Colonialism gets a bad rep these days, often with good reason. You’d have to be a madman to look at King Leopold’s adventures in the Congo, for example, and conclude that the Belgians were awesome imperial overlords. Same deal with the slave-trading powers.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Things The US Took From Britain

But that’s not the whole story of colonialism. Move beyond the headline atrocities, and a more nuanced picture begins to emerge. Far from being a nonstop cavalcade of horrors, colonialism often resulted in some seriously awesome, surprising stuff.

10 Spreading Good Government

Most of us kind of take democracy and functioning government for granted. But a largely democratic world was by no means inevitable. For most of human history, “government” meant a military dictator or crazy king telling you precisely where to live, what to wear, and when to die in battle for some pointless cause.

So why does most of the world now at least pay lip service to democratic norms? For that, you can thank the European colonial powers. Wherever the British went, they instituted governments that looked like their own. That meant parliaments, an efficient civil service, and a basic package of democracy. The French, meanwhile, folded their conquered territories into France itself, promoting Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite.

When decolonization finally rolled around, many of those democratic institutions remained in place.

9 Creating Modern Medicine

For colonial powers, tropical diseases were a constant pain in the derriere. Asia, Africa, and South America were swimming in bugs that had a nasty tendency to kill colonists and subjects alike. That meant unnecessary expenditure, time and men lost, and a problem extracting that sweet, sweet natural wealth.

The solution? Throw everything modern medicine had at the problem.

Europe was at the vanguard of modern medicine in the 19th century. The British discovered the antimalarial properties of quinine, which is still our only effective antimalarial. The French became specialists in tropical medicine thanks to their North African holdings. Public health in general received a massive boost thanks to techniques learned in the chaos of the colonies.

Even conquered natives benefited from this, in the form of hospitals and new treatments pioneered in Europe. It’s no stretch to say modern medicine is a by-product of imperialism.

8 Economic Booms

Of course, colonialism isn’t something that exists only in that fairy tale land we call “the past.” Welcome to Africa, where the Chinese are engaging in a massive exercise in 21st-century colonialism. According to Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo, the resulting economic boom has been the best thing to happen to the continent in decades.

Her data shows that this new colonialism has created jobs for millions of Africans and lifted many out of poverty. The boon from Chinese investment has massively benefited the poor in Africa and China alike.

That’s not to say all colonial adventures improve people’s lives. Spanish dalliances in the New World memorably crashed Spain’s economy. But it does show that imperialism can be handled well, in a way that benefits the many rather than the few.

7 Global Languages

Remember the story of the Tower of Babel? Humans were getting all uppity with their engineering prowess, so God scrambled their languages so they could no longer cooperate. Well, colonialism was sort of like that in reverse. From hundreds of thousands of different tongues, the age of empires whittled humanity down to just a handful of big ones.

Seriously. There are currently 106 countries where English is spoken, many of them former colonies. Spanish is spoken in 31, modern standard Arabic in 58, and French in 53. Taken together, pretty much the entire world speaks at least a smattering of English, Spanish, Arabic, French, Russian, or Mandarin—all languages associated with imperial nations. And that has massive advantages.

The ability to communicate breaks down barriers to trade and understanding. It allows wildly different countries to find common ground. While it’s not a prerequisite, it’s certainly helpful in uniting people.

6 The Creation Of Modern Art

Who likes Picasso? What about Art Deco architecture? Or modern sculpture? We’re betting that at least half of you said yes to one of those. In that case, you should probably be thankful for French and British colonization of Africa. It was the display of African tribal art in Paris and London at the dawn of the 20th century that inspired all of these movements.

Artists like Picasso and Matisse saw the treasures from the Ivory Coast or Benin City and were inspired. Architects were seduced by the simple, powerful forms of ruined African temples. It was the imperial trade that brought these objects to public view and allowed them to inspire everyone from designers to artists to architects.

It’s incredible to think that, without African art, something like Art Deco wouldn’t exist. New York would look completely different. The cultural benefits of colonialism are all around us.

5 The Development Of Infrastructure

Over the last few years, parts of Africa have been undergoing an infrastructure boom. Great railways have unrolled across the plains of Nigeria, the mountains of Ethiopia, and along the lakeside shores of Uganda and Kenya. The projects are expected to send local economies booming, lifting millions out of poverty.

These vital new railways didn’t appear out of nowhere. They’re the remains of colonial infrastructure, being updated for the first time in decades. Ironically, the economic boom these railways will bring is partly thanks to Africa’s former colonizers.

Wherever the great empires went, they left robust infrastructure in their wake. India still uses Raj-era rolling stock today, transporting millions across the subcontinent. Old colonial roads are still in use alongside ports, hospitals, schools, and universities. While the infrastructure initially benefited the colonizers, it has been repurposed to help the colonized.

4 Removal Of Brutal Occupying Powers

The story of the Spanish conquest is portrayed as one of bloodthirsty Europeans super-murdering millions of Aztecs. While that definitely happened, there is one part of the story that gets left out: The Aztecs themselves were occupiers who were in the middle of conquering neighboring states when Cortez arrived. And you’d better believe they were brutal.

The Aztecs worked captured enemies to death. They sacrificed them by ripping out their hearts. They forced prisoners into cannibalism. They murdered children to appease the Sun. The Spanish, too, were mega-jerks, but most of their jerkiness came from accidentally importing smallpox and running off with people’s gold. Compared to the bloodthirsty Aztecs, they were practically saints.

You see this time and again in colonial societies. Before the British arrived, the Mughals had marched over India and razed Delhi to the ground eight times in eight centuries, building skull pyramids from its inhabitants’ remains. Even at the Raj’s most brutal, no massacres touched the mass murder and enslavement of those times. And while we’re on the subject . . .

3 Increased Peace

For the vast majority of human history, life wasn’t fun. Competition for resources forced tribes into a nearly perpetual state of warfare. In Central America, for example, various Maya cities were only one failed harvest away from massacring one another.

Steven Pinker has identified the creation of nation states as integral to ending this violence. In some places, the rise of those states was the result of fierce battles and endless politicking. In others, it was a direct result of colonization. Suddenly, once-competing tribes were bunged together and told to get along and swear allegiance to France, Britain, Spain, or wherever. While that created a ton of resentment, it halted the almost continuous cycle of killing, forging brand new national identities that still exist today (like Indian or Ghanaian).

Sure, in some cases, like the Belgians in the Congo, the murder rate went up after colonization. But the overarching story is one of enforced peace, which isn’t great, but it’s still better than no peace at all.

2 The Creation Of Modern Tourism

One peculiar side effect of the age of empires was the creation of modern tourism. Before the 19th century, going abroad was restricted to the rich and the scientifically curious. Middle-class people in Britain who wanted to go somewhere exciting went to the pub.

Then the British Empire arose, bringing with it tales of adventure in far-off places with exotic, romantic names like India, Egypt, Jamaica, and Australia. Realizing the public hunger for these places, a guy named Thomas Cook started offering package tours to the empire’s outposts. In one fell swoop, the concept of the modern tourist was born.

According to the Journal of Tourism History, empires provided the perfect vector for the development of a global tourist industry. By repackaging places like Australia from a convict island to a “Down Under paradise,” people like Cook changed how we thought of these places forever.

1 It Saved Millions Of Lives

While their rulers and leaders were off gadding about the globe, it’s worth remembering that Europe’s masses were living through hard times. Mass famines were common. France alone suffered 40 devastating nationwide famines between 1500 and 1800. Millions were dying every decade.

Into this chaos stepped an unlikely savior: Peru. Spanish conquistadors had brought back a wonderous foodstuff from the colonized nation. It was durable, easy to farm, full of nutrients, and nearly always gave a bumper harvest. It was the potato.

Incredible as it may seem, introducing the potato to Europe saved millions of lives. Suddenly, crops no longer failed en masse. Starvation rates plummeted. Populations in rural economies like Ireland exploded, and rates of stuff like scurvy dropped off. Without Spain’s imperialism in the New World, this continent-transforming food would have never been adopted, and your family tree would probably be a heck of a lot emptier.

Everything in moderation, as the old adage goes. As it turns out, that couldn’t be more accurate, as research continues to shed light on how the modern world is damaging our health. We might be living longer today than our ancestors did, but the current era isn’t as health-friendly as we might think.

10Feeling Guilty Can Damage Your Health

Every January, people around the world resolve to leave their bad habits behind and embark on a journey of self-improvement as the new year begins. Then, a few weeks later, everyone starts to feel a little guilty for not following through.

But while a little guilt can encourage someone to make positive changes, too much guilt is a different story. Feeling guilty isn’t just unpleasant—it could be causing damage to your immune system. Researchers from Hull University found that people who felt guilty about their favorite activities had decreased levels of the antibody immunoglobulin A in their saliva. So if two people like to unwind with a box of wine and some trashy reality shows, but only one feels guilty about it, then the guilty person is more likely to catch viral and bacterial infections. That means your favorite “guilty pleasure” could be the reason you seem to catch colds more often than someone who just calls it “pleasure.”

9Light Pollution

According to astronomers, the majority of Americans under 40 have never experienced true darkness. Urban areas experience a phenomenon called “sky glow,” where artificial light is scattered by water droplets, creating a dome of light over the city. Even inside our own homes, the little lights on electronics like alarm clocks and televisions stay on 24/7—and our bodies just weren’t built to handle that. In fact, light pollution in the developed world is now so bad that it’s damaging our health. According to physicist Eric Vandernoot, the human body is hardwired for a cycle of light and darkness. Overuse of light in the evening is connected to a number of health problems, including increased risk of diabetes, obesity, depression, prostate cancer, and breast cancer.

Sleep disorders are another big problem. In fact, light pollution may have actually changed the entire way we experience sleep. Before the industrial revolution, it was common for people to sleep for two periods of around four hours each, separated by one to three hours “of quiet wakefulness.” Even today, studies have shown that people tend to revert back to this sleep pattern once light pollution is taken out of the equation.

And even if you buy blackout curtains and cover those flashing LEDs, you might still be in danger from excess light, since the streetlights are still on outside. Turning streetlights off has actually been found to drastically reduce crime (even criminals need to be able to see). Of course, that might not be much comfort to anyone trying to find their way home in the pitch dark, but at least they won’t get mugged.

8Added Sugar Is Worse Than You Realized

Sugar itself isn’t bad for you—glucose is essential to powering the body, especially the brain. The problem is that people are now consuming more sugar than ever, and you can definitely have too much of a good thing. And while our ancestors got most of their sugar from fruits and grains, these days most of our sugar is added to various processed foods—the average American eats 27.5 teaspoons of added sugar a day. It’s hard to cut back, too—the brain has a built-in trigger to let you know when you should stop eating and sugar consumption makes it less effective over time.

It’s only relatively recently that we’ve started to realize just how bad too much sugar can be for you. In the 1970s, when the public became concerned about fat in foods, manufacturers simply replaced fat with sugar. Since then, sugar consumption has shot up worldwide. Which is unfortunate, since sugar is now linked to high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, premature aging of the skin, dementia, brain damage, poor metabolism, and liver damage. Added sugar might even be damaging to our very DNA. In fact, some scientists now regard sugar as a problem potentially as damaging as alcohol and tobacco.

