History Facts for Kids
Incredible facts from the past
Christopher Columbus was able to convince Spanish monarchs to fund his voyage in 1492 partly because he grossly underestimated the size of the Earth. Most educated Europeans already knew the Earth was round, but Columbus believed it was much smaller than it actually is. He thought he had reached Asia when he landed in the Caribbean.
At the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, approximately 300 Spartan soldiers led by King Leonidas held off a massive Persian army estimated at over 100,000 men for three days at a narrow mountain pass. Though the Spartans were ultimately defeated and killed, their stand became legendary throughout the ancient world. Their sacrifice gave the rest of Greece time to prepare its defenses.
Ancient Egyptian doctors were remarkably skilled for their era, with the Edwin Smith Papyrus from around 1600 BC describing 48 surgical cases and treatments. Egyptian physicians understood how to set broken bones, close wounds with stitches, and treat various diseases. They even prescribed moldy bread for infections — an early accidental form of antibiotic treatment.
During the Industrial Revolution in the early 1800s, children as young as 5 or 6 years old worked in coal mines, factories, and chimneys for 14 or more hours a day. Children were valued in mines because they were small enough to crawl through tight tunnels. Activists campaigned for decades before child labor laws were eventually passed to protect them.
The Forbidden City in Beijing, built between 1406 and 1420, is the world's largest surviving palace complex. It contains 980 buildings and nearly 9,000 rooms. For 500 years it served as the home of Chinese emperors, and ordinary people were forbidden from entering on pain of death — hence its name.
Alexander Graham Bell made the first successful telephone call on March 10, 1876, saying to his assistant Thomas Watson in the next room: 'Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.' Bell had just accidentally spilled acid on himself and needed help. This 10-word sentence launched the age of voice communication.
Ancient Greece invented theater as we know it. Greek playwrights like Sophocles and Aristophanes performed their plays at enormous outdoor amphitheaters that could seat tens of thousands of spectators. They invented the concepts of comedy and tragedy, and their plays explored themes of justice, love, war, and the nature of the gods.
Nelson Mandela, who became South Africa's first Black president, spent 27 years in prison for his anti-apartheid activism, much of it in a tiny cell on Robben Island. Rather than being embittered, he emerged committed to reconciliation and forgiveness. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and is celebrated worldwide as one of the great moral leaders of the 20th century.
The Byzantine Empire, the eastern continuation of the Roman Empire that survived until 1453 AD, preserved ancient Greek and Roman learning throughout the European Middle Ages. Byzantine scholars copied thousands of ancient texts and transmitted Greek philosophy and science to both the Islamic world and later Renaissance Europe. Without the Byzantines, much of classical knowledge might have been lost forever.
Before the Pilgrims even stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, 41 men signed the Mayflower Compact, creating one of America's first self-governing agreements. It established that they would create 'just and equal laws' for the general good of the settlement. This document is considered one of the foundations of American democratic self-government.