acted like a human cull in Northern Britain.

The pioneers at Star Carr soundly thrashed that theory. Their community suffered two killer episodes of cold weather around 9,300 and 11,100 years ago. It was not just a chilly season, either. Instead, temperatures plummeted abruptly and stayed low for as long as 100 years at a time.

Researchers expected severe repercussions at Star Carr. Instead, evidence showed that the people slowed down slightly during the first winter. After that, they aced it. They successfully exploited their environment for food, constructed timber structures, and kept their society stable during very dangerous times.^[10]

While history books and romantic novels from England’s Victorian Era depict people as being very uptight, there were actually more brothels than there were schools. It is estimated that roughly 80,000 women were working as prostitutes in London alone, which reveals how sex-obsessed the culture truly was.

Prostitutes were called “fallen women,” because they were seen as an example of what fine, upstanding women in society should never become. However, prostitution was legal and even encouraged in many circles because it was believed that men needed an outlet for the sexual desires that they were forced to repress in their daily lives. It also allowed many women opportunities to earn wages that they could have never have earned otherwise.

10 Prostitution Was the Highest-Paying Job for a Woman

During the Victorian era, the only career options for women were low-paying professions, and many had dangerous working conditions. There were street vendors (who assisted their husbands with their businesses), factory workers, and shop girls. If a woman was very lucky, she could be a household servant in the estate of a lord or lady.

Even educated women who learned high-level skills at business colleges, like typing and shorthand, only made an average of £25 per year. That still wasn’t enough money for women to support themselves or their children without the aid of a husband.

Prostitution was the one and only job where a woman could have shorter work hours and earn high wages in cash without depending on a husband to support her. If she was exceptionally beautiful, she could earn enough to achieve total financial independence. If a lower-class woman could afford nice clothes and the finer things in life, it most likely meant that she was a prostitute.

9 There Were Three Levels of Prostitutes

While all prostitutes had to do similar work, there were three levels that a woman could fall into. The lowest class were young women who worked in brothels. They were forced to sleep with whichever men the madame assigned to them and often lived in dirty living conditions.

The middle-class prostitutes were independent women who had their own apartments as well as streetwalkers. They could pick and choose their own clients. This meant that no madame or pimp was taking a huge chunk of their profits. However, being an independent prostitute meant that a woman wouldn’t have the protection of the brothel community or on-site medical examiners.

The highest class of prostitutes were women who were beautiful and educated enough to only work for only high-class clients, namely aristocrats or members of parliament. Some worked exclusively for one man. Many of these courtesans ended up marrying their benefactors.

8 Married Women Sold Themselves on the Side

Since many of the lower-class jobs simply didn’t pay enough to support a large family, it was common for the wives of street vendors to offer their sexual services on the side while they helped their husbands run the family business.

Husbands were completely fine with allowing other men to sleep with their wives. In fact, 50 percent of street vendors’ wives were reported to moonlight as prostitutes. In some instances, the wife happily worked as a prostitute since it was a way for her to earn income. In other instances, the husband was acting as a pimp, using his wife as his property, lending her out as he pleased.

Many single working women (seamstresses, shop girls, and servants) also worked as casual prostitutes to supplement their low incomes. However, if it was discovered that a woman had lost her virginity before marriage, it meant that she was “fallen” and doomed to continue living a life of prostitution.

7 Child Prostitution Was Legal

During the Victorian era, the age of consent was only 13 years old. Child labor still existed at the time. Many lower-class people saw their children as commodities because they could bring income into the family. Boys and girls as young as 11 or 12 could pass as 13 year olds and had no choice but to enter the trade if their parents sold them into it.

W.T. Stead, who has been called the very first investigative journalist, published “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” in Pall Mall Magazine. During his investigation, Stead took it upon himself to prove how easy it was to purchase the virginity of a 13-year-old girl. For a mere £5, Stead purchased someone’s daughter, whom he called “Lily.” This covered the cost of a medical examination to ensure that she was a virgin, and a cut also went to the brothel owner. Since she was still a child, Lily’s parents, who were alcoholics, were the ones who took the money she earned as a prostitute.

After confirming that she was a virgin, the medical examiner recommended that Stead drug her with chloroform so she would be unconscious and not put up a struggle while he raped her. The public was horrified when they read Stead’s articles, and his work led to the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which made the age of consent 16 years old.

W.T. Stead is seen as a hero for fighting for the rights of women, and he was nominated with a Nobel Peace Prize. He died on the Titanic in 1912. Today, the Stead Memorial Fund continues to fight against sex trafficking.

6 Themed Brothels

Like today, men of Victorian England had varying desires. However, they generally couldn’t express what they wanted sexually in the confines of marriage. Proper women were not encouraged to be sexual at all and reserved sex for having children.

There were various brothels dedicated to different themes: Traditional, S&M, cross-dressing, gay brothels, and others were willing to fulfill kinky fantasies. For whatever reason, spanking was a very popular theme in pornography, and there were entire brothels dedicated to it. Flagellation brothels were places one could go to be whipped by either women or men.

Sadly, some brothels catered to pedophiles by specializing in young girls and virgins. Since there was a very real fear of venereal disease, some men only wanted to deflower virgins because there was a guarantee that they wouldn’t catch anything. Only wealthy men could afford to deflower a virgin; soldiers or another working- to middle-class men typically didn’t have this option.

5 Prostitutes Were Educated

In the 1800s, many women actually did receive a formal education. After receiving tutoring from governesses, high-class women were sent to finishing schools, which taught them social skills, etiquette, and “accomplishments” like drawing, playing the piano, and dancing, which would make them attractive for marriage. However, they were rarely taught any skills that could actually earn a living.

The majority of working-class women couldn’t read or write. Henry Mayhew wrote that while only 5 percent of low-class prostitutes could read or write, it was common for them to eagerly ask men to read newspapers to them so they could stay up-to-date on current events. Higher-class prostitutes learned to read and write.

Many women in the higher classes weren’t educated in politics or current events since they were expected to be the “angel of the home.” This gave prostitutes an advantage in terms of becoming more cultured and knowledgeable of the world around them.

4 Victorian Sex Guides

Men of wealthy Victorian society could look through “sporting” guides, which were very similar to shopping catalogues. These books detailed prostitutes’ ages, physical descriptions, personality type, and their cost, usually £2–£3 or £5 for a virgin. This way, a man could decide ahead of time between the various women he wished to have sex with. Of course, those without wealth were left to find a companion using other means.

In Victorian England, one of the most famous guides was The Swell’s Night Guide Through the Metropolis. In 2018 an extremely rare first edition of this guide was unearthed. It provides an eye-opening insight into prostitution in Victorian London. The salacious book describes the call girls and all the clubs, pubs, bars, and theatres they could be found working in. It rates individual women, describing one, Miss Allen, as a “perfect English beauty” and another, Mrs. Smith as a “very agreeable woman” with “pouting lips.”

The historic book, written by The Hon F L G in 1841, went to auction and was expected to sell for between £800–£1,200. However, the guide went for an astonishing £4000.

3 Charles Dickens Tried to Save Fallen Women

In 1847, Charles Dickens, together with a millionaire heiress and philanthropist named Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, decided to pay for the establishment of Urania Cottage. It was a place where prostitutes, former prisoners, and women from workhouses had the option to escape their often dangerous, tragic lives. Urania Cottage aimed to teach these women other skills that they could use to transition to other jobs.

Dickens wrote a pamphlet titled An Appeal to Fallen Women, encouraging young ladies to go to Urania Cottage for a fresh start. While he was doing a public service in helping these women, it was also part of his writing process. He interviewed many of them, hearing their life stories. Dickens would then use their stories to inspire his fiction. In David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, he created characters that could be classified as “fallen women” and depicted them as victims of circumstance rather than evil manipulators. His writing helped Victorian audiences sympathize with these women on a human level.

2 Forced Medical Examinations

Some of the most frequent customers at brothels were young men in the military. Venereal disease was so common in the 1800s that it killed just as many military men as war. It also left many able-bodied men unfit for battle.

In 1864, to prevent the spread of disease, The Contagious Diseases Act was passed. In towns situated near naval bases, any woman (even if she wasn’t a prostitute) suspected of carrying a sexually transmitted infection was forced to undergo a medical examination. If a woman resisted, she would be strapped down to a table. If it were discovered that she was infected, she would be forced into hospitalization for up to three months.

While the risk of contracting venereal diseases was high for prostitutes, they were actually much healthier than average working-class women because they did not have to endure grueling 14-hour workdays in factories.

1 Reformatories

Although prostitution was legal, many ladies of the night were arrested for crimes like public drunkenness or gathering in the streets. Those behaviors were considered illegal under the Town Police Clauses Act of 1847. Many of those small crimes resulted in a year in prison.

There were also places called reformatories, which aimed to rehabilitate fallen women. Religious groups often ran these. The attitude of the people who ran the reformatories was that prostitutes acted out on their own selfish desires.

In many ways, living in a reformatory was worse than jail. They required women to stay for a minimum of two years to ensure they were “cured.” Women were also required to show a deep sense of self-hatred for their evil actions and a desire for forgiveness from God for their sins to qualify for housing. Reformatories required women to wake up at 5:00 am, pray four times per day, attend religious services twice a day, work hard labor, and be locked in their bedrooms by 8:00 pm.

