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More than five centuries after the Aztec empire’s fall to Spanish conquistadors in 1521, history buffs can’t seem to learn enough about the fascinating history of the legendary civilization. In fact, secrets are still being unearthed below the streets of Mexico City. Here are some of the fascinating facts we’ve unearthed about the daily life of this once-thriving society.

They Didn’t Call Themselves Aztecs

As with many ancient societies, much of what we know about the Aztecs comes from written accounts from outside their culture — in this case, descriptions from Spanish conquistadors who arrived in modern-day Mexico around 1519. However, the community that modern historians call “the Aztecs” actually referred to themselves as the Mexica or Tenochca people. Both names come from the region where the empire once flourished — southern and central Mexico, along with the capital city of Tenochtitlan (modern-day Mexico City). The Aztec name likely comes from the Mexica origin story describing their homeland of Aztlan (the location of which remains unknown).

The Aztec Language Is Still Alive Today

At the height of the Aztec empire’s reign, Nahuatl was the primary language used throughout Mexico, and had been for centuries. Colonists arriving from Spain around the early 16th century introduced Spanish, which would eventually replace Nahuatl. But the Indigenous language isn’t at all dead; more than 1.5 million people speak Nahuatl in communities throughout Mexico, plus there are efforts in the southern U.S. to teach and revive the language. Spanish and English speakers who’ve never heard Nahuatl still know a few words with Aztec origins, such as tomato (“tomatl”), coyote (“coyōtl”), and chili (“chīlli”).

The Aztec Empire Had Vast Libraries

Surviving accounts from Spanish colonists describe the voluminous libraries of the Aztecs, filled with thousands of books on medicine, law, and religion. But early historians didn’t give the Aztecs enough credit when it came to written language skills, once considering the hieroglyphic style used by scribes as primitive. Few written documents have survived the centuries since the Aztec empire’s disappearance, most destroyed by Spanish conquistadors. But more recent evaluation of the last remaining texts shows that the Mexica people had a sophisticated writing system on par with Japanese that may have been the most advanced in the early Americas.

The Mexica People Were Highly Educated

Aztec society had a rigid caste system dividing communities into four main classes: nobility, commoners, laborers, and enslaved people. Regardless of social standing, every child in the community attended school to receive specialized education, often for a role that was chosen at birth. Schools were divided by gender and social standing, though all Mexica children learned about religion, language, and acceptable social behavior. Children of nobility often received law, religion, and ethics training to prepare them for future leadership positions, and schools for commoners taught trade skills like sculpting, architecture, and medicine. Because Aztec culture centered on expansion and advancement through military strategy, teenage boys of all ages received military and combat training, while girls were educated in cooking, domestic tasks, and midwifery.

Aztecs Used Two Calendars

Mesoamerican calendars from societies of old have remained an interest to many people, especially those who speculate about astrological events or end of the world scenarios. But calendars used by the Aztecs weren’t too dissimilar from our own. The Mexica people relied on two simultaneous calendars: one 365-day solar calendar called the Xiuhpōhualli and a 260-day religious almanac called the Tōnalpōhualli. The solar calendar consisted of 18 months with 20 days, each month named for a significant festival or event. The religious calendar dictated auspicious times for weddings, crop plantings, and other events, using a 13-month calendar with each day represented by an animal or natural element instead of numerals.

Aztecs Wore the First Rubber-Soled Shoes

Centuries before rubber became an everyday mainstay in modern products, the ancient Mexica people were harvesting and collecting rubber tree sap for a variety of uses. Archaeological digs throughout Mesoamerica have excavated rubber balls likely used in ceremonial games or for religious offerings, but historians in the early 2000s found that Aztecs also created rubber soles for more comfortable and protective shoes. Researchers believe that Mexica artisans blended and heated rubber tree sap and extract from plants to create the rubber mixture, which could then be shaped and used for shoes, rubber bands, statues, and more.

