You’ve probably enjoyed a nice, cool beverage today. If it’s a hot day where you are, you may have even plunked some ice cubes into your glass in order to keep your drink at an optimal temperature. Using ice for our personal comfort — today, among the most mundane of activities — was unthinkable in most parts of the globe a little over two centuries ago. In the nineteenth century, one entrepreneur’s unconventional thinking changed this, as he created a complex and expensive infrastructure for the delivery of ice around the world. …

The phrase the rules of war sounds like an oxymoron — how could an event full of murder and destruction follow an orderly set of guidelines? Nevertheless, many societies have attempted to regulate warfare for the good of combatants and civilians. One early system of rules for warfare was devised in medieval Europe. It exempted large parts of society from warfare and it severely limited when fighting could occur. In its most extreme versions, the so-called Truce of God only allowed fighting on certain Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.

Medieval chaos

These strict rules emerged because medieval Europe had become an ugly, chaotic…

In the early 1800s, dentistry was a booming but primitive field. Caring for teeth became a profession with a (somewhat) scientific basis during the 1700s when French surgeon Pierre Fauchard published the first book of modern dentistry, The Surgeon Dentist. At the time, there was no licensure for dentists; anyone could dabble in dentistry if they wanted to. Fauchard made the field more professional — he invented methods for modern procedures like filling cavities and fitting people with dentures. …

How tall is Mount Everest? After numerous attempts to measure it, we know it is 29,017 feet tall. Or is it 29,002 feet? 29,029? 29,035? 29,032?

People have been trying to precisely measure the world’s tallest mountain for almost two centuries, and the process has been a triumph of science — and surprisingly political.

Imperial Measures

For most of the nineteenth century (from 1802 to 1871!), the British conducted the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India — an effort to measure and map the most important colony in the British Empire.

The survey was a classic nineteenth-century British endeavor, mixing genuine scientific curiosity…

The Sun King apparently loved a good fountain. As Louis XIV built his pleasure palace at Versailles, he made sure that his engineers installed hundreds of fountains, cascades, and pools to delight his guests. These water features made the palace stunning to its visitors, but they were wasteful. Versailles soon came to demand more water than the city of Paris.

Rather than shut down his fountains, Louis commissioned the most remarkable machine of the seventeenth century to supply them. It was a marvel of engineering — some called it the eighth wonder of the world. …

Guess what? The IRS already knows what you made last year. Your employer had to tell them! They also know from your banks how much you made in dividends and interest. They know what you paid in mortgage interest and what you spent on health care premiums. They also know how much you paid in taxes on all of this income, and how much they have already withheld from your paycheck.

In short, they already know everything you have to spend a tedious Saturday afternoon telling them when you do you taxes. If you mess up on your taxes, as…

For a certain type of college-bound high school student, the pressure has compounded in recent decades. Ambitious students have made admission to a prestigious university their all-encompassing quest. This quest has only become more difficult as the population has grown (while the number of spots in colleges largely hasn’t) and the path to the American dream has narrowed. Now, even spots in large state universities are quite competitive (especially as those universities take more and more high-tuition out-of-state students), and a lot of students need to earn scholarships to make their college dreams a reality. …

There’s an ancient olive tree in Vouves, Crete. It is somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 years old; the most likely conclusion is that it started its life 2,900 years ago. This estimate is based on the age of a graveyard surrounding the tree, for which it may have been planted. The ancient tree is quite healthy — it has a stout trunk 15 feet in diameter and it still produces olives. Its branches were used to make wreaths for winners in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.

It’s hard for humans to comprehend a lifespan that long. A normal human life…