Shannon Quinn is a writer and entrepreneur in the Philadelphia Area. You can see her other work at shannquinn.wordpress.com.

In Victorian era England, a woman who wore makeup was considered to be a “painted lady” or prostitute. Although painted white faces and bright red lips had been popular before she came to power, Queen Victoria called makeup “vulgar,” which led many people in England to abandon it altogether or try for a more natural makeup look.

As a result, the 1800s were filled with inventions to enhance women’s natural features, but many of these ideas deformed their bodies or slowly killed them with toxic chemicals.

10 Face Bleaching

Having an extremely pale, fair complexion was important to women in the 1800s. Upper-class women wanted to show that they were wealthy enough to not have to work in the hot sun. They wanted their skin to be so pale that it was “translucent,” as in you could see the veins in their faces. Victorians had an obsession with death and actually thought that it was attractive for women to look sickly or dead.

The Ugly-Girl Papers by S.D. Powers recommended that women coat their faces in trace amounts of opium from lettuce leaves overnight and wash their faces with ammonia in the morning to ensure that they would always look as fresh and pale as possible.

Arsenic wafers were supposed to remove freckles and tans, making women look younger and more attractive. They were fully aware that arsenic was poisonous and addictive but chose to do it anyway for the sake of achieving their ideal of beauty.

9 Burning Hair

In the 1800s, curly hair was popular. Early curling irons were tongs that needed to be heated in a fire. If a woman pulled the curling iron out of the fire and applied it to her hair too quickly, it would be so hot that her hair would literally burn off.

As a result, baldness became a common problem for women in the Victorian era. Even if they became skilled at curling their hair, it was still a lot of strain on the scalp to constantly style it in tight curls.

Women did not seem to put two and two together and tried multiple remedies of teas and medicines. It was even suggested that hair should be bathed with ammonia and water to stimulate growth. Exposure to ammonia can cause respiratory problems and burn the skin. It can also cause blindness.

S.D. Powers suggested a mixture of equal parts sulfate of quinine and aromatic tincture for baldness and loss of one’s eyebrows in a fire. She also advised women to avoid having their curling tongs make direct contact with their hair, which many people did not realize until it was too late.

8 Blood Purification

During the Victorian era, many people died of consumption (tuberculosis) and the society had a creepy fascination with death. In The Ugly-Girl Papers by S.D. Powers, she declared that the clearest, most beautiful complexions were seen on people in the earliest stages of consumption. Women with consumption were constantly vomiting blood, and Powers claimed that this was actually purging the impurities from their body, which made their skin clear and white.

To replicate this, she advised women to eat as little as possible. This allowed them to maintain just enough strength to function while also weakening their bodies. Powers suggested a meal plan that consisted of a handful of strawberries for breakfast, half an orange for lunch, and cherries for dinner . . . and, if you really must, it was okay to have some warm broth, too.

Powers also believed that ammonia carbonate and powdered charcoal was a must in any woman’s beauty regime. These toxic chemicals were supposed to sit on women’s faces. In addition, women were instructed to take a variety of medications every three months to “purify” their blood, although they were really making themselves sick to achieve the look of being close to death.

7 Nose Machines

During the Victorian era, many men and women were unhappy with the noses that they had been born with—just like today. Years before plastic surgery existed, there were a variety of companies that manufactured “nose shapers” or “nose machines.” These metal devices were strapped to a person’s face to squeeze the soft cartilage of their nose to be smaller or straighter than it was before.

Over the years, nose shapers continued to be sold. Heather Bigg invented a spring-loaded contraption with straps to hold the metal around the patient’s face while they slept overnight and occasionally throughout the day. This trained the person’s nose to begin taking a more attractive shape.

Dr. Sid, a surgeon from Paris during the Victorian era, reported to his English colleagues that he had created a metal, spring-loaded contraption that squeezed a 15-year-old patient’s large nose for three months until she was happy with the results.

6 Tapeworm Dieting

Corsets were popular during the Victorian era to make women’s waists as tiny as possible. To lose weight, some women would swallow a tapeworm pill on purpose. The slithery little creature would hatch inside the stomach and devour any food eaten by the woman.

After she was done dieting, the woman would take pills to kill the tapeworm. But it was also believed that sitting in front of a bowl of milk with your mouth open would entice the worms to crawl out on their own. However, tapeworms are known to grow as long as 9 meters (30 ft), so even if that method worked, people could choke in the process.

Dr. Meyers of Sheffield invented a device that was supposed to remove tapeworms from people’s stomachs. It was a metal cylinder filled with food that he would slide down the patient’s throat. They were instructed to avoid eating for several days, which would force the tapeworms into the cylinder to eat the food.

In theory, once the worms were in the tube, he could pull the tube out of the patient and remove the tapeworms from their stomachs. Sadly, many of his patients choked and eventually died from his invention.

5 Deadly Nightshade Eyedrops

Along with the near-dead color of their faces, women with tuberculosis were known for having dilated pupils and watery eyes. When someone is in love, their pupils dilate as well. In Victorian era England, women with large pupils were considered extremely beautiful. To achieve this look, they would use eyedrops containing nightshade from the belladonna plant.

The belladonna plant is one of the most poisonous plants in existence. Consuming a couple of berries or a leaf can be fatal. In smaller doses, the poison may cause irritable bowels, rashes, swelling, and even blindness. Women of the Victorian era knew of these dangers and continued to use this poison anyway.

In her later years, Queen Victoria used belladonna drops in her eyes in an attempt to get rid of her cataracts. Although the drops did not cure her condition, her eyesight still improved because her pupils dilated. So she continued to use the eyedrops and refused to have surgery.

4 Poisonous Dental Hygiene

In The Ugly-Girl Papers, S.D. Powers recommended swallowing a teaspoon of poisonous ammonia mixed in a glass of water to improve the breath and prevent the decay of teeth for someone with an “acid stomach,” which we now call acid reflux. For toothpaste, she recommended using burned bread or charcoal twice a day to clean your teeth.

In the guide Personal Beauty: How To Cultivate and Preserve It in Accordance with the Laws of Health, the author recommends that if someone’s teeth are beginning to rot, they should use a mouthwash made with brandy, spirits of camphor, and myrrh. Swallowing spirits of camphor can lead to death, although it is used for infections and healing in vapor rubs.

For toothaches, cocaine lozenges were easily available for purchase at a local pharmacy. They were also believed to cure coughs and colds. Obviously, these lozenges must have been popular because people became unwittingly addicted to them.

3 Chemical Hair Removal

S.D. Powers published in The Ugly-Girl Papers the age-old myth that plucking a hair will cause three rougher and darker hairs to sprout in its place. This myth is actually false, and it is still told to young girls to this day. Instead of using tweezers or shaving, Powers had a variety of suggestions, including a seemingly harmless practice of drying out the skin with a paste of wood ashes so that hair would simply rub off.

However, not all of her hair removal ideas were so innocent. She also suggested killing two birds with one stone by whitening your forearms and removing hair at the same time. For this, she advised her readers to use chloride of lime, which is a chemical used to bleach cotton, followed by a vinegar rinse. At the very least, she told women to do this by an open window and even admits that the chemical can eat away your skin if left on for too long.

2 Mercury And Lead Eye Shadow

Fine Victorian women did not wear eye shadow. Since women wanted to look as natural as possible and did not want to be pegged as fallen women, they mainly focused on their complexions.

They used little eye makeup and focused more on sculpting and filling in their eyebrows. However, they could get away with homemade creams above their eyes, just to make them stand out. Some women would make light brown eye shadow out of cold cream and crushed cochineal beetles.

It was rare for anyone to wear eye shadow purchased from a store, which was called “eye paint” in the Victorian period. However, when a prostitute or a daring Victorian lady decided to try eye paint on a special occasion, she was slathering on cosmetics made from deadly chemicals.

These included red and white lead to color the paint as well as mercuric sulfide. The cosmetics also contained antimony, cinnabar, and vermilion. These chemicals poisoned the body, and mercury is even known to cause insanity.

1 Arsenic Baths

Lola Montez, a famous actress during the Victorian era, gave much more practical beauty advice than that in S.D. Power’s The Ugly-Girl Papers. Montez wrote her own book called The Arts of Beauty, Or, Secrets of A Lady’s Toilet.

According to her book, as she was traveling in Bohemia, she learned that it was common for women to take baths in and drink out of arsenic springs. She admitted that it was extremely dangerous, but at the same time, she admired how wonderful their skin looked as a result. She also explained that if women did not continue with the habit on a regular basis, they would die.

Arsenic is commonly used as a poison to kill rats, and it was easily attainable at pharmacies during the Victorian era. Women were not the only ones to see arsenic as potentially appealing. For years, it was seen as a primitive version of Viagra that increased male sexual potency. In small doses, it caused a euphoria or delirium, which made people addicted in both a chemical and psychological sense.

Shannon Quinn is a writer and entrepreneur in the Philadelphia area. You can see the rest of her work at shannquinn.wordpress.com.

Political intrigue and espionage are nothing new. But in the days before high-tech spy gear, the work of spies looked far different than it does today. The lives of 15th- and 16th-century spies were filled with intrigue, backstabbing, and bizarre machinations, though, because the human race has not changed all that much.

