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Presidents are much more than the policies they back or the speeches they give — sometimes they put out fires in the Library of Congress, popularized ice cream Stateside, or were nationally ranked wrestlers. Below are 20 strange and fascinating facts about America’s first 20 Presidents.

George Washington

While every acting President serves as the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military, nobody will ever outrank George Washington. He was posthumously given the rank of General of the Armies of the United States, sometimes compared to being a six-star general. Although General John J. Pershing also held the title for his service during WWI, when President Ford appointed Washington in 1976 — 200 years after Washington’s heyday — he specified that our first President would always rank first among all Army officers past and present.

John Adams

The Boston Massacre, in which British soldiers shot and killed five citizens, was a major flashpoint on the road to the Revolutionary War. When murder charges were brought against the soldiers, John Adams acted as their defense lawyer. He called the trial one of his most “gallant” and “disinterested actions of my whole life.”

Thomas Jefferson

When Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark out west to explore the Louisiana Territory in 1804, the President told the explorers to watch out for mammoths. Jefferson was apparently obsessed with mammoths and was convinced they were still alive, gallivanting in America’s wild west.

James Madison

James Madison and his wife, Dolley, helped popularize ice cream in America. Tastes in the treat, however, would be considered questionable today: chestnut, asparagus, and parmesan were all on the menu. Dolley’s favorite flavor was … oyster.

James Monroe

While George Washington gets all the credit for bravely crossing the icy Delaware River in 1776, Monroe deserves attention too. Then-Lieutenant Monroe was part of an advance unit and crossed the river before Washington’s crew. On the other side, Monroe was wounded at the Battle of Trenton, as Hessian soldiers shot him in the shoulder.

John Quincy Adams

The election of 1824 saw four viable candidates, none of whom won an outright majority of electoral votes. Andrew Jackson nabbed 99, John Quincy Adams won 84, William H. Crawford earned 41, and Henry Clay claimed 37. Despite having neither the highest number of electoral or total popular votes, Adams was chosen as President by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Andrew Jackson

In 1835, Jackson received a present at the White House: a 1,400 pound wheel of cheese. It sat around idle for two years until Jackson, sick of the cheese, invited 10,000 visitors into the White House to get rid of it. As one resident recalled: “The air was redolent with cheese, the carpet was slippery with cheese, and nothing else was talked about at Washington that day.” Another called the event, “an evil-smelling horror.”

Martin Van Buren

Having grown up in a Dutch-speaking community in New York, Van Buren was the only President whose first language was not English. Although Van Buren worked hard to mask his original tongue, observers claim his accent would surface whenever he became visibly excited.

William Henry Harrison

When a pesky newspaper claimed that Harrison sat in a log cabin and swilled hard cider all day, Harrison didn’t fight the libelous claim. He embraced it. Supporters started calling him the “Log Cabin and Hard Cider candidate” and handed out cider and specialty bottles of booze shaped like log cabins. (Supporters even composed a song for him called “Good Hard Cider.”)

John Tyler

According to Smithsonian, Tyler was “the only president to commit a public act of treason against the U.S. government.” Sixteen years after leaving office, Tyler embraced Virginia’s decision to secede from the Union and was elected to the Confederate Congress. He died before taking a seat with the Confederate government, but the damage was done: When Tyler died, President Lincoln reportedly refused to lower the flag at half-staff.

James K. Polk

For two days a week, any Joe Schmoe could walk off the street and visit President Polk in the White House for an evening reception. These “office hours” weren’t very productive, though. Many people walking off the street, to Polk’s annoyance, merely came in asking for a job.

Zachary Taylor

The second President to die in office did not smoke or drink, but he did chew tobacco — lots of it. In fact, he was an impressive spittle-shooter. According to the book Presidents: A Biographical Dictionary, Taylor had “the reputation of never missing the sand-filled box that served as a spittoon in his office.”

Millard Fillmore

Millard Fillmore was an avid reader who would do nearly anything for a book. On Christmas Eve in 1851, when the Library of Congress caught on fire, Fillmore ran to the scene with a group of Congressmen and “rendered all the service in their power” to stop the fire. Fillmore led the bucket brigade early into Christmas morning.