7Climate Change

We already know that global climate change is making Mother Earth sick, but it may also cause major health issues in humans. As our oceans get warmer, toxic algae blooms will increase in likelihood, area, and duration. Algae like Alexandrium catenella can contaminate seafood and cause everything from vomiting to death by paralysis.

Meanwhile, as the Earth gets drier, more dust will be blown into the ocean, spurring the growth of dangerous bacteria—poisoning caused by bacteria of the genus Vibrio in seafood is already up 85 percent since 1996. Rapid urban growth means that many sewer systems are already close to overflowing and contaminating our water sources—in Milwaukee, it currently only takes 4.3 centimeters (1.7 in) of rain a day for this to happen. As climate change makes flooding more likely, this could become a real problem. Between the flooding and the increased bacterial growth in the oceans, don’t be surprised if water-borne diseases make a comeback in the developed world.

6Lack Of Sleep

It might be a cliche, but in our fast-paced modern world many people just don’t get enough sleep. And researchers are increasingly concerned about just how dangerous that might be. In fact, men with chronic insomnia who sleep less than six hours per night are substantially more likely to die young than normal sleepers. In one study, 51.1 percent of male insomniacs were dead within 14 years, as opposed to just 9.1 percent of regular sleepers. Oddly, this only appears to affect men—women with chronic insomnia have only slightly higher mortality rates than average. That might be because men are more likely to suffer from severe insomnia than women, even though women are more likely to have insomnia overall.

While insomnia itself isn’t deadly, it will slowly wear a person down by not allowing enough sleep for the body to rest, recover, and revitalize, and long-term sleep loss is now known to cause irreversible brain damage by killing off neurons. Even just working night shifts can badly damage your health. There is also no such thing as being able to “catch up on sleep”—taking naps on the weekend won’t make up for lack of sleep during the week.

5Phones And Tablets

Of course, trouble sleeping isn’t helped by a smartphone buzzing through the night because you forgot to set it to silent—and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Even if you seem to get enough sleep during the night, using bright electronics like phones, tablets, and e-readers right before bed can really mess with your body. Harvard Medical School conducted a study where people would read a real book before bed for five days and then use an iPad for the next five days. Reading on an iPad made it substantially more difficult for people to fall asleep. Once they did nod off, they experienced less REM sleep and were thus less alert in the morning.

On a cellular level, participants who used an iPad before bed were found to have delayed the release of the sleep hormone melatonin by around 90 minutes. The specific kind of light given off by electronic devices confuses our internal clock by affecting the circadian pacemakers in our brains. According to PEW Research, 61 percent of Americans aged 18–29 reported keeping their cell phones next to the bed in order not to miss updates, calls, or texts during the night. But if you really do need a tech bump before bed, put down the smartphone and opt for something like the original Kindle, which doesn’t emit light.

4Suppressing Anger

Being unwilling to engage in a constructive argument about something that’s bothering you can wreak havoc on your health. Holding in anger increases stress, which in turn shortens lifespans. There is such a thing as healthy anger and it can be an effective coping mechanism. Anger is also an adaptive trait that can encourage risk-taking. On the flip-side, chronic anger expressed in explosive bursts is linked to high blood pressure, a weak immune system, strokes, cancer, heart disease, and digestive issues. A study by the University of Michigan found that couples who suppressed their anger had a higher mortality rate than couples who argued their problems out.

Learning to manage anger and conflict effectively is vital to health, but many people don’t understand how to deal with their anger, repressing it and effectively punishing themselves for their feelings. Psychologists say that it is not uncommon for people to experience low self-esteem because they deal with anger ineffectively—which can in turn have disastrous consequences for relationships, work performance, and mental health.

3Antibiotics Can Kill Helpful Bacteria

The development of antibiotics in the 20th century was one of the most important breakthroughs in human history—but it came with some unintended side effects. Humans are far more dependent on bacteria than science realized until quite recently (there are 10 times more bacterial cells than human cells in your body) and antibiotics tend to kill off the good bacteria with the bad. For example, bacteria in the human gut helps to digest food and boosts the immune system. That’s why a course of antibiotics often results in diarrhea and other stomach problems.

Researchers from New York University have also found that giving antibiotics to newborn mice made them more likely to develop metabolic disorders later in life. At that age, their guts were still being colonized by bacteria and the antibiotics disrupted this process—with long-term implications. The study suggests that human babies who receive antibiotics might be more prone to obesity and diabetes once they grow up. Of course, in most cases, the potential consequences of using antibiotics are very mild compared to the alternatives. Used judiciously, antibiotics are still one of medicine’s most important tools.

2Noise Pollution

Obviously, a sudden loud noise could damage your hearing, but what about the constant hum of noise that surrounds us every day? Spinning hard drives, passing cars, sirens in the distance, whirling fans—it is almost impossible to escape noise pollution in the modern world. Every year, around 30 million Americans are exposed to dangerous levels of noise as part of their job. But even people who don’t experience occupational noise hazards suffer from secondhand noise pollution. Hearing loss can lead to communication issues, discrimination, poor performance at work and school, loneliness, and depression.

Low-frequency sounds, such as vibrations caused by passing traffic, can have a direct effect on health. People living in areas with elevated noise levels have correspondingly high levels of stress hormones, and the World Health Organization has warned that noise pollution is a risk factor in developing heart disease. Noise pollution can also cause high blood pressure, sleeplessness, breathing problems, cardiovascular issues, increased heart rates, and even brain changes. Studies have also shown that high levels of noise can badly impact young children, having a significant negative effect on cognitive performance.

1Retiring

The dream for many Americans is to work hard enough to be able to retire and relax, but health-wise it isn’t that simple. Working a job you hate can damage your mental and physical health, which is pretty worrying when you consider that only 13 percent of Americans report enjoying their work. Even if you’re one of the lucky 13 percent, working too hard can still seriously damage your health. The average work week is now around 47 hours and a Gallup poll showed that 21 percent of full-time workers put in 50–59 hours a week, while 18 percent worked more than 60 hours a week.

And while working hard for retirement might sound like a good tradeoff, retirement itself can cause a decline in mental and physical health. Compared to similarly aged people who are working, retired people are up to 40 percent more likely to suffer from clinical depression. They are also 60 percent more likely to have a diagnosed physical ailment, although it’s not clear if that’s because people with medical issues tend to retire earlier anyway. The lesson is that moderation is important and the healthiest choices involve a fair balance between rest and work.

Kristance is a freelance writer and travel addict currently living in Argentina. She’s always “that person” who will bore everyone by blurting out facts awkwardly at inappropriate moments. She sometimes writes about her travel adventures on diggingtoroam.com and constantly adds ridiculous posts to instalaugh.tumblr.com. The most exciting thing that happened to her in 2014 was when Jewel retweeted her. If you want to hop on that Twitter bandwagon check out Kristance’s account.

History isn’t always kind to the sisters in the shadows. Traditionally, their opportunities were less, even though many were equal to or more brilliant than their famous siblings. They were the muses who inspired and the heroes who walked away for all the wrong reasons when fame came. Sometimes, their lives were tragic.

10 Maria Anna Mozart

Maria Anna Mozart (left above) was a musical genius. A child prodigy before her brother, Wolfgang Amadeus (center above), she dropped jaws all over Europe. At only 12, she fluently performed difficult piano pieces. She might even have been the root of Wolfgang’s remarkable legacy: Maria was trained only by her father, Leopold (right above), a court musician, but both Maria and Leopold guided Amadeus from age five onward. Amadeus received top-class training and toured for years, playing with Maria in front of thousands.

When Maria turned 18, Leopold terminated her musical career because it wasn’t acceptable for women to tour as musicians. Amadeus never lost admiration for his gifted sibling, though. In 1770, he wrote to Maria, praising one of her compositions, which he called “beautiful.” Unfortunately, the world will never hear the piece that so impressed Amadeus Mozart; it has been lost.

9 Rosalie Poe

Many aspects of Edgar Allan Poe’s life were weird, but the life of his sister, Rosalie, two years his junior, was tragic. From a young age, their nursemaid pacified them both with gin and opium. The two lost their parents early on. Rosalie was adopted by Mrs. Mackenzie, who had helped the poverty-stricken Poe family. Edgar was adopted by the Allan family.

Rosalie’s mental and physical development didn’t progress beyond a certain level, possibly from the alcohol and drugs she was fed as a child. She suffered from melancholy and weakness. Even worse, her brother had no time for her. After her adoptive mother died and war left the rest of the Mackenzies destitute, Rosalie was forced to live on the streets. By this time, Edgar had already died. Eventually completely broken, Rosalie died in a charity home.

8 The Wilde Sisters

Emily and Mary were Oscar Wilde’s half-sisters. Whether he knew about their existence or not remains unknown. They were the illegitimate offspring of Oscar’s father, an esteemed surgeon who went through great pains to keep the girls out of sight—even when they died.

In 1871, when Emily was 24 and Mary 22, he sent them to live with a relative in Monaghan, Ireland. A welcome ball was held in their honor. During a waltz, Emily’s dress caught fire near the fireplace, and while trying to put the flames out, Mary’s clothing also ignited. Suffering full-body burns, Mary perished within days, but Emily languished for three weeks before the end came. Due to the influence of their father, their deaths received minimal newspaper coverage, only a small obituary with changed names.

7 Muriel Earhart

Amelia Earhart’s sister was an activist, author, and award winner. Amelia might have gotten the media coverage and the immortality due to her famous disappearance, but Muriel made waves in different places.

For most of her life, Muriel lived in Medford, Massachusetts, where she taught high school English. Very active in her community, Muriel helped others, taught, and sat on several committees and organizations. She was Medford’s “Citizen of the Year” in 1979, and award-winning poetry flowed from her pen. Muriel also wrote educational articles, her husband’s biography, and (unsurprisingly) the story of Amelia Earhart. She lived to be 98 and died in her sleep in 1998.

6 Katharine Wright

The Wright brothers not only had a sister, but she flew with them. Born in 1874, Katharine became the only Wright sibling to hold a college degree. While working as a teacher, she also handled her brothers’ business affairs and managed to charm investors with her trademark shyness. She encouraged Orville and Wilbur in their flight experiments, kept the press on track (staving off many rumors), dealt with sponsors, warded off the weirdos, and supplied information to scientific requests.

When Orville crashed during one of his flights, killing his passenger and injuring himself grievously, she nursed him back to health. France awarded the Wrights the Legion of Honor, and Katharine remains one of the few US women to hold this award. In her fifties, she married an old friend, but three years later in 1929, an aggressive case of pneumonia claimed her life.

5 Ilse Braun

Ilse Braun (left above) was a receptionist for a Jewish doctor when her sister, Eva, got involved with Hitler. The eldest of three Braun sisters, Ilse was the one who kept away from Nazi ideals. Eventually forced to quit her job for her own safety once the Nuremburg Laws were passed, Ilse resisted Eva’s attempts to get her a job with Hitler’s personal physician. She also didn’t believe Eva’s second suicide attempt was serious, though Hitler fell for it. (Eva drank too few pills to actually overdose.)

It was inevitable that Ilse would meet with the fuhrer. When she did, she was not impressed. She thought Hitler looked better in his propaganda portraits than he did in real life, and she found his hands rather white and feminine. Later, Ilse became a deft journalist for a right-wing newspaper. She passed away in 1979, in Munich, from cancer.