10 William Parry

During the reign of Elizabeth I, being a Catholic was a dangerous thing. Many Catholics fled to the continent, and William Parry was sent to spy on them. He sent regular reports back to London, telling his queen who was harmless and who might be plotting against her from the relative safety of Paris.

His troubles began in 1580 when he was put on trial for allegedly assaulting a moneylender. The queen pardoned him from execution, but he was unable to sustain the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed. By 1583, he had decided to play both sides and wrote to a Roman cardinal of his intentions to serve the Catholic Church.

It was not a wise life choice. In 1585, Parry was hanged, drawn, and quartered for his part in a plot to kill the queen.

9 Isabella Hoppringle

Isabella Hoppringle was the 16th-century prioress of the convent at Coldstream, which sat on the border between England and Scotland. At the same time that she relied on the Scots to keep her convent safe, she was writing letters to agents of Henry VIII reporting on the Scottish army.

Her favored position with Scotland’s queen, Margaret, meant that Isabella was often in Glasgow and Stirling and that she was witness to troops being mustered and equipped. In 1523, the Lords of Council decided that the punishment for talking to the English would be the death penalty, and word had gotten out about the prioress’s messages. It was only when Margaret interceded that the lords called off an attack on the convent and made it clear that Isabella was safe only for as long as she was loyal.

Isabella—and her successor, Janet Hoppringle—continued their work for the English.

8 George Eliot

There were few things that got the attention of the Tudor monarchs faster than writing a book called Ten Reasons (to be a Catholic), which Jesuit priest Edmund Campion did in 1581.

The Earl of Leicester sent George Eliot, a known con artist, after the priest. Eliot was desperate to avoid a sentence for murder when he agreed to spy on the priest, collect the needed evidence, and ultimately arrest him. Eliot ingratiated himself into an Oxfordshire parish to keep an eye on the rogue priest, finally fetching the local magistrate to oversee the arrests.

Campion managed to hide until the owner of the house at which he was staying requested that he give a sermon in the middle of the night. He finished the sermon, but the members of the household had gathered to hear it and woke those who were looking for them. The priest was ultimately hanged, drawn, and quartered.

7 Bertrandon de la Broquiere

In 1432, Frenchman Bertrandon de la Broquiere embarked on a year-long espionage mission to Palestine for the Duke of Burgundy and was tasked with gathering any military information that would assist in mounting a Crusade against the Turks.

Bertrandon wrote that the Turks were disciplined but lacking in arms, and in retrospect, it seems as though he erred on the side of optimism. He also wrote of the helpful nature of those who cared for him while he was sick and painted many of the people he met as selfless humanitarians in spite of their different religions.

His story was an incredible one, filled with near misses, traveling in disguise, and even joining a Muslim caravan to Bursa. In the end, he optimistically reported back in favor of a victorious Crusade for the Christians, but no Crusade happened as a result of his intel.

6 Petrus Alamire

Petrus Alamire is not his real name. The pun on musical notes (A-la-mi-re) was given to a spy working for Henry VIII—a spy who also made a career as a musician and scribe.

Alamire was Bavarian, and his workshop produced some of the most beautifully illuminated manuscripts of the early 16th century. They were often gifted to members of the royal courts of Europe, who would then send for the mastermind who had created them. With unprecedented access to royal houses, Alamire collected intel that he passed on to other royals whom he wanted to keep indebted to him.

Alamire supplied a massive amount of information to Henry VIII, his biggest client, on the movement of Richard de la Pole, the last Yorkist with any claim to the throne. But Alamire was also passing information to Pole and never returned to the English court after his betrayal was uncovered.

5 Francis Walsingham

Francis Walsingham, well traveled and fluent in Italian and French, was the spymaster for Elizabeth I for 22 years. Walsingham had more than 50 agents working in Turkey and other countries across Europe, but Elizabeth’s biggest threat was not far from home.

Walsingham and his spies spent much of their careers gathering evidence of plots to overthrow Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. Even after the conspirators in the so-called Babington plot were hanged, drawn, and quartered, Elizabeth still refused to sign Mary’s death warrant.

She finally signed on February 1, 1587. Walsingham oversaw Mary’s execution, the burning of her clothing, and the encasing of her body in lead (to ensure there would be no relics circulating). He also established a school for the spies under his control, where they were taught things like reading and writing coded messages.

4 Antony Standen

Antony Standen (aka “Pompeo Pellegrini”) was one of Francis Walsingham’s many spies. Based in Italy, Standen reported on the movements of the Spanish Armada, although he was living in exile because of his Catholic beliefs.

Moving from England to Scotland to France and finally landing in Tuscany, Standen was fortunate enough to get friendly with Tuscany’s ambassador to Spain. In 1587, Standen was officially on Walsingham’s payroll and began passing him regular information that ultimately allowed Sir Francis Drake to move on the Spanish fleet while at Cadiz.

Standen’s information helped to cripple the Spanish fleet. But by the time he finally returned to England in 1593, Walsingham was dead and Standen’s service was overlooked. Later, he attempted to help the Catholic Church regain a foothold in England and found himself in the Tower of London.

3 William Herle

In 1571, Philip II of Spain and Pope Pius V were in league with a Florentine banker named Roberto Ridolfi in an attempt to depose Elizabeth in favor of Mary. Ridolfi’s messenger, Charles Bailly, was arrested and sent to Marshalsea Prison. There, he met another prisoner, William Herle, who had been serving as a spy for Elizabeth I since around 1559.

Herle had been arrested for piracy in 1570 (and 1567) and was planted in Marshalsea to extract information from Bailly. After Bailly was put in isolation, Herle stepped in as a questionable, shady character who could get certain things accomplished.

Bailly began passing letters to his counterparts on the outside through Herle, who obligingly passed them along after he had copied them for his own employers. The unraveling of the plot changed the dynamic of the political spectrum in England and abroad.

2 William Stafford

To try to convince Elizabeth I to sign Mary’s death warrant, Francis Walsingham used all sorts of methods, including devising plots against Elizabeth’s life.

William Stafford, the younger brother of England’s French ambassador, was completely Walsingham’s man. In 1587, Stafford came forward with a bizarre assassination plot that he had uncovered. France’s ambassador, Chateauneuf, and his secretary had reportedly recruited Stafford to plant gunpowder under the queen’s bed to kill her.

Eventually, the French ambassador and his secretary were cleared of the accusations, and Walsingham concluded that Stafford had been using his position to extort money. Even so, Stafford remained in Walsingham’s service. It remained unclear if Walsingham was behind the whole setup or if Stafford had decided to give Elizabeth another reason to be wary of assassination attempts.

1 Madame de Sauve And The Flying Squadron

According to the memoirs of Pierre de Bourdeille, Catherine de’ Medici kept 86 (or 300) ladies-in-waiting to lure the men of the court into their beds to extract top secret information. Catherine then used the information from her “Flying Squadron” to secure her own position and that of her family.

The most notorious of these women was Charlotte de Beaune, Madame de Sauve. Catherine’s daughter, Marguerite, wrote extensively about Charlotte’s wooing of both Marguerite’s husband and her brother. Marguerite claimed that her mother had pitted the two men against each other with a maneuvering temptress in the middle, but the truth of Catherine’s manipulations of the men and women in her court is rather cloudy.

Movies like 12 Years a Slave give us a good idea of what the desperate escape to freedom must have been like for many African-American slaves. But the following accounts are equally as captivating. Such fine examples of luck, trickery, and pure dogged determination deserve to be noticed.

10 Harriet Jacobs

Born in 1813, Harriet Jacobs was frequently the victim of brutal sexual assaults from her master, James Norcom. Even when Jacobs took a lover and had two children with him, Norcom’s sexual advances continued. Finally, it got to be more than she could bear. In 1835, she went to hide with friends.

Jacobs knew the odds were slim that she’d make it to the North, so she hid in a cramped crawl space in her grandmother’s attic on the North Carolina plantation. Barely big enough to accommodate Jacobs, the space was infested with rats. Nonetheless, she lived there for the next seven years.

In 1842, she escaped the plantation by boat to Philadelphia. Upon arriving, she was taken in by members of the Philadelphia Vigilant Committee. She later wrote about her life and trials in the memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

9 Ellen And William Craft

Few slaves made such daring escape attempts as William Craft and his wife, Ellen. Married in 1846 in Macon, Georgia, the two were owned by separate masters. Ellen was the daughter of a white slaveholder and his black female slave.

Frightened of being separated, William and Ellen hatched a plan to pose as a slave and his white owner. There was one problem, though. It was unacceptable for a white woman to travel alone with a male slave. So they decided that Ellen would disguise herself as a white man.

In December 1848, they spent several days traveling by rail and steamer to the North, staying in expensive hotels among other whites to keep their cover. Ellen disguised her feminine face in bandages. The two finally arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas Day 1848. They went on to live in England, where they raised a family and wrote an account of their escape.

8 Ayuba Suleiman Jallo

Ayuba Suleiman Jallo (aka Job ben Solomon) came from a family of prominent Muslim leaders in Senegal. In 1730, he and his translator were captured by an invading tribe and sold as slaves by the Royal African Company (RAC). Ultimately, Jallo was sold to the owner of a tobacco plantation in Annapolis, Maryland.

