Unfun facts

[snexxer]

The world's shortest recorded war is the Anglo - Zanzibar War, August 27th 1896.
It lasted around 38 and 45 mins.

 

[Him15]

We arent really all that more intelligent than ancient people. We recently rediscovered how to make roman concrete, which is stronger and lasts way longer than modern stuff. We weren't able to figure out how they made it until somone found the recipe in an old scroll.

Same goes for modern Damascus steel which looks quite a bit different than ancient Damascus steel and we have no idea how they made the ancient stuff.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

We arent really all that more intelligent than ancient people. We recently rediscovered how to make roman concrete, which is stronger and lasts way longer than modern stuff. We weren't able to figure out how they made it until somone found the recipe in an old scroll.

Same goes for modern Damascus steel which looks quite a bit different than ancient Damascus steel and we have no idea how they made the ancient stuff.

This latter bit is not completely correct. Many legendary styles of Damascus steel were either never lost (Wootz, for instance) or have been rediscovered, and new ones are added regularly, some of which are significantly improved in various ways to the older methods. Much like violins, we've never lost the details on making 'em, but there are some specific examples of both steel and instruments where we've yet to recover the methods used.