Franklin Pierce

Franklin Pierce was one of many Presidents who came from a law background, but he was also known for being especially personable and having an excellent memory. He reportedly could give half-hour-long speeches without the help of notes and had “a knack for recalling the names of every juror who ever sat on one of his cases.”

James Buchanan

Considered one of America’s worst presidents, Buchanan’s fence-sitting on the topic of slavery helped set the stage for the Civil War. It was just one of many controversial positions: On the campaign trail, Buchanan argued that a wage of 10 cents was fair for a day’s labor. (At the time, most Americans supposedly needed around $6 a week — or 86 cents a day — to live.) The gaffe earned Buchanan the nickname “10 Cent Jimmy.”

Abraham Lincoln

Honest Abe was an accomplished wrestler. It’s said that, as a young man in Illinois, Lincoln competed in about 300 wrestling contests and lost just one match. In 1830, after he was crowned his county’s wrestling champion, Lincoln wasn’t afraid to trash-talk his opponents: “I’m the big buck of this lick,” he reportedly said. “If any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns.”

Andrew Johnson

Lovers of Alaska’s mountains and streams have Andrew Johnson and his Secretary of State, William H. Seward, to thank. During Johnson’s presidency, Russia sold Alaska to the United States for the price of  $7.2 million … in gold. Although most Americans supported the purchase, critics would call the land “Walrussia,” “Icebergia,” and Johnson’s “polar bear garden.”

Ulysses S. Grant

The “S” in Ulysses S. Grant’s name doesn’t mean anything. It’s a clerical error. Grant received the erroneous middle initial when a friend of his father, Thomas Hamer, nominated Ulysses for enrollment at West Point. The initial stuck. Writing to his future wife, Grant said: “I have an ‘S’ in my name and don’t know what it stands for.”

Rutherford B. Hayes

Several Presidents served during the Civil War, but only Hayes was wounded in combat. He had four horses shot from under him. He suffered a wounded knee, a gunshot wound to the left arm, a hit from a spent musket ball to the head, an ankle injury, and a final gunshot wound at the Battle of Cedar Creek.

James A. Garfield

In 1880, Garfield attended the Republican National Convention with no intention of running for president. But when the convention stalled, a delegate nominated Garfield as a compromise, and a stream of unexpected votes flooded in. “This honor comes to me unsought,” Garfield said. “I have never had the presidential fever, not even for a day … I have no feeling of elation in view of the position I am called upon to fill.”

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For nearly 200 million years, Earth was the domain of the dinosaurs. Although many people picture giant, green-skinned reptiles roaming the hothouse jungles of the Mesozoic, dinosaurs were incredibly varied creatures — large and small, warm- and cold-blooded — and roamed every continent (yes, including Antarctica). But with some 66 million years or so of separation between humans and dinosaurs, and with many of these wondrous creatures’ secrets hidden away under layers of rock, paleontologists are still trying to understand these amazing beings. Here are six fascinating facts about dinosaurs that debunk long-lasting myths, and explain why paleontology is one of the most exciting scientific fields today.

An Asteroid Didn’t Kill All the Dinosaurs

According to the prevailing theory among scientists, some 66 million years ago, an asteroid we now call Chicxulub slammed into the coast off the Yucatan Peninsula, triggering Earth’s fifth mass extinction in its more than 4 billion-year-long history. The debris ejected into the atmosphere streaked through the sky, and the resulting friction superheated the atmosphere, causing forest fires around the globe. After a prolonged winter caused by a thick haze of ash blotting out the sun, some 75% of all living species on Earth went extinct. Although many of those species were land-dwelling dinosaurs, one group largely survived the devastation — beaked avian dinosaurs known today as birds.

The first avian dinosaur, archaeopteryx, popped up around 150 million years ago. This proto-bird had teeth, though through evolution, a subsect of these flying dinos dropped teeth for beaks instead. Some scientists theorize that these beaks gave birds a post-apocalyptic advantage, because they could more easily dine on the hearty nuts and seeds found throughout the world’s destroyed forests.