While attempting to escape, Jallo was captured and imprisoned. Reverend Thomas Bluett began communicating with Jallo in prison using hand gestures. Bluett was surprised to discover that Jallo was a Muslim and that he could write in Arabic.

After being returned to his master, Jallo penned a letter in Arabic to his family back home. It ended up on the desk of RAC director James Oglethorpe, who had sold Jallo into slavery initially. An emotionally moved Oglethorpe had the RAC purchase Jallo’s freedom.

In 1734, Jallo returned to Senegal. He continued to press for the release of his interpreter, who was freed and returned to Africa in 1738.

7 Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist, craved freedom from a young age. In 1833, at age 20, he became engaged to a free black woman named Anna Murray. Taking the opportunity to finally find freedom, he fled his station as a ship caulker in Baltimore.

Disguised as a soldier, Douglass boarded a train for the North and traveled with a free sailor’s protection pass that a friend had given him. Although the person pictured on the pass looked nothing like Douglass, the conductor only gave it a cursory glance.

Douglass had more close calls on his way north. But he finally arrived in New York and stayed with an abolitionist, where he later met up with Murray and moved to Bedford, Massachusetts. Douglass had the status of fugitive slave until 1846 when antislavery activists helped him to purchase his own freedom.

6 Eliza Harris

Eliza Harris’s story is so captivating that author Harriet Beecher Stowe included Eliza as a character in her famous novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

When her master intended to sell her only surviving child, Eliza escaped with the toddler to the Ohio River. Unfortunately, the surface of the frozen river was broken into unnavigable chunks of ice. She waited out the day in a nearby house, but the ice continued to break into smaller pieces. That night, she heard her pursuers approaching.

Eliza bolted from the house, determined to escape or drown. At times, a chunk of ice would sink beneath her and she would be waist-deep in the freezing water. She’d push her child onto the next chunk of ice. Then she’d pull herself onto it.

Breathless and half-frozen, Eliza continued her desperate plight until she reached the other side of the river. There, a man directed her to a house where she could rest. Then Eliza was sent to a station of the Underground Railroad.

5 Henry Highland Garnet

Henry Highland Garnet’s 11-member family ran away from their master’s plantation when he was just nine years old. His father had gotten permission for them to attend a family funeral, but they didn’t intend to return.

They all made a risky, 160-kilometer (100 mi) trek by foot and carriage to Delaware. In Wilmington, the family split up. Henry and his mother, father, and sister continued on to Long Island. They changed their name from Trusty to Garnet, and Garnet would grow up to be a central figure in black education and spirituality.

4 Henry ‘Box’ Brown

Henry Brown was a slave born and raised in Virginia. After seeing his wife and children sold to an owner in a different state, a devastated Brown became determined to escape slavery. He came up with a daring plan to ship himself in a wooden crate to Philadelphia. He did it with the help of a freed slave and a white shopkeeper.

On March 3, 1849, Brown squeezed him into a small wooden crate labeled “Dry Goods.” After a harrowing, 27-hour journey, Brown arrived at the Philadelphia home of abolitionist James McKim.

However, less than a year later, Brown was forced to flee to England after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. He returned in 1875 after starting a new family.

3 Drennen Slave Girl

The escape of the unidentified Drennen slave girl is notable because of how ridiculously simple it was. One day in 1850, businessman John Drennen, his wife, and their 14-year-old slave girl checked into the Monongahela House—a lavish hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—after a long, difficult trip from the South.

After dressing her mistress for dinner, the slave girl was helped by the black house staff to carry a trunk full of damaged and dirty clothing to be washed and mended. She was fascinated by these blacks because they were paid employees of the hotel and not slaves.

At some point, the girl simply walked out the back door of the hotel and was never seen by her masters again. She was no doubt motivated by the black service people of the hotel as Monongahela House served as the seat of much secret antislavery activity.

2 Robert Smalls

Early in the morning of May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls and some shipmates hijacked the steamship CSS Planter in Charleston, North Carolina, while their white crewmates were ashore. The slaves picked up their families at a rendezvous point and then sailed into the Charleston Harbor with Smalls disguised in the captain’s coat and hat.

His thorough sailing knowledge helped to get the ship safely passed Fort Sumter. Once out of firing range, he sprinted for the Union blockade, which was established to keep the Southern states from trading or importing war items.

At the blockade, Smalls and his crew hoisted the white surrender flag for the first US Navy ship they encountered. They were hailed as heroes in the North, and their story was held up as an example that blacks could make good soldiers.

1 Lewis Williams

When Lewis Williams was a boy, his family escaped slavery in Kentucky and made their way to the antislavery stronghold of Cincinnati. In his early twenties, Williams was tricked by a fortune-teller into revealing details about his escape.

She used this information to contact his old master and turn Williams in for a reward. After the slaveholder traveled to Ohio, Williams was put on trial to be extradited back to Kentucky. His story would have ended there if not for the crafty heroics of Reverend William Troy, the leader of the black community in Cincinnati.

Troy knew a guy who surprisingly resembled Williams. On the day of the trial, Troy took a crowd of supporters to the courthouse. While everyone was distracted by a dramatic argument, Williams and his body double quickly switched places. Williams then stealthily crawled out the door on his hands and knees and eventually escaped to Canada.

Tiffany is a freelance writer hailing from southern California. You can follow her on Twitter.

Today, many of us associate December with traditions and festivities that seem like an integral part of Christmas. However, this wasn’t always the case. In fact, before the Victorian era, Christmas was only ever really minimally celebrated in Britain and in other English-speaking countries. It wasn’t until the reign of Queen Victoria and her German husband, King Albert, that Christmas became the truly festive celebration we recognize today. Thus, it is thanks to the Victorian era that most of our beloved Christmas traditions, such as Christmas cards, gifts, and Boxing Day, are popular.

However, the Victorian era was also responsible for a few slightly odder traditions. Most of them, unfortunately (or in some cases fortunately), did not survive into today. To remember the most interesting of those that did not make the cut, we have compiled a list of the most unusual Christmas customs of yesteryear that are sure to put you in a festive spirit.

10Creepy Christmas Cards

The Victorian era is responsible for the creation of the very first Christmas card, which was designed by John Callcott Horsley, an English painter, on the request of his wealthy friend, Sir Henry Cole. Cole initially came up with the idea for a Christmas card after he realized that he was much too busy to write an individual Christmas greeting to every person among his family, friends, and colleagues. Cole was sure that a card with a festive image and a greeting would be a far quicker way to send his holiday wishes to everyone.

After its initial success among Cole’s friends, 1,000 of these new Christmas cards were printed and put for sale in 1843. However, the Christmas card was not successful at first and was even disapproved by the temperance movement, which feared that the presence of booze in several of the original card designs would encourage drunkenness.

Nevertheless, a year later, Christmas cards became wildly popular, and soon their design varied enormously thanks to the various painters that had different visions for the ideal Christmas card. Like Victorian valentines, some of these new Christmas card designs featured cherubs, flowers, and other symbols of spring and new life. Others, however, were far creepier and included strange images such as sinister clowns poking policemen with red pokers, giant killer wasps chasing children, and gambling monkeys.

9Glass Pickle

A glass pickle ornament was often hidden inside the Victorian Christmas tree for good luck. On Christmas day, the founder of the glass pickle was either given a special gift or allowed to open their present first.

It is said that the tradition of the glass pickle originated from a medieval story of two Spanish boys traveling home for Christmas. On their way home, tired and weary from traveling, the children stopped at an inn for a good night’s sleep. However, the innkeeper was an evil man—he stole the boys’ possessions and stuffed them into a pickle barrel. Luckily for the boys, St. Nicholas stopped by the inn and saved them. The boys then thanked St. Nicholas for saving their lives and continued on to their family.

There exists a second version of the story, which differs slightly from the first. In this version, three Spanish boys are kidnapped by an evil shopkeeper who chops them up with an axe and pickles them in a barrel. Upon hearing about the poor boys’ faith, St. Nicholas prays to God, and because of the purity of his faith, he succeeds in restoring the lives and bodies of the boys.

8Wassail Punch

Wassail punch was a popular winter drink made from a mixture of fruit, cider, and spices. Victorians served it to carolers who went from house to house wassailing or singing Christmas carols and hymns. After all the carols were sung, the carolers were invited to the houses of Victorian families to share a sip of wassail from the communal wassail bowl. This tradition of inviting carolers for a sip of wassail was borrowed from the Elizabethan era.

The recipes for Wassail punch varied from family to family, but it was important that the punch be hot. Families with old-fashioned taste based their wassail punch on ale or cider, which was heated until it became thick and foamy. Often, the foam that formed on top of the ale or cider was called “lamb’s wool.” Fresh nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, lemon slices, and roasted crab apples were frequently added to enhance the flavor of the punch.

7Festive Science

During the Victorian era, the celebration of scientific progress became almost synonymous with the word Christmas. Christmas books often contained experiments for children, news magazines published scientific Christmas stories, and poems and newspapers advertised scientific Christmas gifts and scientific leisure activities.

In the 1830s, two galleries of practical science, The Adelaide Gallery and The Royal Polytechnic Institution, opened their doors to the public. The Adelaide Gallery held various Christmas performances, including festive oratorios that often featured projections of microscopic organisms and other scientific displays. The Royal Polytechnic Institution soon surpassed it in popularity largely due to John Henry Pepper’s contribution toward festive science at the Polytechnic.