Farmers Created Floating Fields

Constructing the city of Tenochtitlan was no small feat for the early Aztec settlers, mostly because the city was built on water. While centered on an island within Lake Texcoco, the city expanded across the lake with bridges that reached its shores with aqueducts and canals that supplied Tenochtitlan with fresh water. Farmland wasn’t vastly available on an island of more than 400,000 people, leading Mexica farmers to create floating fields called chinampas. Gardens were constructed by weaving tree branches, reeds, and sticks between poles to create an anchored base covered with mud and dead plants that broke down into nutritious soil. Chinampas doubled as a sanitation system using human waste as fertilizer, which helped crops grow vigorously while protecting drinking water from contamination.

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Even those unfamiliar with the details of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s can point to Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks as key figures of the era. A deeper dive will reveal names including A. Philip Randolph, James Farmer, Whitney M. Young, and Medgar Evers — leaders who earned their place among the luminaries of the period for spurring legal and social progress.

However, not everyone earned due recognition for their contributions, whether because of personality clashes or deep-seated prejudices that went beyond matters of race. Here are five lesser-known civil rights influencers who helped to change the course of history.

Bayard Rustin

Well before the nation watched the struggle for Black equality unfold on television, Bayard Rustin was at the forefront of a previous generation of activists as a co-founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). CORE’s main objective was to use “nonviolent direct action” while fighting for civil rights. Rustin later helped Martin Luther King launch the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and is credited as a primary organizing force behind the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom and the 1963 March on Washington.

But Rustin was also an openly gay man, and as such, was always in danger of being marginalized despite his obvious brilliance as an adviser and strategist. He was forced out of the SCLC after a congressman threatened to spread rumors about an affair between King and Rustin, and while he returned to pull together the March on Washington, internal opposition forced him to accept a lesser public role in the proceedings.

Rustin later served as president and co-chair of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, and continued his push for economic progress even as the wider public movement lost steam. By the time of his death in 1987, Rustin was something of a historical footnote, despite having his fingerprints all over the major civil rights victories of his day.

Claudette Colvin

Nine months before Parks was arrested for refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama, the same thing happened to 15-year-old Claudette Colvin. So why was the Parks incident the one that ignited the Montgomery bus boycott and transformed the issue into a national story? As Colvin herself later conceded, the then-42-year-old Parks, a secretary for the NAACP, was considered by some to be a more respectable symbol for the boycott, particularly after it was discovered that the unwed teenager had become pregnant.

Nevertheless, Colvin wound up playing a crucial role as events unfolded, as she was named a plaintiff in the 1956 Browder v. Gayle case that challenged the constitutionality of Alabama’s segregated buses and provided the legal backbone for the boycott’s triumph. Colvin left Alabama soon after and spent most of the following decades living anonymously in New York City, though her contributions have finally earned some long-overdue recognition in recent years.

Fannie Lou Hamer

If King served as the face and eloquent voice of the civil rights struggle, then Fannie Lou Hamer represented its rank-and-file members who were sparked to action because they were “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Born into a Mississippi family of sharecroppers, Hamer was fired after attempting to register to vote in 1962. She used that experience to fuel a tireless dedication to voting rights and launch the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) in 1964.

That summer, Hamer entered the national spotlight with a powerful speech before the Democratic National Committee’s credentials panel in which she recalled being subjected to a brutal beating in jail. But her presence also underscored the limitations of her position in the pecking order; President Lyndon B. Johnson dismissed her as an ” illiterate woman,” and even ostensible ally Roy Wilkins of the NAACP said she was “ignorant.”

Still, Hamer kept up the fight for equal rights even as she struggled to summon the respect she deserved. She later spearheaded the foundation of the Freedom Farm Cooperative in 1969 and the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971.

James Meredith

Even when compared to other activists who overcame intimidation and violence to participate in demonstrations, James Meredith stands out for his astonishing displays of courage. In the fall of 1962, the 29-year-old Air Force veteran integrated the University of Mississippi. His mere presence at the university caused an uproar and ignited a massive riot that drew 30,000 U.S. troops, federal marshals, and national guardsmen into the fray. Four years later, Meredith embarked on a solo “March Against Fear” out of Memphis, Tennessee, but was shot before he could complete the planned 220-mile walk to Jackson, Mississippi.