4 Paula Hitler

Paula was the only full sibling of Adolf Hitler. As a boy, Hitler was beaten by their father, and in turn, Adolf beat his sister. One of her earliest memories was a teenage Hitler hitting her in the face when she was eight. The Hitler children were seriously dysfunctional; Paula believed being manhandled by her brother was “good for her education.”

Researchers were stunned by a discovery regarding Paula Hitler. Historically seen as the innocent victim of her brother’s madness, newly unearthed Russian interrogation papers revealed that she was engaged to a particularly horrific Nazi: euthanasia doctor Erwin Jekelius, who gassed 4,000 people. Unlike Eva’s sister Ilse, Paula went along with the Nazi movement. The Russians caught her fiance before they could marry, and Paula ended up living under a false name near Berchtesgaden. She died in 1960.

3 Wilhelmina Van Gogh

With the spotlight on Vincent van Gogh cutting off his own ear, few are aware that his sister, Wilhelmina, spent decades in a psychiatric institution. Born in 1862, she was the artist’s youngest sister. After her two brothers died when she was in her early thirties, Wilhelmina started working at a hospital. She was also one of the first feminists and helped raise money to open the Dutch national bureau for women’s work.

In terms of historical records, Wilhelmina disappeared until 1902, when she was placed in psychiatric care with a dementia diagnosis at age 40. According to records, she spent another 40 years in the lounge just sitting in her chair and had to be force-fed. What happened during the years between working at the hospital and reappearing in a madhouse, or even if she was truly insane, will probably never be known.

2 Sundari Nanda

Princess Sundari Nanda was a much-loved figure during her life but is nearly unknown outside Buddhist communities today. This remarkable woman was not only the half-sister of the Buddha, but she also became enlightened.

Inspired by the Buddha, Sundari’s mother became the first nun of the new belief system, and later, Sundari followed her into the order. However, she did so out of family obligation and was more preoccupied with her beauty and popularity than her work as a nun. Noticing this, the Buddha summoned her. He gently instructed her in a difficult lesson: that all youth and beauty fade.

This vision so shook Sundari that she realized the impermanence of everything. Through intense meditation, she broke free from vanity. Her dedication brought her enlightenment, peace, and her brother’s recognition that she was best in the practice of jhana—complete meditative absorption.

1 Ama Jetsun Pema

As a child, Jetsun played in the gardens of her brother’s palace. Her brother was, and still is, the 14th Dalai Lama. Before tensions with China exiled her brother to India, Jetsun was sent there to start school. The Catholic environment prevented her from pursuing Buddhism, but she picked up English and French. Hoping to work for her brother, she studied at a secretarial college in London. But then fate threw Jetsun into a role that would comfort many refugees.

Refugee children, smuggled from Tibet to India, landed under Jetsun’s care when her sister fell ill and could no longer manage them. Soon, the Tibetan Children’s Village was founded, the first of many. Throughout the years, Jetsun has provided education and hugs for thousands of children. Fondly nicknamed “The Mother of Tibet,” the 73-year-old is finally starting to study Buddhism.

Jackie Robinson famously broke baseball’s color barrier as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. But he’s not alone in having an impact on the civil rights movement through his position as an athlete, and many lesser-known figures played sports while positively affecting society through civil rights advocacy.

10Peter Norman

This Australian sprinter surprised many observers of the 1968 Olympics by taking the silver in the 200-meter dash. Norman finished second to American Tommie Smith and ahead of Smith’s teammate, John Carlos, setting the stage for what may be the most recognizable piece of sports photography ever. Smith and Carlos each wore black gloves and raised their fists in the air in the Black Power Salute. While Norman stands somewhat anonymously to the side, he actually played a significant role in the photo. He suggested that Smith, who was wearing both gloves before the ceremony, give the other glove to Carlos so that both men could join in the salute.

Many who see the photo do not immediately notice that all three men—Smith, Carlos, and Norman—wear pins reading “Olympic Project for Human Rights,” representing a group opposing racism in sports. This act of solidarity caused Norman a great deal of trouble in his home country of Australia (he was not selected for the 1972 team despite holding the fifth-fastest time in the world), but it served as a powerful and enduring image of unity in the fight for equality.

9Dock Ellis

Dock Ellis was quite a character and likely is best known for the no-hitter he threw while high on LSD. That notoriety is unfortunate given how much he accomplished as a civil rights advocate during his playing days and as a drug and alcohol counselor once his career ended. He never wavered in standing up to the injustices of inequality, and he took action as far back as his high school career, once refusing to play in game as a protest against the coach’s racism.

Ellis was very outspoken, and he was never one to let someone get away with an injustice. He challenged manager Sparky Anderson to start him in the All-Star Game so that he could face Vida Blue, saying that Anderson “wouldn’t pitch two brothers against each other.” Despite some of his on-field antics—which include tying the MLB record for being hit by pitches, an act he admitted was intentional—Ellis worked diligently in charitable endeavors, most notably helping to found the Black Athletes Foundation for Sickle Cell Research in 1971.

Among the many men who appreciated Ellis’s efforts in civil rights was Jackie Robinson, who wrote a moving letter praising Ellis and advising him on some of the difficulties he would encounter. Footage from a recently released documentary on Ellis shows him reading the letter, which moved him to tears even several decades after it was received.

8The Boston Celtics & Bill Russell

Boston—owing perhaps to protests and riots in the 1970s after Boston public schools were desegregated by a court order—has had to endure a stigma as a racist town. But the city’s hometown basketball team, the Boston Celtics, was among the most progressive when it came to matters of race. The team was the first in professional basketball to draft an African-American player in Chuck Cooper, whom they selected in 1950. The Celtics were also the first in North American sports to hire an African-American coach when Bill Russell took over the team from the legendary Red Auerbach in 1966, a time of significant unrest throughout the country.

Russell is known as one of the most successful professional athletes in history, but he has also been an outspoken advocate of civil rights, and he has recently spoken out in support of gay athletes as they endure what Russell sees as issues black athletes encountered when he played. In 2010, Russell was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, for his work as “an impassioned advocate of human rights.”

7The Starting Five At Texas Western In 1966

Texas Western’s role in the civil rights movement was something of a surprise to them, as many did not realize that they were members of the first collegiate basketball team to field an all-African-American starting lineup—and, ultimately, the first to win an NCAA Championship. In recollecting the game, most of the Texas Western players recall not understanding its importance until years later, when strangers would approach them to thank them for opening doors that had previously been shut.

That championship game, played against Kentucky, took on greater significance after famous Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp reportedly declared that no all-black team could defeat his all-white squad. Pat Riley, then a member of the Kentucky squad, recalled how motivated Texas Western was after learning of Rupp’s comments, saying, “It was a violent game. I don’t mean there were any fights—but they were desperate and they were committed and they were more motivated than we were.”

Ultimately, Texas Western’s coach, Don Haskins, did not choose his starting five because of their race but rather in spite of it. He simply wanted to win, and those five gave him the best opportunity to do so. His assistant, Moe Iba, confirmed this, saying, “The fact that he was doing something historic by playing five blacks, that probably never crossed Don’s mind. Hell, he’d have played five kids from Mars if they were his best five players.”

6Stewart Udall, Secretary Of The Interior

Udall, the Secretary of the Interior to both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s, became involved in the civil rights movement through his intervention with a Washington Redskins football franchise that refused to integrate. The Redskins had been adamant in this refusal, with its team owner, George Marshall, once saying that the team would “start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites.” Marshall’s position on the matter was assailed by many, with one columnist referring to him as “an anachronism, as out-of-date as the drop kick.”

Despite the pleading of the press and fans, not until Udall stepped in and threatened retribution on the federal level did the Washington Redskins become the last team in the NFL to integrate. Since the Redskins’ new stadium was on federal land, Udall informed Marshall that if he continued to refuse to be integrated, the team would not be allowed to use it. In 1962, Marshall heeded Udall’s ultimatum, and the Redskins were finally integrated.

5Don Barksdale And His US Olympic Teammates

Barksdale was the first African American to represent the US on the Olympic basketball team, and his role in the civil rights movement was in a Kentucky arena in 1948, the year after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Barksdale’s moment was during an exhibition game when his teammates passed a water bottle down the bench, with each man taking a sip. After Barksdale took his, he passed it to a teammate—“Shorty” Carpenter of Arkansas—who drank from the bottle without hesitation.

While this moment seems like nothing more than a minor detail today, the water bottle drew the attention of all those in attendance, many of whom felt that Carpenter could have made a statement by refusing to drink. This was especially true given that whites and blacks in the South rarely, if ever, drank from the same glass or from the same water fountain at the time. He didn’t refuse, and the game went on. Barksdale would later go on to become the first African-American All-Star in the NBA, playing for the Boston Celtics alongside Chuck Cooper.

4Kathrine Switzer & Roberta Gibb

Before 1967, no woman had officially run in the Boston Marathon, and the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) did not willingly issue bib numbers to women who applied. The Amateur Athletic Association (AAU) did not formally accept women as participants in distance running, fearing that their bodies could not handle the rigors of long distances. Roberta Gibb ran the Boston Marathon in three consecutive years (1966–1968) but did so without a bib number, having to hide in the bushes at the race’s starting line to avoid being spotted.

Switzer, however, was issued a bib number but not with the full blessing of the BAA—according to the BAA, she did not clearly identify herself as a female entrant and signed her entry form as “K.V. Switzer.” She started the race unnoticed, but around the fourth mile, the press bus caught sight of her, causing a stir. Once race officials were notified, one of them even tried to rip off her bib number and physically remove her from the race before another runner—“Big” Tom Miller, a nationally ranked hammer thrower and former All-American football player—pushed him aside. Switzer officially finished the race and helped to clear the path for female participation in distance running events.

3Francois Pienaar & Nelson Mandela

Francois Pienaar grew up under apartheid in South Africa, when it was common to hear Nelson Mandela referred to as a terrorist who deserved to have been imprisoned for all of those years. As a rugby player, Pienaar was a part of the 1995 Rugby World Cup that came to symbolize the changing of South Africa, and Mandela supported the South African team and dismissed the notion that the springbok—the team’s emblem and a notorious symbol of apartheid—should be tossed aside. Instead, Mandela used the Rugby World Cup as an opportunity to unite the nation once again under the banner of sports.

Upon South Africa’s victory, Mandela, who wore a South Africa rugby shirt that prominently featured the springbok, presented the cup to Pienaar, the white South African team captain. The image was an important one, as it came to be recognized as a moment of reconciliation for a formerly divided nation. Pienaar and Mandela became quite close thereafter, and the man known as Madiba ended up attending Pienaar’s wedding and becoming godfather to one of the Rugby captain’s children.

2Al Davis

Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis saw his football legacy somewhat tarnished during the last decade of his life, as the Raiders endured an extended period of futility that has continued to the present day. The team has not made the playoffs since its Super Bowl run of 2002, and many observers blame Davis for being out of touch with the game. Too many forget that Davis was an innovator of the highest order throughout the overwhelming majority of his life in football, and that included his attitude toward issues of civil rights.

In 1963, just a year after the Washington Redskins had to be forced to integrate its team, Davis was refusing to play a preseason game in Mobile, Alabama as a protest against the state’s laws on segregation. Davis, again protesting the inherent unfairness of segregation, also implemented a policy stating that the Raiders would not play in cities in which players would have to stay in different hotels due to race.