A scientist and inventor, Pepper turned the Polytechnic into a winter fairy tale. Optical pantomimes and a huge Christmas tree surrounded by stacks of scientific Christmas gifts were a huge hit, but the most popular attraction of all was the ghost. Pepper’s ghost was an illusion of a ghost appearing and disappearing on the stage. It was, however, not Pepper’s original invention—it was adapted from a previous design created by Henry Dircks, an English engineer, who designed but did not operate the mirror-based invention some years previously. The trick of the illusion was to project a concealed actor, who was hiding in a separate room, onto the stage. After each performance, scientists would give a thorough lecture on the science behind the magical performance and reveal the mechanisms behind it to the enthralled audience.

6Parlor Games

The Victorians were extremely fond of entertainment and parlor games, and there was no better time for that than Christmas. Parlor games were entertaining, helped pass the time, and cheered everyone up during times when there was little else to do. At times however, these games were downright dangerous and reckless. Take snapdragon, for example. During this game, a bunch of raisins were piled into a bowl with rum and then the rum was set on fire. The task was to snatch the raisins out of the bowl and eat them while they were still ablaze. Simpler games that are still played today included charades and “Change Seats!”

During the Victorian era, the loser of the game usually had to pay a forfeit, such as to kiss every lady in the room. Often, this forfeit seemed very agreeable to gentlemen, but to their disappointment, a lady frequently accompanied them around the room and did all the kissing on their behalf. Other inventive forfeits included uttering half a dozen compliments to a lady without using the letter L or making like a Grecian statue and allowing others to put your limbs into positions of their choosing.

Forfeits for ladies were similar and often included kissing as well. One such forfeit was to kiss a gentleman in a “rabbit fashion,” whereby a lady and a gentleman of her choosing both put one end of a piece of cotton in their mouths and pecked toward each other until they were kissing.

5Oysters

The type of meat served to the table by Victorians largely depended on the wealth and location of the family. While the wealthy chose beef and turkey, especially for occasions such as Christmas, the poor were not able to afford such expensive meat and instead had to settle for something less extravagant, such as geese. However, sometimes even geese were far too expensive, and in such instances, poor families had to settle for a cheaper festive dinner.

During the Victorian era, oysters were plentiful and cheap. Small oysters were often sold as fast food on the streets as well as pickled to keep for later. Bigger oysters were either put in stews and pies or eaten on their own. Oysters were also frequently consumed in public houses and went nicely with a pint of stout beer. Knowing this, it comes as no surprise that in this era, the demand for oysters, which were also known as “the poor man’s protein,” was high. For those who could not afford any other meat, it was oysters and not turkey that was most often the centerpiece of the Christmas dinner.

4Christmasing

Christmasing was a Christmas tradition whereby vendors gathered various festive branches, such as mistletoe and holly, and sold them for profit in the days before Christmas. Houses, pubs, inns, and churches were heavily decorated with these festive branches, and often, puddings and sometimes even mince pies were decorated in this way also.

Holly was more popular than mistletoe for various reasons, the most important being price. Holly cost less than half the price of mistletoe, and there was more of it. As well as that, holly can be grown in any hedge, while mistletoe grows only in the branches of specific trees, such as apple and hawthorn. Thus, mistletoe was frequently seen as the purchase of the wealthy classes or those who hosted parties. As such, it became something of a status symbol to have some in your house.

A few weeks before Christmas, street vendors often scrounged the neighborhoods of London for holly. It was a precarious trade, however, since vendors often had to trespass into private grounds and land to obtain these festive branches. If caught by the master of the house or its servants, the vendor was lucky to have only the holly taken away from him. To obtain mistletoe, vendors had to trespass orchards and often faced danger from dogs, traps, and spring guns. Thus, they scrounging for mistletoe much more rarely.

3Goose Feather Tree

The goose feather tree—a collection of goose feathers dyed green and decorated with small ornaments—was the first artificial German, and later Victorian, Christmas tree. Feathers of swans, turkeys, and ostriches were also used. These peculiar Christmas trees were first brought over to America by German immigrants who found it difficult to find fir trees in their native land due to deforestation. At the time, it was popular to chop of the tip of a fir tree and use it as a Christmas tree. However, the rest of the fir tree then became useless as it could no longer grow or provide timber. Statutes were even created to stop people from having more than one Christmas tree to prevent excess damage to fir tree populations.

It was not overly difficult to make these festive trees. All one needed was either sticks or wire and feathers. The sticks were covered with the feathers and then drilled into a larger stick to resemble branches. Often, the feathers were died green in imitation of pine needles.

2Football

During the Victorian era, and indeed right until the 1950s, football on Christmas day was a tradition important as any other. In an era when entertainment options were few, football frequently resulted in fans postponing their Christmas roast dinner to attend a match. Important matches were often played both on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. In 1888, for example, Everton played two matches on Christmas day, attracting about 2,000 people—a large crowd for the time. Their match on Boxing Day was less exciting (it was a draw) and resulted in a lower turnout (but then again, it was played in a shower of hailstones).

The very first football league match played on Christmas Day was in 1889 between Preston North End and Aston Villa. Both teams were incredibly strong, and 9,000 people came to watch the match.

When football leagues grew, fans started traveling longer distances to view Christmas Day matches. Fortunately, there was no public transport shutdown, and thus people could follow football leagues without difficulty. Later, when televised matches were introduced, this tradition was largely abandoned.

1Goose Clubs

Even though the centerpiece of a Christmas dinner in Victorian England was usually a goose, most people earned only a couple of shillings a week and were far too poor to afford it. It was easier for poor working families living in rural areas since farmers often gave a bird or a piece of meat to their workers as a Christmas bonus, and squires frequently gave meals to their tenants. However, poor families that lived in towns and cities had no such opportunities of free Christmas meals. Thus, they often joined “Goose Clubs.”

Members of this peculiar club paid a couple of pence a week into the club’s fund, which then went toward the purchase of a goose just before Christmas. This ensured that everyone, even the poorest families, could enjoy a traditional Christmas dinner. Frequently, local bakers stayed open late on Christmas day and cooked the geese for the poor.

Laura is a student from Ireland in love with books, writing, coffee, and cats.

Manners and Tone of Good Society (1879), the seminal guide to Victorian dining, outlined how to navigate around the vast array of cutlery and serveware in the Victorian age. Touching food with bare hands was not acceptable behavior.

So everyone had to learn to recognize all the different accompaniments to the usual dinner service, such as asparagus servers, marrow scoops, and grape scissors. Oh, and you had to know how to use them as well.

How do you think you would manage if you sat down to a lovely meal and saw any of the items below? Would you be the toast of the town or commit a gastronomic faux pas?

10 Sugar Nips

Sugar was brought to the grocer in cone shapes called “sugar loaves.” Mountains and hats were often named after them due to their distinctive shape. In wealthy households, the mistress of the house would cut up the loaf using sugar nippers to break the hard substance into smaller, usable parts for the table. Only the mistress would do this as sugar was expensive and kept in boxes under lock and key.

The sugar nips were tongs with a flat surface at the end suitable for lifting pieces of sugar. But they were also sturdy and tough. Nips used for cutting were often made from steel, but decorative tongs for table use were often made from silver with elaborate engravings.^[1]

9 Snail Forks

In Victorian England, the lower classes ate snails regularly. These were affectionately called “wall fish” and were served to locals in pubs like the Royal Oak in Shepton Mallet. Eating snails wasn’t only for the upper classes or the French as most people tend to think today.

The snail would be held in one hand, with or without a napkin, and the snail meat would be plucked out of the shell with the other. Delicious!

While one might not have made a full living doing so, a man in Bristol in Victorian times known as “Snailer Jack” sold snails as snack food. People would eat them to ward against—or even cure—tuberculosis. They were also reputed to have a particular property that strengthened the lungs . . . but only if eaten raw.^[2]

Fancy a snail?

8 Marrow Scoops

Picture this scene if you will. You are a Victorian man or woman at a posh dinner party, and your host’s servants present a glorious roast on the table in front of you. You can’t wait to dig in.

But wait! How can you get the delicious marrow out of the bone without offending your host with caveman-like, bone-sucking behavior? A common problem, we know.

In this situation, it’s best to handle your marrow scoop with the narrow, elongated end directed toward the bone.^[3] Scoop out all the marrow you can, and enjoy the envy of your fellow guests as they are forced to leave their bones on the plate.

As identified by the Leeds Museum, the image above shows a marrow scoop from the late 19th century. Marrow scoops from the mid-1700s (which predate the Victorian era) have a longer, narrower shape.

7 Spoon Warmer

Victorian houses were only heated by fires in each room, so the kitchen was often some distance from where the family would actually sit down to eat. As the food was brought to the table, the cutlery would cool down. In turn, this would cause the food to cool faster when it was eaten.

To avoid this problem, the Victorians invented the spoon warmer. A vessel, often with feet, was filled with hot water, and the spoons were inserted into the opening. Warm spoons helped to prevent rich and fatty gravy from congealing on the plates.