Science Is Still Debating the Existence of the Brontosaurus

Paleontologists have been debating the existence of the giant sauropod named brontosaurus for nearly 150 years. The story starts during the fast-and-loose “Bone Wars” period of paleontology in the late 19th century. During that time, a bitter rivalry developed between American paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. It was Marsh who discovered the skeleton of a long-necked apatosaurus in 1877, but the fossil was missing its skull. Marsh incorrectly paired the body with the skull of another dinosaur (likely a camarasaurus). Two years later, when a more complete apatosaurus skeleton wound up in his possession, the specimen was unrecognizable compared to Marsh’s Frankenstein dino, so he instead created a whole new species — brontosaurus, meaning “thunder lizard.” Scientists spotted the mistake in 1903, but the name stuck in the public’s mind.

However, a century later, scientists examining more fossils determined that a close cousin of apatosaurus who had a thinner and less robust neck did exist, and resurrected the name brontosaurus to describe it. However, not all paleontologists accept the revived name for the genus — as beloved as it is.

Dinosaurs Didn’t Live in Water

Although many aquatic reptiles existed during the Age of the Dinosaurs, they were not dinosaurs. The most famous of these water-dwelling creatures was ichthyosaurus, which is actually a distinct marine vertebrate — not a dino. The term “dinosaur” instead mostly refers to terrestrial reptiles who walked with their legs under them (not to the side like crocodilians). Other factors such as foot and neck size also help define what is and isn’t a dinosaur.

Despite the fact that nearly all dinosaurs were terrestrial, a few lived a semi-aquatic existence. The spinosaurus, which lived 99 million to 93 million years ago, shows evidence of eating fish, and ankylosaurus lived near coastlines.
Similarly, species like the flying pterodactyls (also known as pterosaurs) — which could be as large as a fighter jet or as small as a paper airplane — are distant cousins of dinosaurs, not dinosaurs themselves, although media coverage frequently refers to them that way.

Dinosaurs and Mammals Coexisted

Mammals and dinosaurs coexisted during most of the Mesozoic Era (252 million to 66 million years ago). The first known mammal, called morganucodontids, appeared around 200 million years ago and was about the size of a shrew. During the Age of the Dinosaurs, mammals remained small, never really exceeding the size of a badger, and were a go-to food source for carnivorous dinos (though sometimes the opposite was also true).

Things changed when a giant asteroid smacked into Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period. Mammals’ small size meant they could burrow underground and escape scorching surface temperatures. As for food, mammals were perfectly content with eating insects and aquatic plant life (which also survived the asteroid’s impact), while large herbivorous dinosaurs went hungry. Over the next 25 million years, mammals underwent a drastic growth spurt as the Age of Mammals began to take shape.

The Film “Jurassic Park” Is a Bit of a Misnomer

The entry point for many into the world of dinosaurs is Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Jurassic Park, which inspired an entire generation of paleontologists. Despite its outsized impact on the field, the film does get a few things wrong about dinosaurs. For one, dinosaurs are now thought to sport feathers, whereas Jurassic Park’s dinos represent the lizard-esque depiction popular in times past. Also, the film’s very name is a misnomer, as the dinosaurs that take up the most screen time — such as the Tyrannosaurus rex, velociraptor, and triceratops — all lived during the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago).

This may seem like a small difference, but the Age of the Dinosaurs is surprisingly long. In fact, the T. rex lived closer to humans, separated by more than 60 million years, than to the stegosaurus, which lived in the Jurassic period some 80 million years before the “king of the tyrant lizards.”

We’re Living in a Golden Age of Dinosaur Discovery

Paleontology is far from a static field. Every year, an estimated 50 new dinosaur species are discovered — that’s basically a new dinosaur every week. Roughly half of those species are being discovered in China, a country that only recently opened up to paleontological pursuits. Technology has also upended the field, with CT scans able to examine the interiors of dino skulls, while other tomographic image techniques can render 3D recreations of bones. Dinosaurs may be a species buried in Earth’s geological past, but uncovering that past has a bright and exciting future.

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Diana, Princess of Wales, was — and arguably, still is — one of the most famous women in the world. From the time she began dating Prince Charles in 1980 to her tragic death in 1997 at age 36, she was constantly photographed by paparazzi, surrounded by crowds, and the subject of daily headlines, whether truthful or not. Detractors and fans alike scrutinized almost every facet of her life. “It took a long time to understand why people were so interested in me,” Diana once said.