While he drew praise from King, most notably in the famed “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Meredith was never one to conform to the expectations of others. In 1967, he raised eyebrows by endorsing the reelection campaign of former Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, who once vehemently opposed Meredith’s entry into the state’s flagship university. Two decades later, after several failed attempts to run for office, Meredith supported the Louisiana gubernatorial campaign of former KKK grand wizard David Duke.

Today, a statue commemorating Meredith’s achievement stands on the Ole Miss campus, though the rest of his complicated story is often omitted from history lessons.

Pauli Murray

Pauli Murray was enormously influential as a lawyer, writer, and teacher. She became California’s first Black deputy attorney general in 1945, as well as the first African American to earn a Doctor of Juridical Science from Yale Law School two decades later. Additionally, the acclaimed scholar saw her legal arguments used in the groundbreaking cases of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which struck down segregation in public schools, and Reed v. Reed (1971), which extended the rights under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause to women.

Publicly critical of the sexism rife within the ranks of the civil rights movement, Murray helped launch the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. Eventually, she found herself out-of-step with its leadership and stepped away. On her own once again, Murray resigned from her teaching post and entered New York’s General Theological Seminary, en route to one final historic achievement in 1977 as the first African American woman to be vested as an Episcopal priest.

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Women have contributed to almost every facet of life, from sports and science to art and politics. While some female role models are starting to get more recognition, we still tend to gloss over history’s supporting female characters — women who broke their own glass ceilings while serving others, smashing records, and pursuing personal passions. Here are a few stories you may have missed in history class.

First Known Female Postmaster in Colonial America

Mary Katharine Goddard was among the first female publishers in the U.S., a socially precarious venture for a colonial woman during the country’s fight for independence. Working with her mother, Sarah, and brother, William, Mary Katharine founded multiple publications starting in the 1760s. William frequently traveled between cities to establish new papers, leaving the bulk of news collecting and printing to his sister. In 1774, he appointed Mary Katharine to run The Maryland Journal while he focused on other pursuits (such as lobbying for a national postal service) and served time in debtor’s prison. During the height of the Revolutionary War, Mary Katharine made a name for herself with fiery anti-British editorials. In 1775, she was appointed Baltimore’s first postmaster — likely the first woman to hold such a position in colonial America — and in 1777, Congress commissioned her to print copies of the Declaration of Independence. (Surviving copies feature her printer’s mark at the bottom.) Despite her success, however, Mary Katharine was pushed out of both roles at the war’s end. In 1784, William rescinded her title as publisher, creating a lifelong rift between the siblings. Not long after, she was also removed from her postmaster job on the basis of sex. She wrote to George Washington asking to be reinstated, but the President passed her complaint to the postmaster general, who left her plea unanswered.

First Woman Surgeon and Female Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker was the second U.S. woman to receive a medical degree (following Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell), but she became known as the country’s first female surgeon. Following her medical school graduation in 1855, Walker went into practice with her husband and fellow doctor Albert Miller, though the Civil War would change the course of her career. Despite having a medical degree, Walker was denied work as a military surgeon in the Union Army because she was a woman. Instead, she volunteered at field hospitals in Washington, D.C., and Virginia until 1863, when Tennessee accepted her medical credentials and designated her as the Army’s first female surgeon. Walker’s proximity to battlefields put her at risk — in 1864, she was captured by Confederate troops and spent four months at the notoriously brutal Castle Thunder prison, where she suffered injuries that plagued her for the rest of her life. At the war’s end, Walker was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for Meritorious Service, an honor that Congress revoked in 1917 on the grounds that her medical work was not directly on the front lines. She refused to return the award for the remaining two years of her life and was posthumously re-awarded the medal in 1977. More than 100 years later, Walker remains the only woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

First Female TV Game Show Host

Actress Arlene Francis found her footing in entertainment as a radio host, but it was a TV first that catapulted her career to new heights. In 1949, Francis became the first woman to host a television game show in the United States. On Blind Date, a show Francis originally hosted over radio airwaves, male contestants competed for an all-expenses-paid outing with women hidden behind a wall, the obvious catch being that they couldn’t see their prospective dates and had to answer a litany of questions with the goal of being picked. Francis hosted the show for three years before moving on to films and Broadway stages, but her best-known role was a 25-year stint as a panelist on What’s My Line?, another TV game show.