Victorian spoon warmers can rarely be found today. Those lucky enough to spot one might find playful designs such as a snail shell sitting on rocks, an egg-shaped oval on little feet, frogs and fish with open mouths, helmets, or hunting horns. As time went on and homes were better heated, these little devices fell out of fashion. But they remain a delightful reminder of Victorian creativity when it came to dining room etiquette.^[4]

6 Caddy Spoons

In the 1760s, the caddy spoon was created as a unique and beautiful accessory for preparing tea in Europe and America. Tea leaves were kept in a tea caddy, a special box designed to keep the leaves fresh and attractively presented. These were often locked at other times as tea was an expensive and precious commodity.

A caddy spoon, which could fit inside the caddy, was used to measure out a portion of tea leaves for the teapot. Certain shapes of shells, shovels, or ladles were made by Victorian silversmiths. As time marched into the 20th century, these accessories were decorated with local scenes, crests, or place names particular to the area and owners’ tastes.

One of the most valuable caddy spoons was sold at auction in 1931 for over £2,000. Designed by Omar Ramsden, his art nouveau spoon was inlaid with semiprecious stones with a knotwork handle.^[5]

5 Asparagus Server

Asparagus was introduced to English society in the 16th century. But it was not until the 18th century that it became a fashionable and exotic addition to meals. Eating asparagus was the height of elegance and sophistication, so what better to serve this de rigueur vegetable than a pair of asparagus servers?

One might wonder what all the fuss was about and why a spoon and fork would not have done just as well. But the Victorians decided that they needed slightly less clumsy apparatus for fine dining.

Silver asparagus tongs are a captivating item that reminds us of a more elegant era. They are still quite useful today if you wish to enjoy a spear or two for supper.^[6]

4 Knife Rest

When our Victorian friends sat down for dinner, there may have been up to 12 different courses! The knife rest was used to keep the single set of utensils clean between courses.

Probably, the knife rest helped to prevent the tablecloth from becoming soiled between courses rather than merely saving the servants the extra trouble of washing more utensils. Most households certainly would not have changed cutlery between courses.

The first knife rests used at the time of Henry VIII would have been made of wood. But as the Victorians always liked to take things one step further, theirs were made from every metal you can think of as well as crystal and glass, pottery, mother-of-pearl, ivory, and horn.^[7]

3 Grape Scissors

These scissors were often decorated with vines and grape designs as they were used to cut a stalk of grapes in the dessert course. Only then were you permitted to use your hands. In Victorian society, there were only rare occasions when dining etiquette would permit the use of hands at the table—for example, when eating fruit or bread.

In a rather clever design quirk, the handles were longer than the blades so that the grape enthusiast could cut deep into the bunch and select the number of grapes he wanted. The blunt ends prevented the fruit from being pierced. These scissors were made of silver to prevent any tarnishing and to last for many years.^[8]

2 Aspic Spoon

The Victorians could not get enough of aspic. For those fortunate few who have not come across aspic, it is a jelly made from gelatin and the stock from meat, poultry, or fish. Other foods, such as eggs or meat, are suspended throughout the mixture.

Aspic stopped the meats within the gelatin from becoming spoiled by preventing contact with the air and any lurking bacteria. This was perfect for the Victorians, who had not yet invented refrigeration. An aspic spoon featured a long bowl at one end that had one sharpened side to help cut through suspended, more solid objects in the jelly.^[9]

1 Crumb Scoop And Tray

The Victorians were a clean and tidy lot who thought nothing was worse than seeing all the crumbs left on the tablecloth following a meal. So they invented the crumb scoop.

Arriving in the 1850s, this ingenious device was used by the servants to clear the tablecloth of any meal detritus, including breadcrumbs, salad leaves, and anything else that missed both mouths and plates. Crumb scoops were commonly made of silver and could be highly decorated with engravings of floral motifs. The scoop handle was made of bone, ivory, mother-of-pearl, ivorine, or wood.^[10]

Alexa lives in Ireland and loves writing about psychology, sociology, anthropology, and anything historical.

The roots of American racism run deep. The country’s troubled history of infighting over the ideal that all men are created equal has often clashed with the harsh reality of life for people of color.

Racial prejudice has always haunted the United States, and it continues in many corners of the country today. Although the conclusion of the US Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolished the institution of slavery, individual states remained free to write their own brutally racist laws (aka “Jim Crow laws”).

Here are 10 disturbing facts about the Jim Crow era in the United States.

10 History Of Jim Crow

The history of Jim Crow laws dates all the way back to the early 1800s when slavery was still legal in the United States. In Jump, Jim Crow, a bizarre stage show that debuted in 1828, Thomas Rice created what he and his audiences thought of as comedy. Rice painted his face black and performed with the supposed gestures and mannerisms of African Americans.

Though stage actors had appeared in blackface before Rice, he popularized the genre in the 1830s and had a disgustingly cultish level of success with it. The name of the show came to represent the patently racist laws and practices that developed a century later.

In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which carried an anti-racist, antislavery message and even featured a character called Jim Crow. In an ironic twist, Rice ended up performing in blackface in stage adaptations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which were unfaithful to the novel and delivered a racist message that mocked African Americans.^[1]

9 Slavery Outlawed

After a long-drawn-out civil war, the federal government made slavery illegal in the United States on December 18, 1865. At that time, Secretary of State William Seward verified the ratification of the Thirteen Amendment to the US Constitution. At least three-quarters of the then 36 states had to vote in favor of ratifying the amendment to abolish slavery across the country.

Twenty-seven states ratified by December 6, 1865. Five more voted in favor by the end of January 1866, and Texas assented in February 1870. However, three states held out until the 20th century. Delaware ratified the amendment in February 1901, Kentucky in March 1976, and Mississippi in February 2013.

Mississippi had actually voted in favor of the amendment in March 1995. But they didn’t send the required paperwork to the National Archives to make it official until 2013 due to a clerical oversight.

Today, many people do not realize that the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party, mainly fought for the rights of blacks during and after the Civil War. Despite opposition from the Democrats, the Republicans passed the Thirteenth Amendment (outlawing slavery), the Fourteenth Amendment (giving blacks equal rights under the law), and the Fifteenth Amendment (giving blacks the right to vote).

After the Thirteenth Amendment was formally ratified in 1865, there was a brief intermission in systemic racism. But it took less than 20 years before many Democrat-dominated state and local governments, primarily in the South, began enacting laws to mandate racial segregation. These came to be called “Jim Crow laws.”

In this long, painful period of US history, slavery was officially abolished but overt racism at the hands of the law was not. The grim period of Jim Crow had begun.^[2]

8 The Civil Rights Act Of 1875

Believe it or not, a civil rights act existed in the United States way back in 1875. Cosponsored by two Republicans, the bill passed 162–99 in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and 38–26 in the Republican-controlled Senate. An impressive seven African-American representatives had debated in favor of passing the bill. On March 1, 1875, Republican President Ulysses S. Grant signed it into law.^[3]

The act would have stopped Jim Crow laws by prohibiting racial segregation. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before the US Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. Although the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, Congress did not have the authority to regulate private persons or corporations under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Nevertheless, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 shows that many people in the 19th century wanted to abolish racial discrimination under the law.

7 Tennessee

Tennessee didn’t even have a recovery period before its racist ways became law. As early as 1866, shortly after the end of the US Civil War, Tennessee passed its first Jim Crow law.

Initially, the state created separate schools for white children and black children. In 1870, Tennessee banned interracial marriage. Then, in 1875, they legalized racial discrimination via private businesses, saying that hotels and other private enterprises could refuse service on the grounds of race.

Shortly thereafter, the infamous “Whites Only” signs began appearing in front of many public establishments. The tragic fact of segregation had just become a reality for the people of Tennessee.^[4]

6 Alabama

Alabama was another Southern state which almost immediately adopted Jim Crow laws after the end of the Civil War. In 1867, they banned interracial marriage. Fines ranged as high as $1,000, which was an exorbitant price to pay in those days.

Several years later, the state passed a law that made black and white children attend separate schools. In 1891, with limited exceptions, railroads were required to have separate cars for black and white passengers.^[5]

As more laws were enacted, bus stations soon had separate waiting areas and ticket windows for black and white people. Bathrooms were segregated by skin color, and white female nurses weren’t allowed to tend to black male patients. It was even illegal for people of different races to play a game of pool together.

5 1930s

The Jim Crow laws that segregated schools, businesses, railways, and more became increasingly oppressive and bizarre as time went on. By the 1930s, it seemed like anything that even implied that blacks and whites were equal was made illegal.

Black men were not allowed to touch white women in any way without risking a charge of rape, even for common gestures as harmless as a handshake. A black man could not offer to light a cigarette for a white woman without being accused of making a romantic overture. This would also land black men in legal trouble.^[6]

Even after the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves, African Americans were still treated as second-class citizens.

4 1940s

Racial discrimination during the Jim Crow era wasn’t confined to the South in the United States. Many photos exist of signs from Northern states establishing their own segregation laws, disallowing whites and blacks from enjoying the same public accommodations.^[7]

Black people were not the only ones who experienced such discrimination. During World War II, Japanese Americans were segregated especially harshly.

By the 1940s, it was illegal in Alabama for white and black people to play games together that involved dice, checkers, dominoes, or cards. It was also unlawful in some areas for white people to sell their homes to people of color, and these laws could be quite detailed.