Davis was also responsible for hiring the second African-American head coach in the NFL in Art Shell and also the first female front-office executive in Amy Trask. Shell, a former offensive tackle with the Raiders, played under the league’s second Latino head coach, Tom Flores, who was also hired by Davis.

1Willie O’Ree

O’Ree didn’t even realize that he had broken the color barrier in the NHL in 1958, saying, “It just didn’t dawn on me. I was just concerned about playing hockey.” O’Ree grew up in Canada, playing both hockey and baseball, and as a teenager, he had the opportunity to meet Jackie Robinson in Brooklyn after being invited to camp with the Milwaukee Braves. The two spoke briefly, and after Robinson told him that there were no black kids playing hockey, O’Ree corrected him, saying, “Yeah, there’s a few.” Less than 10 years later, O’Ree would be making his NHL debut for the Boston Bruins.

O’Ree had to endure taunts and insults while playing games on the road, but he was steadfast in his belief that those taunts deserved no response from him. There were even times when, while in the penalty box, O’Ree would be spit on and have objects thrown at him because of his race. O’Ree went on to work with the NHL after completing his professional hockey career, serving as the director of youth development for the NHL’s diversity program.

J. Francis Wolfe is a freelance writer whose work can be seen daily at Dodgers Today. When he’s not writing, he is most likely waiting for “just one more wave” or quietly reading under a shady tree.

We often assume that those who lived before us were inferior in intelligence and accomplishments, especially when we think of ancient medicine. But modern archaeologists are discovering surprising things about antiquated health care. In some cases, it’s as bad as we imagined. In others, the philosophies and methods of health care are strikingly sophisticated for earlier times.

10Egyptians Had The First Governmental Health Care System

At least in terms of health care, ancient Egypt was quite similar to modern developed countries. In Deir el-Medina, an ancient village in the mountains above the Valley of the Kings, written records and physical remains reveal evidence of the first documented governmental health care system.

Under harsh conditions, artisans with unusual literacy and advanced engineering knowledge built the pharaohs’ royal tombs from 1292–1077 B.C. This was about the time of Ramses II and his heirs. The workers left thousands of documents, including everything from letters to lawsuits.

The site was first excavated in the early to mid-1900s, but the bodies in the tombs were left largely untouched because osteology, the study of skeletons, was stuck in its early stages. In 2012, archaeologists returned to study the human remains in greater detail. Their findings confirmed the written records. The workers at Deir el-Medina were entitled to take paid sick days or get free checkups at the Egyptian equivalent of a clinic. However, like so many modern employees, these ancient workers with comprehensive care plans often felt pressured to continue working even while sick. In one mummy, the man had obviously worked while battling osteomyelitis, a blood-borne infection that inflames bone.

The skeletons show the stress of climbing from the Valley of the Kings to the mountain village. But they also reveal that residents with severe disabilities received excellent care. For example, one young man of about 20 years old had a bad right leg from a neurological disease such as polio. But he showed no physical signs associated with climbing to work in the tombs, which suggests that he received a less strenuous role in this society.

Families and friends were also expected to care for the old and the sick. If not, the errant individuals would be shamed publicly through divorce or disinheritance. “A woman named Naunakhte had eight children,” said lead researcher Anne Austin. “In her will, she chastised and disinherited four of them for neglecting her in her old age.”

9Ancient Peru Had The First Limb Surgery

Ancient medical practitioners used a technique called trepanation, which opens a hole in the skull of a living person by drilling, surgical scraping, or sawing. It treated cases of head trauma as well as some other ailments.

In 2004, anthropologists from the University of Central Florida found that shamans in the Chachapoya region of ancient Peru also used trepanation techniques on patients’ lower legs at the fortress of Kuelap. This is the first documented evidence of trepanation used on another part of the body.

The Chachapoya area was inhabited from approximately 800–1535. Their shamans were quite advanced, successfully performing complex surgeries like amputations that clearly healed. As for trepanation on legs, the remains of two otherwise healthy men in this region showed holes drilled in their lower leg bones, probably to relieve fluid buildup from infected injuries. Although unlikely, it’s also possible that bone was removed from these men while they were alive to create amulets or pendants.

The first man was an adult around 30–34 years old. A medical practitioner had drilled a series of holes in his tibia or shinbone, the larger of two human leg bones that connect the knee to the ankle. The holes extend to the center of the tibia, but there’s no evidence of healing. That means the man probably died when the surgery took place. The second male, a teenager, showed two holes drilled into the middle of his shinbone. He appears to have met the same fate as the first man.

Although it looks like both men died during the surgery, it’s also possible that these procedures were done after the men died. A novice may have been practicing his technique on corpses.

8Ancient Doctors Also Treated PTSD

We now have evidence of ancient soldiers in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as early as 1300 B.C. Researchers from Anglia Ruskin University found medical texts about doctors trying to diagnose and treat warriors from the Assyrian Dynasty who experienced sleep disturbances, flashbacks, and depression, accounts eerily similar to those from modern combat veterans.

“[The ancient warriors] described hearing and seeing ghosts talking to them, who would be the ghosts of people they’d killed in battle—and that’s exactly the experience of modern-day soldiers who’ve been involved in close hand-to-hand combat,” said researcher Jamie Hacker Hughes, director of Anglia Ruskin’s Veterans and Families Institute. He noted that the Mesopotamian warriors fought their battles in the same geographic areas as the most recent Gulf and Iraq Wars.

During the Assyrian Dynasty, men were required to fight every three years as part of their mandatory national service. They faced injury and death from different weapons back then, such as swords, slingstones, and arrows. However, the same stressors—watching their comrades die, fearing death, and more—caused the symptoms of PTSD for them. They also faced a greater possibility of death from injuries because modern surgical techniques were not available to help them.

In ancient times, it was believed that the ghosts or demons of slain enemies caused PTSD symptoms, attacking some of the soldiers left behind and causing a “wandering mind” as punishment from their gods for these soldiers’ sins. Treatments could take the form of medications as well as religious offerings or recitations to chase off the ghosts.

7Ancient Medicine Chest Holds 2,000-Year-Old Eye Pills

Usually, our knowledge of ancient medicine comes from texts recovered at archaeological sites. But these writings may lack the details and accuracy needed for us to fully understand how ancient medicine worked. That’s why archaeologists became so excited by the discovery of the contents of a medicine chest from a Roman shipwreck near Tuscany around 120 B.C.

Archaeologists believe the vessel, named Relitto del Pozzino, sank during a bad storm near the ancient Etruscan city of Populonia, a key shipping port on the Mediterranean Sea at that time. In recent years, excavators have recovered lamps, glass cups, and other artifacts. But the most interesting discovery was the medical equipment of a Roman doctor who may have been aboard the ship.

Although his medicine chest appeared to be destroyed, a mortar, surgery hook, and bleeding cup survived. Archaeologists also found 136 wooden drug vials and several pyxides, sealed tin containers with 2,000-year-old medicinal tablets in them. Amazingly, the circular, green tablets were completely dry, and modern technology has now identified their ingredients.

“In archaeology, the discovery of ancient medicines is very rare, as is knowledge of their chemical composition,” said researchers in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “The data revealed extraordinary information on the composition of the tablets and on their possible therapeutic use.”

The pills contained beeswax, starch, iron oxide, several zinc compounds, pine resin, and other animal and plant-derived materials. Based on the ingredients and shape of the pills, researchers believe they were used as an eyewash or a type of eye medicine in ancient times.

6Ancient Rich People Had A Disease Of Modern Poor People

Considered the “first family” in Italy during the Renaissance, the Medicis were the affluent rulers of Tuscany. But money didn’t save their young children from developing rickets, a disease most often linked to poverty in the modern world, especially in polluted, urban areas where residents don’t get much exposure to sunlight. Ironically, the Medicis’ wealth was probably a major factor in their children developing this serious illness.

Rickets is caused by a vitamin D deficiency that softens the bones in children, resulting in bowed legs from trying to walk on weakened bones. Arm bones can also become curved, especially if the child tries to crawl. In the 16th century, six of the nine Medici children who were studied definitely suffered from rickets. Five-year-old Filippo even had a skull deformity from the disease.

With their wealth, it would seem likely that the Medicis could afford the foods, such as cheese and eggs, that would provide vitamin D for their children. So researchers were initially baffled by these findings.

However, an analysis of the children’s bone collagen showed that they weren’t weaned until two years old. Breast milk doesn’t have much vitamin D in it. Back then, the only supplements to breast milk were cereals made of soft bread, which have little vitamin D, and apples, which have none at all. Two of the family’s newborns also had rickets, signifying that their mothers probably had vitamin D deficiencies, too. The researchers believe that the mothers may have developed deficiencies from frequent childbearing or wearing heavy makeup that blocked the Sun.

As for the children, their high social standing probably had the most to do with getting rickets. In those days, poor children ran around outside a lot, so upper-class parents didn’t want their kids to get tans or they might look like the lower class. Instead, upper-class children tended to stay in their grand houses, swathed in many layers of clothes and protected from the sunlight that could have prevented this disease.

5The Ancients Knew About Donkey Milk Before We Did

In recent years, donkey milk has been touted as a healthy alternative for children allergic to specific proteins in cow’s milk. For many children, allergies are also a problem with traditional alternatives such as soy, goat’s, sheep’s, and even formulated milk. Donkey milk is more like human milk.

Although clinical studies need to be done, some sufferers of psoriasis, eczema, and asthma have also experienced surprisingly good results from drinking donkey milk or using soap derived from it. Even Pope Francis has revealed that he received donkey milk as a baby.

But the benefits of donkey milk are simply a rediscovery of what our ancestors already knew. Hippocrates, “the father of medicine,” prescribed donkey milk for many conditions from nosebleeds to snake bites. Supposedly, Cleopatra bathed in it for cosmetic purposes. The ancient Greeks fed it to their kids, while the ancient Romans used it to soften their skin.

However, at least one problem needs to be overcome. Donkey milk is much harder to produce than cow’s milk. While a cow has four teats that can produce about 10 liters (2.5 gal) of milk per day, a donkey only has two teats that produce about 1 liter (0.25 gal) per day. In addition, a donkey only gives milk for approximately six months after having a foal and only if the foal is nearby.

4Ancient Medical Texts Written On Bamboo Strips

On a construction site in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province in China, workers discovered 920 bamboo strips that served as medical texts for the treatment of people and horses approximately 2,000 years ago. These ancient texts belong to the school of Bian Que, a medical pioneer who focused on diagnosing disease by taking a patient’s pulse and doing a physical examination. At that time, bamboo strips were often used for written texts.

In China, Bian Que is a legendary physician who is credited with using anesthesia and performing the world’s first organ transplant. The 920 bamboo strips include 184 strips of veterinary medicine for horses and 736 strips divided into nine different medical books for humans. In addition to pulse-taking, some of the books discuss surgery, dermatology, internal medicine, ophthalmology, traumatology, and gynecology. Some of the treatments include taking bull’s urine for jaundice and chilies for headaches.

A figurine approximately 14 centimeters (5.5 in) in length was also recovered from the site. This figurine has major acupuncture points marked on it and may give us some clues to how acupuncture evolved as a treatment option.

