History Facts for Kids
Incredible facts from the past
Popular Roman gladiators were true celebrities. Fans could buy oil flasks, lamps, and pottery decorated with their favourite fighter's face — much like buying a modern sports star's merchandise.
Christopher Columbus never set foot on the mainland of North America. His four voyages between 1492 and 1504 took him to the Caribbean, Central America, and the northern coast of South America.
The Maya played a ball game called pok-a-tok using a heavy rubber ball on a stone court. Players had to get the ball through a stone ring without using their hands — and the losers may sometimes have been sacrificed.
The world's first public steam-powered railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened in 1825 in England, carrying coal and passengers at the then-astonishing speed of about 25 kilometres per hour.
Harriet Tubman escaped slavery in 1849 and then risked her life to guide approximately 70 enslaved people to freedom along the Underground Railroad — a network of secret routes and safe houses.
Several months in our modern calendar are named after Roman gods and emperors: January (Janus), March (Mars), June (Juno), and July and August after Julius Caesar and Emperor Augustus.
The ancient Greeks played many recognisable sports including running, wrestling, discus, javelin, and long jump. The original Olympic Games featured over 20 different events by their later centuries.
The Space Race between the United States and Soviet Union lasted from the late 1950s to 1969, driven by Cold War rivalry. It produced some of the most remarkable achievements in human history within just over a decade.
The first expedition to sail all the way around the world, led by Ferdinand Magellan and completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano, took nearly three years (1519–1522) and set off with 270 men but returned with only 18.
The Romans built massive aqueducts to carry fresh water from mountains into their cities. Some of these stone channels stretched over 50 miles long. Parts of them are still standing today!