For instance, in some places, if a person had one-eighth or more of a nonwhite race in his lineage, he was considered to be a person of color. At less than one-eighth, he was considered to be white and was free to use the public accommodations available to white people.

3 The Change Of The 1950s

In the 1950s, attitudes began to change. Support groups and organizations formed in the 1930s and 1940s openly pushed for an end to the Jim Crow era. The “separate but equal” decision of the US Supreme Court in 1896, which had permeated the Jim Crow laws, was growing stale.

In 1955, another monumental act in US history would transpire—the civil disobedience of Rosa Parks. She refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, which was against the law at that time.

Parks was arrested, which set the stage for massive social change. Many claim that the Jim Crow era ended in 1954. That year, in their Brown v. Board of Education decision, the US Supreme Court struck down the 1896 law that had permitted states to segregate public schools. Even so, segregation clearly continued for another decade.^[8]

2 Civil Rights Of The 1960s

The road to racial equality in the US had been paved by the movements of the 1950s. In turn, the 1960s drove political and racial turmoil across those avenues as equality was demanded and the push for a new civil rights act gained traction.

Still, it was a slow process. Demonstrations and civil disobedience were nothing new. However, the culmination of all these movements occurred when groups like the Black Panthers and individuals such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. gained serious support from both black and white people across America.

This caused widespread chaos. Race riots, massive protests, and general societal disarray became the dominant theme of the day.^[9]

1 A New Civil Rights Act

On August 28, 1963, approximately 250,000 people participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The goal was to achieve economic and civil rights for African Americans. At the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, where he told of his dream of a nation without racism and segregation.

With the widespread desire for change, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was ripe to become law with massive backing. It called for the end of an era that had stained the fabric of American history. People are still alive who lived through the Jim Crow era. They remember when it was illegal—based on the color of your skin—to drink from certain water fountains or enter certain establishments.

Finally, after nearly a century of cruel and bizarre laws, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law. Initially proposed by Democratic President John F. Kennedy, the first bill failed. Kennedy thought he had lined up enough support from both Democrats and Republicans, but passage was held up by Democrat Howard W. Smith, an ardent segregationist from Virginia.

After Kennedy was assassinated, Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson used his skill to get the act passed. The main opposition came from the Democrats. Still, Johnson managed to rally enough Democrats and Republicans to vote for a compromise bill, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law on July 2, 1964.^[10]

It prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, as these had all been used to divide people throughout the United States’ tumultuous history. The act still stands as federal law today. Although racism may not be wholly defeated in the United States, it is clear in the eyes of the law that discrimination is an illegal practice that should be forcibly relegated to the dustbin of history.

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There are instances when conflict arises not between states, but within a particular country. There are different reasons why civil wars happen. It can be political, religious or even political divide that drives a country to implode. These are instances when bloody civil wars of modern era could actually take its toll on the population. This could lead to human rights abuses, not to mention hamper progress.

It is common to see both economic and social drawbacks to countries that have engaged in these types of wars. Unfortunately, these wars could go for years or even decades at a time. Here are 12 bloody civil wars of modern era.

List of most brutal civil wars of modern era.

What was the most brutal modern civil war? What was the most recent civil war? Listed below are top 12 bloody civil wars of modern history.

12. Bosnian War

There are countries that are just waiting to erupt. This is exactly the case with Bosnia during the early 1990s. During the early 1990s, we’ve seen the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bosnia being a multi-cultural country has resulted to a civil war. In fact, it has been viewed by many human rights advocates as ethnic cleansing.

Bosnia along with Herzegovina and other former republics under Yugoslavia declared war. Bosnian Serbs attacked mainly the Muslim population in 1992. This civil war lasted for more than three years. Estimated total number of casualties is from 90,000 to 300,000.

The nationalist Croats and Serbs attacked the countryside which can be considered ethnic cleansing. The problem was only resolved by the UN after air strikes and sanctions. In the end, both parties agreed to enter a peace treaty.

11. Sectarian Violence in Pakistan

There are constant attacks to different groups in Pakistan. The usual targets are Sunni, Shia, Ahmad, Hindu and Christian groups. From 1987 to 2007, there were 4,000 deaths between Shia and Sunni sectarian conflicts alone. The groups blamed for the sectarian attacks are TTP, Sunni Militant Groups and even ISIS.

10. Islamic Resistance and Communism in the Philippines

Another one that made it in our list of bloody civil wars of modern era is The Philippine armed conflicts with communist guerrillas and Muslims. The Philippines is familiar with armed conflict. There are many insurgents that the Philippine government is dealing with.

To give you a background of the insurgencies happening in the Philippines, it can all be traced during the Martial Law years in 60s and 70s. Moro National Liberation Front was formed almost at the same timeline as the Communist Party of the Philippines. Both factions were fighting to free the country from a dictator, while the Muslim insurgents are also looking to secede from the country. Most of the gun fights happened in the countryside. Until today, these insurgencies are still present in the country.

The country has tried to enter different treaties in the past in order to potentially stop the gun fight in the countryside. However, it has resulted to more Muslim insurgents, Islamic extremists and a thriving communist guerrilla group.

9. Chinese Civil War

The Chinese Civil War officially started during the the 1920s. However, during the Second World War, both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Ze Dong’s communist party decided to unite in order to defeat the Japanese invaders.

Chang Kai-shek did not believe in democracy. Instead, he believes in ruling China under one ruler which is backed by a military. With right wing tactics, Chiang Kai-shek rooted out opposition in China including communists. What Mao Ze Dong believed in is to utilize the poor people from the countryside and unite them to with the war against Chiang Kai-shek’s forces. By the end of the Chinese Civil War, Taiwan was formed.

What made the Chinese Civil War on our list of bloody civil wars in modern era is the protracted nature of its revolution that incurred 8 million casualties.

8. Sri Lankan Civil War

In 2011, UN released a report saying that the Sri Lankan Civil War has lost over 100,000 lives in a span of 26 years. The war was fought between Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the local government of Sri Lanka.

A war that started in 1983, it only ended in 2009 when the Tigers considered to surrender. Unfortunately, civilian casualty is at 40,000 especially in the last five months of the conflict. With casualty of this magnitude, Sri Lankan Civil War made it in our list of bloody civil wars of modern.

Though peacetime was welcomed by Sri Lankans, there were a number of problems that still emerged after the civil war. For instance, restoration of rule of law has been quite difficult. Also, investigations regarding violations of human rights are still yet to be completed.

7. Angolan Civil War

Angola fought for its independence from Portugal. With the help of the Cubans and Soviet Union, Angola gained its freedom and established a socialist government. Soon after, civil war broke out. Union for Total Independence of Angola or UNITA, backed by the CIA fought against the Movement for the Liberation of Angola. For nearly 27 years, the battle was fought by both sides. It is considered by many as one of the most prolonged civil wars in modern history.

The Angolan Civil War ended in 2002 when Jonas Savimbi was killed. Right after, both parties agreed on having a ceasefire and had an election. Unfortunately, the Angolan Civil War left the economy in ruins, and left 500,000 deaths.

6. The Laos Secret War

The Laotian Civil War, otherwise known as the Secret War was fought between communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government. It was called the Secret War because of CIA’s involvement in the crisis. After the French left the Indochina region, the Royal Lao Government received the power but excluded the anti-colonial armed nationalist movement. The number of people lost during this war is at 450,000 for Laos and 600,000 in Cambodia. Refugees have also exceeded a million. Other than the numbers, another reason why it is considered as part of our list of bloody civil wars of modern era is because of the use of chemical warfare. >> 10 Deadliest Wars In Human History.

5. Somali Civil War

Since 1991, the Somali Civil war is still going on until the present. Home to a number of people, Siad Barre during the late 80s was their unpopular leader. In response, he attacked opposing forces which even accelerated his removal from power. In 1990s, he was reinstated in power using a revolution. After this, Northern part of the country declared independence. However, it is still unrecognized.

Until today, Somalia is among the top countries receiving help from the UN. UN constantly sends peacekeeping forces in order to facilitate aids distributed into the populace.

4. Iraq Civil War

Right after 9-11 when America decided to attack Iraq in search of Weapons of Mass Destruction, it has left the country in ruins. In effect, it has created a civil war that has been responsible for the creation of ISIS. It is part of our list of bloody civil wars because of number of other countries directly or indirectly affected by Iraq’s conflict.

It started when Fallujah and Mosul were conquered by ISIS. This forced the resignation of PM Nouri Al-Maliki. Also, this problem resulted to massive number of refugees and civilian casualties.

3. Boko Haram Insurgency

Boko Haram is a jihadist group that decided to take arms in 2009 against the government of Nigeria. By 2012, there were different factions that have been formed from Boko Haram. The most dominant and violent faction is led by Abubakar Shekau. In 2015, there were other Boko Haram groups that have joined Al Qaeda.

By 2013, 1,000 people already died as a result of this conflict. By 2014, it escalated even more and casualties reached to over 10,000 deaths. Today, the conflict has been seen in other African countries.