While it feels like every detail about Diana’s short but famous life is well-known — thanks to a constant stream of books, articles, TV, and film projects — some stories haven’t grabbed as much attention. Here are eight lesser-known facts about the People’s Princess.

Baby Diana Waited a Week for Her Name

When Diana was born on July 1, 1961, her parents had been hoping for a son. They already had two girls and had lost a baby boy who died shortly after his birth in January 1960. Her father, due to inherit an earldom, desperately wanted a male heir. Diana’s parents were so focused on having a boy that they hadn’t come up with names in case their newborn turned out to be a girl. A week passed before Diana was named Diana Frances Spencer. Frances honored her mother, while Diana was a nod to the Spencer family tree.

Diana Had Her Own Royal Heritage

Before Diana married into the British royal family, she had her own royal connections via her ancestors; illegitimate offspring of Kings Charles II and James II had joined the aristocratic Spencer line. Thanks to her lineage, Diana actually had more English royal blood than Prince Charles, as the Windsors have strong Germanic ties. Charles’ great-grandfather, King George V, changed the family name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor in 1917, due to tensions with Germany during World War I.

Diana Left School at 16

When Diana was a 15-year-old student in June 1977, she took her O level (ordinary level) exams. These standardized tests are supposed to demonstrate mastery of different subjects; in Diana’s case, English literature, English language, history, art, and geography. Unfortunately, she failed all these exams, perhaps due to anxiety or lack of studying. She then failed a second attempt at her O levels later that year.

After her O level failures, Diana had to leave school when she was 16. Even after becoming a princess, she remembered this setback with a degree of shame. A 1985 documentary recorded her telling a boy at a children’s home, “I never got any O levels: brain the size of a pea, I’ve got.”

Diana Didn’t Say “Obey” in Her Marriage Vows

Diana was only 20 when she wed Prince Charles, who was 12 years her senior. Despite being so young, she was willing to buck royal tradition when it came to her 1981 wedding vows. Other royal brides, even Queen Elizabeth II, had stuck to traditional Church of England wording from 1662 and promised to “obey” their husbands (men were not required to say they would obey their wives). Diana instead opted for the church’s updated marriage service. At the altar, she told Charles she would “love him, comfort him, honor, and keep him, in sickness and in health.”

Though Diana never met future daughter-in-laws Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, they followed in her footsteps by omitting “obey” in their wedding ceremonies.

Diana Loved To Dance

Dance was a longtime passion of Diana’s. After years of ballet, tap, and ballroom lessons, she won a school dance competition in 1976. And she didn’t abandon dancing when she became a princess. She even asked ballet dancer Wayne Sleep for lessons in the early 1980s; his schedule couldn’t accommodate her, but he found a colleague to teach her.

After seeing a performance of the musical Cats, Diana and Charles visited Andrew Lloyd Webber backstage. According to Webber’s memoir, Charles remarked on the dancing and Diana demonstrated some splits herself. At the White House in November 1985, First Lady Nancy Reagan prompted John Travolta to ask Diana to dance; they impressed onlookers as they shared the floor in one of the famous photo ops of Diana’s life. In December 1985, Diana stunned Charles at the Royal Opera House — though not in a good way — with an onstage choreographed number with Sleep, set to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” (an incident depicted on The Crown). Sleep later said, “She loved the freedom dancing gave her.”

Diana Went Clubbing With Freddie Mercury

According to actress Cleo Rocos, in the late 1980s she, Diana, comedian Kenny Everett, and rock star Freddie Mercury once got together to watch reruns of The Golden Girls, the sound muted so they could spice up the dialogue themselves. Diana then wanted to join the group on their outing to a gay bar that night. Some were hesitant, but Mercury said, “Go on, let the girl have some fun.” Hidden by sunglasses and a cap, Diana was able to sneak into the bar. She remained unrecognized and, per Rocos, “She loved it.”

That wasn’t the only time Diana went under disguise for a night out on the town. Shortly before her sister-in-law Sarah Ferguson (aka Fergie) wed Prince Andrew on July 23, 1986, Diana, Fergie, and others donned police outfits and staged a fake arrest in front of Buckingham Palace for a bachelorette party prank. They were picked up by a police van, but released once the officers realized who their passengers were. After this, Diana and the gang, still in disguise, headed to a nightclub. They only left when they were recognized.