First Native American Woman to Argue a Supreme Court Case

Lyda Conley’s legacy was preserving that of her ancestors — specifically their final resting place. Conley acted as a staunch (and armed) defender of the Wyandot National Burying Ground, a Kansas cemetery at risk of sale and destruction some 60 years after its creation. The cemetery was established in 1843 following typhoid and measles outbreaks that took hundreds of Wyandot lives; the loss was a particular blow to an Indigenous community that was forcibly relocated thanks to broken treaties with the U.S. government and the cruel Indian Removal Act of 1830. In 1890, Kansas senators introduced legislation to sell the burial ground; although it failed, the effort encouraged Lyda Conley to attend law school to defend the very cemetery in which her own parents, siblings, and grandparents were interred. Conley was admitted to the Missouri Bar in 1902, and within four years put her legal skills to work as the federal government moved to sell the cemetery. Conley and her sister Lena began a legal and physical siege for its protection, building an armed watch station called Fort Conley on the grounds and warning, “woe be to the man that first attempts to steal a body.” In 1910, her legal fight made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where she became the first Native American woman (and third woman ever) to argue a case before the judges. While the court ruled against her, years of media coverage about the cemetery worked in her favor. In 1913, the Kansas Senate passed legislation protecting the cemetery, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2017.

First Woman to Break the Sound Barrier

Aviator Jacqueline Cochran set more than 73 flight records during her lifetime, most for altitude and speed. In 1953, she also snagged the title for first woman to break the sound barrier. Her success was a product of her determination, which may have been honed during a difficult childhood; raised in Florida by a family with modest means, Cochran began working in a cotton mill at just six years old. At 10, she struck out on her own, working in salons for several years before launching her own cosmetics company in the mid-1930s. Around this time, in 1932, Cochran pursued her pilot’s license with the goal of more easily reaching cross-country clients and business partners. Instead, she found a new passion that led her to compete in air racing, where she began setting speed records. When World War II started a few years later, she shifted her focus again to find ways to put her talents to practical use. In 1941, Cochran recruited two dozen female pilots for the Air Transport Auxiliary, a World War II program that utilized civilian pilots to transport military planes. That same year, she became the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic Ocean. And by late 1943, she was commander of the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots. Cochran continued flying after the war, with a renewed focus on speed; her reputation gained her access to military jets that helped her break records — including the sound barrier feat.

First Woman to Win Three Track-and-Field Olympic Gold Medals in a Single Year

No one would have guessed that Wilma Rudolph would be known as the fastest runner in the world by age 20 — most doctors believed she’d never even walk as an adult. After contracting scarlet fever, pneumonia, and polio when she was young, Rudolph lost much of her mobility, then slowly recovered with the help of leg braces she wore for several years. By the time she was nine years old, the determined future athlete had regained her ability to walk and began playing basketball; in high school, she was scouted by coaches for her speed on the court. One of those coaches invited Rudolph to train at Tennessee State University, where she refined her high-speed sprinting skills. She and her track teammates made two trips to the Olympics — first in 1956, when she was still in high school, and again in 1960. It was at the 1960 Games in Rome that Rudolph claimed three gold medals in track-and-field: one each in the 100-meter and 200-meter races, and another in the 4×100-meter relay. She became the first U.S. woman to do so at a single Olympics, simultaneously breaking three world records for speed. Rudolph retired from sports two years later but took up coaching and became a goodwill ambassador to French West Africa. Her Olympic achievements helped pave the way for the Black female athletes who would eventually break her records.

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The struggle for workers’ rights in the U.S. is a fight that’s existed since the nation’s founding. The first Monday in September is a celebration of and memorial to the many workers, unions, and activists past and present who’ve secured hard-earned wins to help make America a prosperous nation for all its citizens. At the same time, the holiday is also often a nationwide end-of-summer bash. These six facts explore the history, meaning, and myths behind one of the most-loved holidays on the calendar.