2. War in North West Pakistan

Another one making it in our list of bloody civil wars of modern era is the War in North West Pakistan. The War in North West Pakistan is a conflict which is also known as War in Waziristan. The state of Pakistan is involved in an armed conflict with groups such as Terik-i-Taliban-Pakistan (TTP) and ISIS. It started in 2004 when the government was searching for possible Al Qaeda members in Waziristan. Eventually, it has escalated into fully armed resistance. Cumulative number of casualties is at almost 60,000 today and it is still ongoing. >> Political Experiments On Pakistan In 70 Years.

1. Spanish Civil War

During 1936 to 1939, The Spanish Civil War can be considered as one of the bloodiest civil wars in modern history. It is included in our list of bloody civil wars of modern era simply because of the actions of the fascist Nationalist group.

The conflict is supporters of Nationalists led by General Franco and democratically elect president. The thing that makes Spanish Civil War significant in history is its prelude to the Second World War. Nazi Germany supported Franco who eventually ruled the country as a dictator, while Soviet Union supported the opposing side.

There are many conflicts within countries. From rebel groups trying to gain power to religious groups trying to get rid of each other, these are just some of the reasons why some conflicts are present in some countries. However, there are also instances when it is initiated by other factors such as presence of foreign influence such as CIA supporting groups that can protect US interest.

Bloody Civil Wars of Modern Era

1. Spanish Civil War
2. War in North West Pakistan
3. Boko Haram Insurgency
4. Iraq Civil War
5. Somali Civil War
6. The Laos Secret War
7. Angolan Civil War
8. Sri Lankan Civil War
9. Chinese Civil War
10. Islamic Resistance and Communism in the Philippines
11. Sectarian Violence in Pakistan
12. Bosnian War

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The Renaissance wasn’t just a revolution in the arts, but also the sciences, particularly mathematics. There was a marked proliferation of mathematical societies and institutions across Europe around this time, like the Accademia dei Lincei in Italy and the Royal Society in England, which in turn produced some of the best mathematical minds in history. 

10. Marino Ghetaldi

Marin Getaldic, also known as Marino Ghetaldi or Marinus Ghetaldus, was a notable Renaissance mathematician from Dubrovnik, Croatia. Born in the late 16th century, he excelled at math from an early age, and would work with other known mathematicians, like Christopher Clavius and François Viète, throughout his career. 

Ghetaldi was known for reconstructing the lost works of Apollonius and several other mathematical papers, including ones on physics and parabolas. Ghetaldi’s interest in scientific instruments, particularly optical devices, grew after his encounters with Galileo. His most remarkable contributions, however, were in the emerging field of applying algebraic concepts to geometry, which led to the development of Cartesian geometry. His contributions to mathematics and specifically geometry have since been acknowledged by scholars like Christian Huygens and Edmond Halley. 

9. Gemma Frisius

Born as Regnier Gemma in Friesland, Netherlands, in 1508, Gemma Frisius was a mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer during the Renaissance period. Despite a difficult childhood marked by poverty, Gemma went on to study medicine and mathematics at the University of Louvain, eventually becoming a leading theoretical mathematician and professor at the same university. 

Gemma made important contributions in the development of maps, globes, and other astronomical instruments. In 1529, he published a corrected version of Apianus’s Cosmographia. He also designed a combined terrestrial and celestial globe, along with his book De Principiis Astronomiae Cosmographicae, which introduced map designs that would remain in use for decades to come. Gemma described a unique method to determine longitude using a clock and later expanded it to finding the longitude at sea, which turned out to be the solution to the long-standing problem of finding the longitude at sea. 

8. John Napier

John Napier was a Scottish mathematician and theological writer known for his invention of logarithms. He was born in 1550 in Merchiston Castle, near Edinburgh, Scotland, though we don’t know much else about his early life.

Napier was always interested in the inventions of war, as he worked on various military devices throughout his career, like burning mirrors, artillery pieces, and a metal chariot. His most notable contribution to mathematics was his invention of logarithms. He started working on them around 1594, though his work on the topic was only published after his death. Logarithms simplified calculations, especially multiplication, by transforming them into simple addition problems.

7. Scipione Del Ferro

Also known as Scipio del Ferro was a Renaissance-era mathematician from Bologna, Italy. Born in 1465, he attended the University of Bologna, where he’d later work as a lecturer in arithmetic and geometry in 1496 – a position he held until his death in 1526. Although none of his original work has survived, Ferro is credited with finding a solution to an unsolved cubic equation at the time. 

This solution hugely contributed to the study of fractions with irrational denominators, though his mathematical achievements largely remained unknown during his lifetime. Most of his findings were written in a personal notebook, which was passed on to his son-in-law, Hannibal Nave, after his death. The notebook contained Ferro’s solution to the cubic equation, which gained popularity when another influential Renaissance-era mathematician, Girolamo Cardano, discovered and published it in one of his own works.

6. Regiomontanus

Regiomontanus, also called Johannes Müller von Königsberg, was a prominent German scholar born in Königsberg, Bavaria in 1436. He received education at home and later attended the Universities of Leipzig and Vienna, where he became a pupil and friend of Georg von Peuerbach – another notable astronomer of the time.

Regiomontanus and Peuerbach would go on to collaborate on many astronomical topics, like the discrepancy between the predicted and observed positions of planets and lunar eclipses. They also worked on translating and critiquing Ptolemy’s Almagest, which Regiomontanus completed after Peuerbach’s death. This translation, known as the Epitome of the Almagest, played a huge role in Copernicus’ refutation of Ptolemy’s geocentric model. 

5. Luca Pacioli

Luca Pacioli was born in Borgo San Sepolcro, Tuscany around 1445. He’d go on to become an influential mathematician and educator of his era, receiving his early training in Venice and Rome under the guidance of figures like Piero della Francesca and Leon Battista Alberti. Pacioli’s passion for math led him to compile and summarize many works of his contemporaries.

Pacioli’s works not only made the mathematical knowledge of the time accessible to more people, but also introduced the modern system of double-entry bookkeeping, leading many to regard him as the ‘Father of Accounting’. His use of journals, ledgers, and the concept of balancing debits with credits massively contributed to the development of modern accounting practices. Pacioli is also remembered for his collaboration with Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, which further improved his own work. 

4. Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia

Often referred to as just Tartaglia, Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia was an Italian mathematician and physicist who lived from 1499 to 1557. He saw war and destruction at an early age, as he survived the French sack of Brescia in 1512 that left him severely injured. Despite these serious challenges, Tartaglia was good at math and eventually settled in Venice as a mathematics teacher.

Tartaglia made many contributions to the fields of physics and mathematics, particularly ballistics. He refuted Aristotle’s claim that air sustained motion, claiming instead that air resisted motion and that projectile physics should be studied in conditions without any air resistance. His groundbreaking work on ballistics, including his 1537 book, Nova Scientia, published in 1537, laid the foundation for the modern science of projectiles. Tartaglia also made notable contributions to other areas of mathematics, as he was one of the first mathematicians to provide workable solutions for cubic equations.

3. Francois Viète

François Viète was a Renaissance-era French mathematician and astronomer who made many contributions to the field of algebra. Born in Fontenay-le-Comte, France, in 1540, Viète studied law at the University of Poitiers before beginning his career as an attorney. His mathematical journey began when he was hired to educate the daughter of a prominent military leader, where he wrote some of his earliest treatises and works. 

France experienced some of its most turbulent and politically-unstable times during Viète’s lifetime, as there was an ongoing war between the Protestant and Catholic factions of the empire. Despite that, he continued work as a mathematician for Henry IV, where he was tasked with deciphering code against other European powers. 

His most notable contribution to mathematics is his formulation of the first systematic algebraic notations in his book In Artem Analyticam Isagoge, and to a lesser extent in the Canon Mathematicus, which deals with the concepts of trigonometry and astronomy. 

2. Tycho Brahe

While most people have likely never heard of him, Tycho Brahe, born in Sweden in 1546, made many fundamental contributions to the field of astronomy. Raised by his uncle, Jørgen Brahe, Tycho initially studied law at the University of Copenhagen. However, he would soon turn to astronomy after witnessing a total solar eclipse at the age of 14, which sparked his interest in the subject. 

Tycho continued his astronomy studies at the University of Leipzig, where he made his first recorded observations. He largely worked on improving the field through accurate observations and precise data, which led him to build his own observatory near Copenhagen. There, he designed and built advanced instruments, calibrated them, and carried out nightly observations. 

Tycho Brahe’s contributions to astronomy were profound, as they laid the foundation for future discoveries. Even before the advent of the telescope, Tycho was able to accurately map the entire Solar System, along with the positions of more than 777 fixed stars. His work challenged many prevailing theories of the time, like Aristotle’s notion of an immutable universe, and set the stage for other revolutionary insights of the coming years, like the heliocentric model proposed by Copernicus. 

1. Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician and astronomer who massively advanced our understanding of planets. His three fundamental laws of planetary motion revolutionized the field and are in use to this day, as they transformed Copernicus’s heliocentric view into a dynamic universe with non-circular planetary orbits.

Apart from his achievements in astronomy, Kepler made important contributions to optics and geometry, including the first proof of logarithms and an explanation for the behavior of light inside telescopes. Interestingly, Kepler’s scientific work remained intertwined with his theological and astrological beliefs throughout his life, as he believed that the universe’s design was governed by God. Regardless, some of his works were so influential that they paved the way for other phenomenal works of the future, including some of Isaac Newton’s foundational principles of physics.