3The Baghdad Battery May Have Been An Analgesic

About 75 years ago, German archaeologist Wilhelm Konig, director of the Baghdad Museum, announced the discovery of the 2,000-year-old Baghdad battery. These batteries were small terra-cotta jars with copper cylinders and iron rods inside. Konig believed these batteries may have been used to electroplate gold onto silver items. When linked together, they could produce as much as 4 volts of electricity. These batteries were conservatively dated from 250 B.C. to A.D. 640.

However, as we’ve discussed before, these artifacts were out of place. It simply didn’t make sense that they would exist at the historical time and place in which they were discovered. For many people, Konig’s explanation was unsatisfactory, so the battery’s purpose remained a mystery.

Enter Paul T. Keyser, a researcher from the University of Alberta who proposed a medical theory in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies in 1993. He believed that the Baghdad battery may have been a medical device used to alleviate pain, much like the ancient Greeks numbed an inflamed foot by standing on an electric eel until the pain went away. Keyser thought it possible that these devices were used in places like Mesopotamia where there were no electric fish. Bronze and iron needles may have been used to conduct electricity from the batteries in a type of electro-acupuncture, similar to a Chinese treatment used at that time.

2Blackbeard Made Health Care A Priority

In 1717, the notorious pirate Blackbeard easily captured his flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, from the original French crew because they were mostly sick or dead from illness. However, Blackbeard controlled the ship for less than a year. In early 1718, the vessel got stuck on a sandbar in North Carolina. Taking some of his best men and almost all of his stolen goods, Blackbeard abandoned the ship and most of his crew. But he was later killed by the Royal Navy in November 1718.

Blackbeard was healthy enough to fight hard, as he tried to board an enemy ship during that final skirmish. “He stood his ground and fought with great fury, till he received five and 20 wounds, and five of them by shot,” wrote Captain Charles Johnson about Blackbeard in 1724. “At length, as he was cocking another pistol, having fired several before, he fell down dead.”

The Queen Anne’s Revenge was found in 1996, and archaeologists have been excavating the wrecked ship ever since. Recently, they made some surprising discoveries public. According to historical records and newly discovered artifacts, it seems that Blackbeard made a great effort to keep his crew healthy. Many things could happen at sea, such as wounds, diseases, burns, toothaches, and amputations. To Blackbeard, health care was such a priority that he forced three surgeons from the former French crew of the Queen Anne’s Revenge to stay onboard the captured ship. The excavation has shown that Blackbeard probably confiscated medical equipment from the captured ship as well.

The archaeologists found a urethral syringe used to treat syphilis with mercury. However, if the syphilis didn’t kill the sailors, mercury poisoning would. Scientists also found two enemas that would have pumped fluid into the rectum, although they weren’t sure why these mechanisms were used or what they contained so long ago. Equipment for bloodletting, medicine preparation, and surgery was also discovered, along with galley pots for storage of potions, salves, and balms.

1Siberia Was A Sophisticated Surgery Center

Archaeologists were astounded to discover that the ancient nomads of Siberia created a major skull surgery center about 2,300–2,500 years ago. Examining three skulls (two men, one woman) from the Altai Mountains, a team of modern neurosurgeons, archaeologists, and anthropologists found that the ancient Siberian surgeons expertly wielded one primitive tool to scrape the skull with sophisticated techniques. They also appeared to adhere to the Hippocratic Corpus, a set of medical texts devised in Greece between the sixth and fourth centuries B.C.

One of the male patients had a blood clot from head trauma that probably caused nausea, headaches, and other symptoms. It’s believed that trepanation was used to remove the clot. However, the biggest surprise is that the skull shows bone growth after the surgery, meaning the man lived for many years afterward.

The second male didn’t show evidence of head trauma, so it’s believed that the surgeon was trying to fix a congenital skull deformity. With both of these men, the surgeons made a small hole where they could get to the brain with minimal damage to the membrane and joints.

The woman showed trauma from a fall, but didn’t appear to survive her surgery. Her doctor made several mistakes. So even in ancient times, the choice of surgeon was critical.

The actual scraping tool wasn’t found at the site, but archaeologists suspect it was a bronze knife. It’s possible that early Siberians were incredibly skilled with skull surgeries because they did a lot of work with cutting animal bones.

“Honestly, I am amazed,” said Novosibirsk neurosurgeon Aleksei Krivoshapkin, who examined the skulls. “We suspect now that in the time of Hippocrates, Altai people could do a very fine diagnosis and carry out skillful trepanations and fantastic brain surgery.”

No matter how much we all hate them, bugs are a crucial part of life on Earth. They help keep the planet’s ecosystem healthy, and without them, life on our world would probably look a lot different than it does now.

That’s not all, though: Bugs have had a huge part to play in the shaping of our civilization as well. Throughout our history, bugs (used here to refer to insects, pathogens, and other assorted creepy-crawlies) have turned the tide of wars, influenced politics, and generally played an important role in shaping the modern world.

10 Lice Halted Napoleon’s Invasion Of Russia

Invading Russia and getting destroyed in the process has turned into a running joke by now. Ever since the Russian region was consolidated into one empire, very few forces have had the gall to think of taking it over, given its vast size and bitterly cold winters. Not everyone has been smart enough to figure that out on their own, though. Armies like Hitler’s Germany and Napoleon’s France had to learn their lessons the hard way.

While the Nazis were always kind of doomed to lose due to waging war on more fronts than they could count, France had a real chance of winning. Many people think Napoleon lost due to the same factors as Hitler, though according to some researchers, it wasn’t the cold that defeated him but rather insects.^[1]

A French study concluded that about one third of Napoleon’s army during the invasion was decimated by deadly diseases. The worst of them—trench fever and typhus—are caused by body lice. If it wasn’t for the reduced morale and casualties, the outcome of the invasion might have been very different.

9 The Louisiana Purchase

The United States has been a major world power for so long now that we forget that bringing it all together was quite a tedious task. Even after the country gained independence, a lot of what we now know as US territory was owned by multiple factions. If it wasn’t for certain factors coming together for the US government at the right time, maps of the United States today might look quite different.

One of those factors was the Louisiana Purchase. You see, back in the very early 1800s, a huge chunk of North America, known as the Louisiana territory—was held by France under Napoleon. He had no plans to give it up and actually wanted it to be a thriving French colony on the continent.

What changed his mind was a bout of yellow fever among his soldiers fighting in the Caribbean. The disease was spread through mosquitoes and was especially deadly for the French, who had no natural immunity against it. Yellow fever killed about 100 to 120 men per day.

Napoleon’s failure to assert control in the Caribbean due to the disease made him reconsider his plans for the Louisiana territory, and he sold it to the US government for $15 million in 1803.^[2]

8 Disease Stopped The Japanese Advance On British India

Japan’s role in World War II has been extensively discussed and scrutinized, though mostly in the context of battles in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. One part that’s often left out of the conversations is its advance on British India, and how close Japan was to winning the war if it wasn’t for some crucial battles there.

In 1944, Japan had successfully managed to surround two major cities in northeast India: Kohima and Imphal. They would have taken them and set up bases for further offensives against the British, too, if it wasn’t for the jungle.

Because of mounting casualties due to diseases like malaria and dysentery in the region, Japan decided to withdraw from both of those advantageous positions. They lost a majority of their forces in the retreat through Burma to disease,^[3] and this defeat ended up being the turning point of the war in the Eastern theater. It wasn’t just the Japanese, as the British forces had to deal with the diseases, too. They still held their strategic advantage, though, which eventually helped them to win.

7 When Flowers Took Over The World

If you take a look at all the plants around you, you’d notice that many of them are flowering in nature. They make up a big part of our food, gave us some of our earliest medicines, and provided us with artistic inspiration back when there was nothing to do. Without flowering plants, life on Earth would be very different.

How it happened, though, is one of biology’s biggest mysteries. Before flowering plants took over the world roughly 130 million years ago, the most abundant type of plant was the conifer. But then flowers came out of nowhere and took over, aided by insects like honeybees and butterflies.^[4]

If it wasn’t for pollination, flowering plants would have never been able to spread across the world, which would have dramatically altered the modern natural landscape. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that insects made human civilization possible, or at least human civilization as we know it.

6 The Spanish Flu Helped Britain Maintain Control Of India

World War I was such a monumental event that we forget about other, equally important things happening at that time. One of those was the Spanish flu, which possibly killed more people around the world than both of the World Wars combined in a matter of a few years. The reason it happened so fast was the flu bug responsible for it, which spread much faster than normal viruses.

While it had a crucial impact on many world events, one of the most important was its impact on British-controlled India. Indian calls for independence were growing louder in light of the war and Indian participation in it. Mahatma Gandhi had plans for independence and widespread protest as soon as it was over, when Britain was at its weakest. This was also the time when the Spanish flu hit, and—combined with a widespread drought—it adversely affected a large part of the Indian population, including Gandhi.^[5]

Because of Gandhi being too weak to oppose it, the Brits continued their strict implementation of martial law (first introduced during the war) across the country. That allowed them to quell any threatening revolts and reaffirmed their hold on the country for another three decades.

Without Britain’s bases in India and all the income they generated, the results of World War II might have been drastically different.

5 More Than Half Of The Human Body Is Made Up Of Microbes

Most people assume that the human body only consists of human cells, which is a fair assumption to make. Some are aware of the presence of bacteria in the gut, but as they don’t tend to cause harm, we don’t give them much thought.

If you look into it, though, you’d find that the number of microbes in the body isn’t just more than you thought; they outnumber your cells. Human cells only amount to 43 percent of the body’s total number of cells.^[6] Mounting research on this topic suggests that the microbial diversity in our body is much greater than we ever thought. Everything from bacteria to fungi live in us.

That doesn’t mean that you can start being careless about harmful organisms like stomach bugs. The microbes in the body live in a sort of a symbiotic relationship with us, unlike external bugs that aim to harm. Scientists know that all of our pet microbes help us in some way, though why there are so many of them remains a mystery.

4 Bugs Gave Us Colors

We take the various colors around us for granted now, but for a huge part of our history, there was no way to reproduce them. Synthetic dyes didn’t exist back in the day, and other than the colors easily found in nature, it was difficult for artists and craftsmen to use the whole color palette due to that limitation. The solution? Bugs, of course.

From wasps to parasitic insects, we have a long history of using bugs to make our dyes. Take the color red as an example. For the longest time, the red we had was too dull to even look at, which changed when we came in contact with Native Mesoamerican civilizations. They had been using an insect called the cochineal to produce an almost perfect version of the red we saw in nature for quite some time.^[7]

Another color that was particularly difficult to reproduce was purple. Purple could be acquired from the city of Tyre (in modern-day Lebanon) and was produced from a type of mollusk found in the area. It took more than 9,000 of these mollusks to create just one gram of Tyrian purple. That’s why purple was a color of royalty for the most part, as no one else could afford it.

3 Insects Drive Evolution In Plants

We know that the love-hate relationship between insects and plants plays a huge part in keeping Earth’s ecosystem healthy and also ensures the survival of other forms of life. If that relationship were to be severed in any way, it would be catastrophic for us. The interplay between insects and plants has been extensively studied by science, though we’re nowhere near fully understanding the extent of it.

According to some research, insects may be the main drivers of evolution among plants. In a study published in Science Daily, researchers found that plants which are not treated with insecticide immediately start developing more toxins in their fruits.