Diana Considered Starring in a Sequel to “The Bodyguard”

After the success of 1992’s The Bodyguard with Whitney Houston, Kevin Costner wanted to replicate the successful formula in a sequel that would feature his bodyguard character watching over a post-divorce Diana instead of a popular singer. And, of course, the pair would fall in love. With help from Fergie, Costner was able to speak to Diana about the project. She was interested enough to discuss her lack of acting experience, and also asked if there would be “a “kissing scene.” However, Diana passed away before anything came to fruition.

Diana Walked Through a Cleared Minefield … Twice

Following her divorce from Prince Charles, Diana decided to bring attention to the dangers and devastation of landmines. In January 1997, she traveled to Angola to meet with victims of these mines. She famously walked through a cleared — but still dangerous, should any explosives have been missed or improperly deactivated — path in an active minefield.

But what some may not know is that when some photographers said they needed a second take, Diana didn’t object — she walked through the field once more because she realized how important those images would be. Pictures of Diana made it to the front pages of papers around the world. Mike Whitlam of the British Red Cross said, “It was Diana’s involvement in the anti-personnel landmines that made this appalling weapon of war a global issue and persuaded many countries to sign the Ottawa Convention. Her involvement made a real difference, not just to those people running the charities, but to those people who were helped by them.” In 1997, after Diana’s death, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to campaigners to ban landmines.

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Few first ladies are as recognizable as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who rose to prominence alongside her husband President John F. Kennedy, and then became a preservationist, patron of the arts, and fashion icon. From her time in the White House — cut short by the tragic assassination of JFK as he sat next to her in a motorcade in Dallas — to her later life in New York City, she remained ever-present in the public eye, establishing a legacy as one of 20th-century America’s most admired figures. Here are six facts about Jackie Kennedy that highlight her contributions to the culture and history of the United States.

Her First Role in D.C. Was as a Journalist

In 1951, shortly after finishing her studies at George Washington University, Jackie (then known as Jacqueline Lee Bouvier) embarked on a journalism career. Working as the “Inquiring Camera Girl” and producing a daily column of the same name for the Washington Times-Herald, Bouvier roved the streets of D.C. with her camera in hand, taking pictures of people she encountered and interviewing them about pressing current affairs. She also covered major events of the time, including President Dwight Eisenhower’s first inauguration in 1951 and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953, the latter of which was one of her final assignments.

While many of her columns featured everyday Americans, she asked questions of high-profile figures as well. One example was her brief interview with then-Vice President Richard Nixon for the April 21, 1953, edition of her column, in which she asked about his views regarding Senate pages. The column also included an answer on the same topic from then-Senator John F. Kennedy, whom she had met at a dinner party the year prior and would go on to marry five months later. Nixon, of course, went on to lose to JFK in the 1960 U.S. presidential election.

She Earned an Emmy for a Televised Tour of the White House

In 1941, long before she became a resident of the White House, Jackie toured the building with her mother and sister, and was dismayed by the lack of historical furnishings and informative pamphlets. Shortly after moving in with her husband in 1961, she made it her mission to overhaul the White House experience. As a young, attractive couple, John and Jackie did away with the archaic conventions of administrations past, and began cultivating a more comfortable environment. But it was Jackie’s physical renovation of the building that really stood out.

Enlisting the help of Americana collector Henry Francis du Pont, French designer Stéphane Boudin, and decorator Dorothy Parish, the first lady began work on a massive restoration project. Her goal was not merely to redecorate but to showcase the history of the mansion and the country itself. “It must be restored, and that has nothing to do with decoration,” she told Life magazine of her plans. “That is a question of scholarship.”

Within a mere two weeks, she had used all of the initial $50,000 budget to refurbish the private living quarters — and that was just the beginning. From outfitting the Blue Room with French furniture that President James Monroe had ordered back in 1818, to redesigning the Treaty Room in a Victorian style, Jackie left no corner of the White House untouched. Life featured the project in a September 1961 issue, but it found its biggest spotlight on February 14, 1962, when Mrs. Kennedy unveiled her stunning work on television. Accompanied by CBS News correspondent Charles Collingwood, Jackie led a guided tour of the building on CBS and NBC, drawing an estimated 80 million viewers and earning an honorary Emmy Award for the production.