Labor Day Started as a New York City Parade

On the morning of September 5, 1882, some 20,000 union workers marched through lower Manhattan. According to one newspaper report, the crowd was filled with “men on horseback, men wearing regalia, men with society aprons, and men with flags, musical instruments, badges, and all the other paraphernalia of a procession.” The parade celebrated the labor of the city’s union workers, who actually had to sacrifice a day’s pay in order to attend the celebration — but what a celebration it was. After the parade, 25,000 union members and their families filled Wendel’s Elm Park at 92nd Street and Ninth Avenue for a post-parade party, where beer kegs were “mounted in every conceivable place.” On September 5 the next year, New York’s Central Labor Union celebrated its second Labor Day parade, and the late summer holiday became a tradition.

The Holiday Was First Recognized by Oregon in 1887

Although New York held the first parades and even introduced the first legislation recognizing Labor Day, Oregon was actually the first to officially recognize the holiday, on February 21, 1887 (though the state reserved the first Saturday in June for Labor Day, rather than early September). Within the same year, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York followed suit. It wasn’t until 1894 that Congress solidified Labor Day as a national holiday — the legislation was signed into law by then-President Grover Cleveland.

Most Countries Don’t Celebrate Workers in September

While reserving the first Monday in September for Labor Day hearkens back to the holiday’s New York origins, the decision was also designed to distract from a more unsavory moment in the history of U.S. labor relations. Most countries around the world actually celebrate unions and workers on May 1, otherwise known as International Workers’ Day. This international holiday actually has its origins in the U.S., when a clash between Chicago police and workers in 1886 left several dead and dozens injured. Known as the Haymarket Riot, the event went on to inspire International Workers’ Day in 1889. Uneasy honoring such a bloody moment in U.S. history — especially one that inspired widespread vitriol against labor unions — Congress and President Cleveland opted for a different date entirely.

There Was a Labor Day Before There Was a U.S. Department of Labor

Although the 19th century gave birth to what eventually became Labor Day — along with many other important historical moments that defined the worker’s struggle in both America and the world — the U.S. Labor Department wasn’t established until more than three decades after that first parade down New York City’s streets. Although the U.S. did establish the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1884 and the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903, the modern U.S. Department of Labor wasn’t created until 1913, when lame duck President William Howard Taft reluctantly signed it into law. Taft had such strong concerns about the bill (he thought it would hinder efficient administration) that he only signed it into law mere hours before his successor, Woodrow Wilson, took office. Today, the Department of Labor oversees labor laws, guarantees workers’ rights, and ensures safe working conditions. In 1933 — two decades after its creation — the department also became the first to be led by a woman, Secretary Frances Perkins (who was later recognized as a saint in the Episcopal Church).

137 Million Americans Traveled for Labor Day in 2022

According to a survey conducted by The Vacationer, 53% of Americans traveled on Labor Day weekend in 2022, which equates to some 137 million people. This figure narrowly surpassed both Memorial Day and the Fourth of July as the busiest travel weekend in the U.S. Although most of that travel (about 36%) occurred via car, airports also tend to see a serious uptick of Americans traveling to popular domestic locations, such as New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, or even catching international flights to London, Rome, or Tokyo. In 2022, the Transportation Security Administration screened 8.76 million travelers — exceeding pre-pandemic numbers — with Friday marking the busiest day of the weekend.

Yes, You Can Definitely Wear White After Labor Day

The color white has its advantages during the summer, as it’s the best hue (or combination of all hues) to reflect the sun’s rays, but why is there an informal rule forbidding the color after summer is over? The roots of the rule date back to the 19th century as a means for upper-class women to distinguish themselves. The idea was that white clothes were only appropriate for weddings and resort wear, and because Labor Day stood in as the unofficial end of summer (though the astronomical end occurs weeks later), white shouldn’t be worn after Labor Day. If you’re looking for logic, there isn’t any — it was just an arbitrary rule meant to exclude those who didn’t have well-established fortunes and were less in the know. Somehow, this arbitrary rule survived more than a century, though it isn’t really recognized today — even if that doesn’t stop some people from still mentioning this pernicious piece of class warfare.