In some cases, the evolved traits were visible in just one generation, suggesting that plants don’t just evolve as a response to insect behavior, but they do so rapidly. Evolution usually takes millennia to take shape, but because of insects, plants are capable of evolving in a matter of years. It provides a strong bit of evidence for what scientists have suspected for a long time: Insects are the primary reason behind the overwhelming diversity of plants on Earth.^[8]

2 Malaria Gave Way To The UK As We Know It Today

Scotland may part of the United Kingdom now, but that wasn’t always the case. Back in the 17th century, Scotland was an independent kingdom, with its own plans to colonize the New World. In the 1690s, around 4,000 Scots landed in the Americas, with dreams of their own colonial empire. What they got wrong, however, was the location. They had landed in what would eventually be known as the one of the world’s deadliest jungles: the Darien Gap, part of modern-day Panama.

Essentially a malarial swamp, the Darien Gap is notorious for its harsh terrain. The Scots had the right idea, as it was then believed to the be the gateway between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, though they fell a bit short on reconnaissance before embarking on the mission.

Within two years, half of those settlers were dead due to deadly mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and yellow fever. Scotland went bankrupt trying to sustain the colony, which directly led to its joining the United Kingdom in 1707. If not for that misguided attempt at colonization by the Scots—combined with the wrath of the mosquitoes—things might have been different.^[9]

1 Insects Were The First Creatures To Fly

The ability to fly is one of the most unique adaptations in the natural world. We don’t think about it as much as we should because so many creatures have it, though from an evolutionary perspective, it remains a mystery. We have no idea when some animals managed to grow their own wings for the first time, and many evolutionary biologists are currently hard at work trying to figure it out.

According to some recent research, though, insects were the first creatures to develop the ability to fly. It was a natural response to plants growing taller in size around 400 million years ago.^[10] Land plants came onto the scene around the same time (geologically speaking) as the earliest ancestors of insects. More importantly, insects developed the ability to fly only once, and all subsequent flying insects evolved from that one prototype.

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, get in touch with him for writing gigs, or just say hello to him on Twitter.

At first glance, pottery shards appear the least glamorous items to come from a dig. But archaeologists love them. There are times when ceramics really don’t reveal anything. Then there are the flakes, imprints, designs, and content capable of returning lost knowledge or add interesting new mysteries. They can even expose how somebody died, surprising facts about the potters themselves, migrations, and unexpected ways this art form was used to keep society stable.

10Oldest Pre-Alphabet Writing

During 2016, the archaeological site of Ad Putea delivered a historical surprise. Located in Northern Bulgaria, the fort used to be a Roman road station. The idea was to learn more about Ad Putea, but diggers unexpectedly came across an unknown settlement from the Copper Age underneath it. A few spadefuls into this era uncovered a ceramic fragment with markings. The 7,000-year-old shard appears to hold the world’s oldest pictographic writing, a picturesque way people recorded things important to them before the advent of the alphabet.

The symbols include a swastika. Once part of a clay vessel, the writing on the prehistoric piece is two millennia older than those of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. Some Bulgarian experts even go as far as saying that Sumer’s famous linear writing and Egyptian hieroglyphs developed from a proto-writing that started in Northwest Bulgaria. The intriguing signs remain undeciphered.

9Mystery Meal

Another 2016 find saw archaeologists in Denmark pull a unique pot from a refuse pit. What made it one of a kind had nothing to do with the cauldron’s design or unusually preserved state. The content was strange. Usually, charcoaled plant matter remains behind in old cooking vessels. But during the cleaning process, instead, a light yellow crust popped up.

It defied identification, and test results on the 3,000-year-old froth provided some clues but no solid answers. The substance appears to be a mix of bovine fat, oil, and sugar—a rare find as far as ancient meal traces go. Researchers can only tag its true identity once the future turns up something similar. However, one thing is certain. The attempt, possibly to make some cheese, met with such failure and a terrible smell that the cook chucked the pot away immediately.

8The Visigoth Takeover

In Northeastern Bulgaria, Visigoth pottery told a grim story. In the fourth century, Rome extended a helping hand when the Germanic tribes fled from the Huns. Allowing the refugees to settle near their fort, today known as Kovachevska Kale, was a decision the Romans would come to regret.

Visigoths made distinctive ceramics, dark gray creations molded from high-quality clay. The sheer number discovered at the site told of a mass arrival of goths—ousting, in turn, the locals. A granary inside Kovachevska might’ve sparked its destruction. Food scarcity caused open warfare between the Visigoths and their Roman benefactors. Fire damage show the invaders won and torched the fort at one point. Afterward, the goths squatted between the ruins. Researchers made the conclusion based on 87 percent of Kovachevska pottery excavated since 1990 being gothic.

7The Israel Jug

During an archaeology class, Israeli schoolchildren found an extraordinary artifact. Pulled from the sands outside Tel Aviv, the jug is exactly what archaeologists expect from the Middle Bronze Age. An unusual decoration makes it unique and unlike anything found before in Israel.

The figure of a person, done in exquisite detail, tops the jar. It’s unclear if the two parts were created by the same or different potters, but the upper portion of the vessel was adjusted to form the body of the figure. The limbs and face were then crafted onto this extension. The statue appears to sit and think very deeply about something, almost looking worried. The strange ceramic fusion measures 18 centimeters high and is nearly 4,000 years old. Found among weaponry, several other pottery items, and animal bones, researchers suspect the collection was included in an important individual’s funeral offerings.

6Plain Of Jars

In the 1930s, excavations began at one of Southeast Asia’s greatest mysteries. The Plain of Jars in Laos consists of about 100 locations stacked with pots. These are not your usual sort of pottery. Carved from stone, some weigh up to 10 tons. An unknown culture felt the need to drag the monster containers 8–10 kilometers from the quarry and arrange them in groups as large as 400. In contrast, single jars adorn other areas.

The reason for this remains as missing as their original contents. During a new examination of Site 1, something was found that might finally provide answers. What turned out to be a veritable graveyard revealed 2,500-year-old human remains, some interred inside ceramic pots. Researchers are hoping that tests will reveal the ethnicity of this lost society and clarify if there is any connection with India’s own ancient jar fields.

5The Child Potters

An archaeologist, who is also a trained ceramist, discovered something previously unknown. Dr. Katarina Botwid was studying the neglected area of ancient pottery production, when she found that during the Bronze Age, children as young as nine could be skilled potters. Botwid came across juvenile fingerprints on ancient vessels, proving just who made them. As a ceramist herself, she estimated that it took about three years to raise these young artisans to expert level.

Further assessment of the Bronze Age objects proved how the kids mastered a very difficult craft, something that surprised her. Even the most basic household item of the era sometimes demanded intense skill never before attributed to anyone but adults. She also believes that a much higher amount of pottery survived the firing techniques of the time, a remarkable 95 percent—40 percent more than generally accepted.

4Egyptian Pot Burials

The human remains found inside the Jar of Plains vessels were jumbled bones. Ancient Egypt potted the entire person.

Citizens earmarked for such burials were thought to be the poor and the very young. The destitution theory developed when it was discovered that the domestically used pots were not specially made for the deceased. The “poor and young” angle doesn’t explain why certain sites contain only adults and in high-status tombs.

Scholars remain divided about the meaning of it all. Surely, the afterworld-obsessed Egyptians had a reason for placing a corpse in a ceramic jar. Some experts feel that pots symbolized the womb and rebirth, while others cite a lack of archaeological evidence.

For hundreds of years, pot burials remained a popular choice. Perhaps the durability of clay had something to do with it. Even today, they yield the best preserved bodies in ancient cemeteries.

3Infected Blood And Organs

Between 600–450 BC, a village in ancient Germany buried a special individual. At the time, he might not have felt all that special, considering that he had a bruised appearance and suffered bloody hemorrhaging of the gums, nose, stool, and urine. The rest of the villagers gave his organs and blood a strange send-off. He was interred in pottery vessels, and the gory receptacles were then laid to rest in a burial mound.

By the time they were rediscovered, all that remained were dried shards. But ancient proteins still clung to them, and these identified the once-visceral contents and that the person had died from Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. Carried by ticks and still killing people today, it’s the first discovery of the disease in the archaeological record. For the region, finding human blood and organs interred in pottery during the Bronze Age was also unique.

2The Peace Women

First found in Arizona during the 1930s, a ceramic collection became known as the “Salado Problem.” Spread across the territories of three native cultures of the American southwest, none could be identified as the source. The problem wasn’t just its origins but the purpose of the Salado pottery.

All bore the same religious messages and symbols of fertility and cooperation. Researchers now believe that a new female religion, practiced during the 13th–15th centuries, produced the vessels. This was an extremely violent time, and northern refugees poured into the area. To prevent tensions between locals and newcomers from reaching the genocidal levels of the north, women banded together by participating in the same spiritual practices. The Salado religion was preserved only in ceramic creation. This was not a traditional male field, supporting the belief that it was the women who stabilized this multicultural society for centuries.

1Hidden Excellence

Greek pottery is known for the “black figure” depictions of daily life and battle scenes. The art form is particularly difficult to recreate. In an attempt to learn the mysterious artistic techniques, scientists specializing in conservation joined up with Stanford’s National Accelerator Laboratory. They zapped a Greek vase with X-ray fluorescence. Soon, it became clear why the work could never be authentically replicated.

There had been too many assumptions. What was always thought to be a single coat of painting, the X-rays revealed to be a hidden world of chemical colors and more layers. The zinc additive credited for creating black during the firing process wasn’t even present, opening up another mystery—what happened during heating that caused the color? Nobody knows. Adding white was additional effort. The discovery finally gives Greek artisans back a level of excellence the art world never before suspected.

Not all musical moments in TV shows happen in musical shows such as Glee, HSM: The Series, or more recently, Katy Keene. From time to time popular drama series, sitcoms or even shows about the supernatural make musical performances a part of one or more episodes. On this list are some surprisingly good (and also very bad) musical performances in non-musical shows.

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10 Friends

Friends is most fondly remembered for, well, friendship, and great one-liners. The hugely popular show gave us “Smelly Cat”, Pivot!, a holiday armadillo, Chanandler Bong and so much more. There are many funny songs by Phoebe, but a truly surprisingly awesome musical moment happens when The Pretenders frontwoman, Chrissie Hynde, sings “Angel of the Morning” in Central Perk.

Chris Isaak also has a cameo role in the show and sings “Smelly Cat” with Phoebe, letting loose his incredible vocal range. He is rewarded by Phoebe telling him “you might want to pick a more masculine note.”

9 The Big Bang Theory

Love it or hate it, The Big Bang Theory is one of the most popular sitcoms of all time. It wrapped after 12 seasons and is the longest-running multi-camera comedy in TV history. The series includes some terrible music moments including Raj and Howard singing “Hammer & Whip”, Raj and Leonard singing “Bust a Move” and Howard and Bernadette singing “I Got You Babe” during a car trip. Although to be fair, it is a sitcom and all these musical moments are done in jest.

There is one stand-out performance however that somewhat tugs at the heartstrings. Howard and the rest of the group singing “If I Didn’t Have You” to Bernadette who has been quarantined in hospital. While the singing is not great, the performance has heart and it makes for a beautiful moment.

8 Grey’s Anatomy

If ever there was a musical episode that divided viewers, it is “Song Beneath The Song” from Grey’s Anatomy. Some fans loved it, while others hated it so much that they threatened to stop watching altogether. There are several performances during the episode including an all-cast version of “How To Save A Life”, “Breathe”, a toe-tapping version of “Running on Sunshine”, and “Wait”.

An outstanding rendition of “The Story” is performed by Sara Ramirez towards the end of the episode. The scenes accompanying the performance are arguably rather strange, with Sara’s character, Callie Torres, simultaneously lying prone in a hospital bed while also walking around and singing. It doesn’t take away from Ramirez’ fantastic performance though.

7 Riverdale

It would be easy to mistake Riverdale for a musical series considering there has been more than 50 music performances over its four seasons. However, it is billed as a teen drama series and one can only guess as to why so much singing happens during the show. There are several cringey performances such as “Exquisite Corpse”, “Our Love is God”, “You Shine”, and “Sufferin’ Till Suffrage.”

Some of the better performances include “Candy Girl”, “Kids in America”, “Amazing Grace”, and “Back to Black”.

This video includes a compilation of both the good and the not so good.

6 Ally McBeal

Ally McBeal is a quintessential 90s comedy-drama TV series. It’s funny, heartbreaking, weird and audiences absolutely loved it. Especially the dancing baby, The Biscuit dancing to Barry White, the butt-sniffing and the ‘getting-stuck-in-the-toilet’ scene. There were also many, many performances by Elaine and a host of celebrity cameo performances including Barry Manilow, Elton John, Barry White, Anastasia, Tina Turner, Gloria Gaynor and more.

There were several beautiful moments too, including Josh Groban’s emotional performance of “You’re Still You” during a prom scene. Some fan-favorite musical moments came from an unlikely source: none other than Robert Downey Jr. In the show, Downey plays Ally’s love interest who ultimately leaves her to move back to Detroit. He sings Joni Mitchell’s “River” during a Christmas episode and also sang Ally a song he wrote for her called “Chances”. Downey even had a duet with Sting which was intended as both a belated birthday gift and apology to Ally. On top of that he also performed a rousing rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s Sherry Darling.

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5 Once Upon A Time

It would probably have been a crime for Once Upon A Time to have existed for 7 seasons and never feature a musical episode, and this is exactly what happens in the 20th instalment of the 6th season. Some of the most beloved characters got to show off their musical talents with original songs.

Charming and Snow White had their own “Disney” moment and kicked off the episode, with the Evil Queen following soon after. Captain Hook and Emma have their own moment as well.

The Wicked Witch (Rebecca Mader) gave an outstanding performance of “Wicked Always Wins” with fans going wild over it and calling it the best song of the episode.

4 Dawson’s Creek

Dawson’s Creek has become somewhat of a joke in the years that followed its cancellation. This is thanks in no small part to James Van Der Beek, aka Dawson, and his terrible crying face which has spawned hundreds of memes. The dreadful dialogue also didn’t do the show any favors.

There were some musical moments in the teen drama too. Some quite good, others quite terrible. There was a drama-laden rendition of “Daydream Believer” that unleashed a thick cloud of teen angst and a drunken duet by Dawson and Andie that was more cringe than song.

A fitting performance in Season 1 by Joey Potter of “On My Own” from Les Miserable, had some fans reaching for the tissues. Potter was often teased about her shy and prude-like demeanor and this led to some pretty memorable music moments when she eventually let loose. In this clip she sings “I Hate Myself For Loving You” alongside Chad Michael Murray’s character Charlie, to the great delight of the audience.

3 Stranger Things

The very last thing anyone expected while watching Netflix’s Stranger Things 3, was for any of the characters to spontaneously burst out into song. But this is exactly what happened during a very tense scene in the finale of the third season. While the Mind Flayer is wreaking havoc in Hawkins and Hopper and Joyce impatiently await the code (Planck’s constant) needed to unlock a safe, Dustin and his long-distance girlfriend Suzie start singing “The NeverEnding Story” at Suzie’s insistence.

The result is a fantastic performance of the song by the two teenagers and one of the most unforgettable moments that fans still excitedly talk about as they await the arrival of the fourth season of the hugely popular series. Interestingly, this moment almost didn’t happen as the song wasn’t the first choice for that particular scene. Before settling on “The NeverEnding Story”, the show’s creators considered using the Ent’s song (The Ent and the Ent-Wife) from The Lord of the Rings.

2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a great soundtrack featuring songs by Sarah McLachlan, Joss Whedon, Christophe Beck, Garbage and Alison Krauss. The show was presented as a low-budget supernatural comedy when it first aired on The WB in 1997. No one expected much from it. Little did they know what an impact the show would have and that it would soon become a pop culture force to be reckoned with.

Naturally, the show explored a relationship between Buffy and a vampire (Angel) and later on between Buffy and bad boy vampire, Spike. Much the same as the somewhat modern-day Team Jacob and Team Edward, there was definitely a Team Angel and a Team Spike with some Angel fans leaning more towards Spike as the seasons progressed.

During the seventh episode of the sixth season, the plot centers around a demon compelling the people of Sunnydale to randomly break into song, and, in doing so, reveal hidden truths. Buffy sings of her ‘boring’ life when she performs “Going Through The Motions” and there is a big closing number with everyone singing “Where Do We Go From Here?”. There are several other hits in the episode with a fan favorite being “Rest in Peace” sung by Spike.

1 House

Gregory House is still one of TV’s most iconic anti-heroes. The show House has been nominated for several awards, including SAG, Emmys and Golden Globes and holds the distinctive title of being the most watched TV show in the world in 2008. Hugh Laurie, who brought Gregory House to life, has stated that playing the character was a nightmare and that at first, he didn’t believe that House could be a main character. Hugh Laurie is also pretty much the last TV actor you would expect to start singing at any given time.

And yet, House dons a top hat and magician-looking suit and sings a creepy version of “Get Happy” with Lisa Edelstein’s character, Lisa Cuddy. He can definitely sing, but the eyeliner and weird cinematography is hugely disconcerting.

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The Romans are perhaps one of the best-studied ancient nations. Modern fascination remains steadfast because the complexities of their culture guarantee that for years, archaeologists will continue to peel back new, unknown layers. There is no end in sight when it comes to figuring out how the ancient Romans really lived, loved, and died. New discoveries take researchers back to the beginning concerning their military might, their unexpected allies, their behaviors and influences from other cultures, public issues, and how gladiators really fought.

10 The Oceanus Tombstone

A mysterious and unique headstone turned up in an unusual place in England. The rare artifact was found resting facedown in a graveyard in Cirencester, Gloucestershire. Discovered in 2015, the tombstone’s front is inscribed: “To the spirit of the departed Bodicacia, wife, lived for 27 years.”

That an inscribed Roman tombstone, probably dating to the second century AD, survived in England is noteworthy. Over time, most were removed and reused in construction projects. Only ten have been found in Cirencester, and less than 300 have been found in Britain.

The odd location—a graveyard—is viewed as such by archaeologists since almost no gravestones were left at a tomb site. However, this one, depicting an image of what appears to be the sea god Oceanus, is not in a normal position. It was found in a grave, used like a protective slab over the deceased and not as the person’s standing headstone. Whether the skeleton underneath is Bodicacia, or her stone was pilfered to be used in the Cirencester grave, is unknown. Either way, it’s the first from Roman Britain to bear the mustached deity.

9 A Superstar Recruited Soldiers

In 2002, the base of a statue was found, covered in Greek, in the ancient Roman city of Oinoanda in modern-day Turkey. When it was translated nearly a decade later, the carving turned out to be an 1,800-year-old epitaph. It told an unexpected tale.

The man being honored was named Lucius Flavillianus, a highly regarded veteran of wrestling and a brutal fighting sport called pankration. Needing recruits for the Roman army, the city used a smart but little-used tactic for the time: They asked the popular athlete to inspire new soldiers to sign up. He delivered so many young men to the army’s doorstep that after he died, Flavillianus was rewarded with supreme, hero-like status.

Every community was ordered to erect a statue in his memory, and Oinoanda’s Flavillainus statue once stood on the base discovered in 2002. Researchers aren’t sure if the champion fighter joined the military himself or why he did such a dedicated job, but it’s likely that he was motivated by honor and the attention it brought him.

8 First Major Shipyard

Excavations at Portus in Italy had turned up several ruins. Archaeologists knew that the site was Rome’s maritime center during the first through sixth centuries AD and had hoped to find a heavy-duty shipyard, something from the Roman world that had never been found before. Over the years, they located warehouses, an amphitheater, a lighthouse, and even a palace. Over a decade passed. The team pressed on because ancient writings and a mosaic indicated there was once shipbuilding at the port.

When the mammoth ruins of a rectangular building were found in 2011, they were mistaken for yet another warehouse. Further digging soon revealed that the football field–sized building had piers as well as eight garage-like bays that led into the Tiber river. These findings screamed “shipyard.” The bays ran about 60 meters (200 ft), ample space for ships to be repaired or constructed.

While the building’s position, size, and structure support the theory that it’s the first major Roman shipyard ever identified, one element remains missing. If ramps for launching ships can be found, then it would undoubtedly confirm the yard as the biggest of its kind in the Mediterranean. During its heyday, the shipyard stood five stories tall.

7 Arieldela

For four years, two archaeology professors led a student team at ‘Ayn Gharandal in Southern Jordan. They didn’t realize that they were digging into a patch of Earth that everybody had been searching for. In 2013, they expanded their investigations of an old Roman fort when they found the gate of the ruined complex. The arched structure had long since collapsed, but a single block revealed the answer to a mystery.

Inscribed in Latin were words that still showed traces of red paint. The unexpected find was also decorated with victory symbols, such as laurels and a wreath. Phrases dedicated the fort to four Roman emperors who ruled together from AD 293 to 305. Furthermore, the stone named the Second Cohort of Galatians as the infantry unit stationed there. The title rang an immediate bell with those at the site. Ancient military documents indicate that the unit arrived in Israel to suppress a Jewish revolt in the second century AD. The unit was said to have had a stronghold at a place called Arieldela. Nobody could pinpoint where Arieldela was, until the gate stone surfaced at ‘Ayn Gharandal.

6 A Referee’s Mistake

Around 1,800 years ago, a Turkish-born gladiator died because of a referee’s decision. The sad tone of his gravestone read, “Here I lie, Diodorus the wretched. After breaking my opponent Demetrius, I did not kill him immediately. But murderous Fate and the cunning treachery of the summa rudis killed me.”

The tombstone shows Diodorus standing over his submissive opponent, looking expectantly at the referee (summa rudis in Latin) to declare him the winner. This deviates from normal burials, which typically provide a gladiator’s stage name and how many times he won or lost during his career. The unique tombstone focused on Diodorus’s death both visually and with a written account.

Researchers believe that the referee thought Demetrius had fallen accidentally and fatally ruled that the match could continue. The image adds to a growing belief among scholars that gladiators didn’t merely butcher each other. Granted, Diodorus perished, but he didn’t kill his opponent when he had the chance. Instead, he expected a third party to call the victory. If gladiator combat wasn’t a disciplined sport, there would be no need for referees.

5 The Batavian Jupiter

In 2016, archaeologists browsed a field in the Netherlands. The site in the province of Gelderland was about 80 hectares of pure discovery. The 6,000-year-old haul included an engraved tombstone, a funerary urn, and 2,500 bronze artifacts. The discovery of Roman items wasn’t really a surprise. Gelderland once bordered Roman territory, so that was to be expected. What wasn’t anticipated was a statue of the god Jupiter and a unique ointment pot. Such elite objects would be more at home in a wealthy city or religious center than the area where they were found.

During the artifacts’ time, the land was occupied by mainly Batavian farmers, who lived in humble houses made of wood and mud. This revealing glimpse about the Batavians could mean that the locals were more Romanized than previously believed. To explain the out-of-place possessions, experts have two theories: Either the owner was a rich Batavian who wanted to display his wealth in a Roman manner, or perhaps the settlement had a temple honoring the deities of Rome.

4 The Empire Was Infested

How much a community is at risk of parasitic infections hinges mainly on good sanitation. The Romans were famous for their advanced sanitary system. They had public baths and toilets, plumbing, and aqueducts that provided drinking water. To see how the Romans measured against less sophisticated nations, anthropologists toughened up and inspected ancient poop in 2,000-year-old latrines in 2015. Contrary to what one would expect, the results showed that Roman citizens battled with parasites.

Internal infection was rife, especially whipworms, tapeworms, and roundworms. More surprisingly, it was worse than before they developed their famed sanitation. The problem stemmed from a lack of knowledge about worms. Ancient Romans didn’t understand that cooking killed the parasites and rampantly consumed a raw (and sometimes tapeworm-carrying) fish sauce called garum. Sharing communal baths with infected individuals was also risky. Farmers might also have used the human waste carted from the cities as fertilizer and infected their crops that way. Doctors also believed that worms formed spontaneously and treated patients with useless techniques like bloodletting and diets.

3 San Rocco

Researchers in Northeastern Italy hit upon the historic remains of an ancient fortification comprised of multiple buildings. The main fort, called San Rocco, was flanked by two smaller establishments on either side. Remarkably, the trio dates to around 178 BC. This makes it the oldest known Roman fort in the world, by several decades. San Rocco is the only example of an early Roman fort found in Italy and one of only a few in the world. By putting together its history, researchers hope to one day understand the evolution of what became one of the mightiest military nations on Earth.

The construction of the fortification coincides with a time when the early Romans lost a war with a northern people referred to as “pirates.” The impressive size of San Rocco showed their determination not to lose a second time, and they eventually conquered the Istria peninsula in 178–177 BC. They also protected a settlement that grew from the San Rocco site called Tergeste, which later became the city of Trieste.

2 Friendship With The Huns

Considering that the Huns, under Atilla’s reign, started the destruction of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, this one came as a surprise. A 2017 study found that during the same century, farmers of both nations, who shared contact near the Roman Empire’s eastern border, actually got along. By studying skeletal remains, researchers could determine that they swapped crops and lifestyles in order to adapt to volatile and uncertain times. This was smart. Instead of fighting, they helped each other to survive.

At first, the Huns had animals for milk and meat and grew various crops, while the Romans ate wheat and vegetables. Chemical analysis of the human remains showed that sharing eventually led to a diet which included just about everything on both sides. This mixed community, which lived near the Danube River in Hungary, allows a fresh view of the Huns, who never made it into the history books except as marauders. Elsewhere, people were Romanized, but in this case, some Romans incorporated the local customs, including the practice of elongating their skulls.

1 The Winged Building

A curious structure once stood in Norfolk, England. The large building, which resembled a “Y,” was raised around 1,800 years ago but matches nothing seen before from the Roman Empire.

The oddity begins with a central room that leads to a rectangular chamber, with two extensions forming the so-called “wings.” The central room’s foundations were solid, but those of the chamber and wings were weak. The shoddy foundations indicate that this section was intended to be used for a single event. Most likely, it could only support timber and clay walls topped with a grass roof. The central part probably had a tiled roof as well as more sturdy mortar and was meant to be permanent. The winged part was eventually removed, and a more elaborate replacement was erected over it. The decorated postholes of this newer building can still be seen today.

What the strange building was used for remains a mystery. While a villa nearby could mean the complex was Roman, it doesn’t fit any known design—and Roman architects stayed within a strict set of architectural forms. The building doesn’t match the characteristic style of the ancient locals, the Iceni, either.

Even if most of us can’t do anything to change how we look, there are still many ways we can raise our attractiveness factor for the opposite sex. Smell good, be funny, and don’t talk about your ex too much. It’s not as complicated as self-help books and relationship blogs make it out to be.

According to science, though, those are only the well-known ones. Many other factors seemingly unrelated to attractiveness secretly influence the success rate of your dates.

10 Food

As to how attractive you are to the opposite sex, you’d think that the only effect of food occurs when you show up on a date with visible food stains on your clothes. Beyond that, what you eat shouldn’t affect attractiveness at all. If it did, we’d spend as much time choosing meals for upcoming dates as we spend on clothes.

According to one study, food can influence your sex appeal in other ways, though only in the case of women.^[1] Researchers at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota found that women find men 20 percent more attractive immediately after the women eat something spicy. The study authors say that it’s because of something called embodied cognition, wherein our sensory feelings affect what we feel even if those two are otherwise unrelated.

9 Color

Preference for color is assumed to be subjective in nature. While some women may immediately ask you to take them to bed after seeing your blue shirt, others may not even answer your calls after the date. It depends on how much they like the color blue. Although that is true in general, one color is unanimously considered to be more appealing—at least on women. Red.

Quite a few studies have found that men tend to find women dressed up in red—whether it’s the color of the dress, bag, or lipstick—to be much more attractive than other colors. It’s perceived to be an indicator of sexual willingness, which may have something to do with the female body’s natural mechanisms to indicate that they’re interested.

Ever notice that your female partner blushes a lot, has fuller cheeks, and is just generally a lot redder than usual during the fertile phase of her menstrual cycle? Yup, that’s directly related to why men find the color red so hard to resist.^[2]

8 Being In A Group

Entire books and gossip columns have been written on how to approach someone at a bar (or any other public gathering). Apart from facial cues and the type of setting, many other minor factors influence whether you’ll be getting the person’s number.

We’ll leave the full analysis of all elements to the experts. But according to science, we know of at least one factor that will increase your chances—being in a group.

In research conducted by psychological scientists from the University of California, participants were asked to rate 100 people on attractiveness. The pictures included people in a group as well as alone, though they were spaced out enough so that the participants didn’t notice any repetition. Overall, people in groups were found to be more attractive than those who were alone.

It may sound counterintuitive, but the researchers believe that it makes perfect sense. When you’re in a group, your face is seen in comparison to the other members of the group. This makes it more average than it would be usually.

You may think that being average would immediately lower your rating, though that’s only true for conventionally attractive people. For the rest of us chums, being in a group hides our otherwise unattractive features as they’re perceived in comparison to others.^[3]

7 Fear

Even if we don’t know the scientific reasons behind it, a lot of us have intuitively used this at one time or another. Ever wondered why your dates at horror movies have a higher chance of succeeding than, say, at rom-coms?

Common sense would suggest that watching romantic scenes together would give you a higher chance of succeeding than staring at ghastly entities out to devour your soul. But we all know that’s not the case. So, what gives?^[4]

According to many studies, the answer is simple. We tend to mistake feelings of fear for arousal, and it almost always works. In psychology, it’s creatively known as the misattribution of arousal. When we’re scared, our body exudes symptoms—like increased heart rate and shortness of breath—that are very similar to the ones we have when we’re sexually attracted to someone.

6 The Side Of The Body

It’s common knowledge that the left and right hemispheres of the brain work in wildly different ways. Even if the extent of the difference between them and how it affects our overall personality is still not perfectly understood, we know that each side is responsible for a different type of brain function. What we don’t know, however, is that it also influences your chances of success while talking to someone in a public gathering.^[5]

According to one study, if you approach someone at a loud club and speak into their right ear, you have a much higher chance of making that person listen than if you speak into the left ear. The researchers actually tested this in a club instead of a lab.

Their findings suggest that we’re much more receptive to things on our right side. We’re not entirely sure why it happens, though you could certainly use it to your advantage on your next visit to a loud concert.

5 Scars

A huge part of the cosmetics industry is aimed at exploiting our insecurity about visible scars, especially on the face. Admittedly, different cultures have different opinions on scars. In Western society, they’re largely seen as indicators of unattractiveness. However, that’s only because we’re listening to the cosmetics industry and not actual science.

Studies have found that facial scars—at least in the case of men—are considered to be more attractive for women seeking short-term relationships. Even if we don’t hunt and fight for survival like we used to, women still associate scars with bravery on the battlefield and with survivability.

They also instinctively indicate higher levels of testosterone and genetic qualities, though the study was only conducted with short-term relationships in mind. Women may still want men without scars for longer-term commitments as that suggests that the men are more caring and empathetic.^[6]

4 Sweat

Sweat isn’t considered to be an attractive trait in any culture around the world as it comes with unpleasant side effects like body odor. People who don’t sweat a lot are still thought to be better mating partners than those who do for the simple reason that no one wants someone else’s bodily fluids in their space any longer than necessary.

According to science, though, sweat may actually make you more attractive. In a study published in The Journal of Neuroscience, researchers found that male sweat contains a pheromone known as androstadienone. It raises the levels of the cortisol hormone among women, which is responsible for sexual arousal and the activation of certain regions of the brain.^[7]

Now we’re not saying that you should show up for your date in your sweaty gym clothes as personal hygiene is still an overpowering attractiveness factor. All we’re saying is that you’re much more attractive to the ladies at the gym than you realize.

3 Ambiguity

It’s no surprise that people tend to be more romantically attracted to you if the feelings are mutual. That works the other way around, too, as someone who’s not attracted to you will eventually make you lose interest in them. (However, that may also have to do with having no choice in the matter.)

It gets a bit unclear when you can’t tell if someone is interested in you. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it should make them much more attractive to you, and science confirms it.^[8]

In one study done by researchers at the University of Virginia and Harvard, female participants were found to be attracted to men whose intentions weren’t clear. Surprisingly, the level of attraction was even higher than with men who had obviously shown interest in them. This suggests that the best course of action in a romantic pursuit is keeping things confusing.

2 Drinking Too Much Or Too Little

Ask anyone in college and they’ll tell you that drinking a lot of alcohol is the best way to find another person more attractive than he or she usually is. While we have no doubt about the veracity of that—despite a lack of scientific evidence—not much is known about how it works the other way around. How does drinking affect your own attractiveness for others?

If one study is to believed, the trick is to have just the right amount of alcohol. If you have too little, you’re (understandably) perceived as “no fun.” But having a lot isn’t good, either, as it’s associated with risky sexual behavior. According to the study at least, the perfect amount is somewhere around 250 milliliters (8 oz) of wine for an average-sized individual.^[9]

1 No Smiling

Popular wisdom says that smiling is a sure way to be more attractive than you usually are because it indicates friendliness and social adeptness. It makes sense, too, and conventionally unattractive people—like a lot of us online writers—have to resort to factors like that. According to science, though, we’re doing it all wrong.

At least for men, smiling is actually perceived to be a less attractive trait by women. It ties into the conventional stereotype of the brooding types being more appealing. But it also has to do with smiling being seen as a feminine and submissive trait. On the other hand, men find smiling women to be more attractive than their ever-serious counterparts.^[10]

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, or get in touch with him for writing gigs.