She Spoke Multiple Languages

John F. Kennedy may be known for the line “ich bin ein Berliner,” but Jackie was the true polyglot of the family. A lover of languages from a young age, Jackie helped John translate French research books into English when he needed to study up on politics in Southeast Asia, where the French had a heavy presence. But her linguistic prowess really shone through on the campaign trail.

When JFK campaigned for reelection to the U.S. Senate in 1958, Jackie gave her first campaign speech in the native tongue of a French-speaking group in Massachusetts. As she continued to tour the country, she also showcased her familiarity with Italian, Polish, and Spanish. In fact, during the lead-up to the 1960 presidential election, Jackie was the star of a minute-long campaign ad conducted entirely in Spanish.

She Coined the Term “Camelot” About the Kennedy Administration

Shortly after her husband’s funeral, Jackie welcomed Life magazine reporter Theodore H. White to the family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in an effort to ensure JFK’s lasting legacy. During the interview, she coined a term that’s now synonymous with her husband’s administration: “Camelot,” a reference to both Arthurian legend and JFK’s favorite Broadway musical. In likening his presidency to the storied court, Jackie sought to establish her husband as an almost mythical figure. Quoting the musical, she stated, “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot.” She went on to add that while there would be other Presidents, there would “never be another Camelot again.” Editors at Life reportedly objected to the Camelot theme running throughout the interview, but Jackie was insistent on keeping it and even added her own edits to White’s notes.

She Became a Successful Book Editor in New York City

Working with words proved to be one of Jackie’s strong suits, and she spent the final decades of her life in publishing. Having not had a paying job since 1953, she returned to the workforce as a book editor in 1975, after the death of her second husband, Aristotle Onassis. Tommy Guinzburg, the president of Viking Press, brought her in as a consulting editor working primarily on titles that aligned with her interests in history and art. The first title she edited was a work called Remember the Ladies, about the role of 18th-century American women.

In 1977, Viking controversially published a fictional book involving a plot to assassinate a President based on JFK’s brother Ted Kennedy, which led to Jackie’s resignation. The next year, she became an associate editor at Doubleday, where she worked with pop singer Michael Jackson on his 1988 memoir, Moonwalk, among other titles. She continued to work in publishing until her passing in 1994.

She Helped Save Grand Central Terminal From Being Demolished

Much like she did in preserving the history of the White House, Jackie played a key role in maintaining one of New York City’s most prominent landmarks. In the mid-1970s, developers hatched a plan to demolish part of Grand Central Terminal to build an office tower. The former first lady was among a group of notable New Yorkers who objected to the plan, and in 1975, she spoke at a press conference at Grand Central’s famed Oyster Bar restaurant to protest the destruction of the Beaux Arts-style structure. She and other preservationists worked to ensure the building’s protection, which was ultimately assured by the U.S. Supreme Court decision Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City. A plaque dedicated in 2014 at the entrance on 42nd Street and Park Avenue honors Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis for her role in saving the indelible Manhattan icon.

And Grand Central Terminal isn’t the only NYC landmark to commemorate her legacy. Located at the northern end of Central Park, where Jackie was known to jog, the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir pays homage to the former first lady’s contributions to the city. The artificial body of water, constructed between 1858 and 1862, spans 106 acres and was the largest human-made body of water in the world at the time of its creation.

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Gone is the soda jerk and milkman. The telegraphists and the bowling alley pinsetters are relics of the past. The haberdasher, town crier, and lowly VCR repairman have all gone the way of the lamplighter. And that’s just during the 20th century! Due to advances in technology and the evolution of society, many occupations that were once considered essential no longer exist in today’s job market. Here’s a look at 13 common professions that have disappeared over the past few centuries.

Groom of the Stool

Starting back in Tudor times, the Groom of the Stool handled all of the English king’s toilet-related needs. Whenever the monarch had to evacuate his bowels, the groom would accompany him to the toilet — a bowl of water and towel in tow. While the job might sound (literally) crappy, it was a powerful position. Because of the intimacy involved, it was common for the Groom of the Stool to become one of the king’s closest confidantes. The role wasn’t abolished until 1901.

Computer

For centuries, “computer” was a job description for flesh-and-blood humans. (The word literally means “a person who computes.”) During the Enlightenment, freelance computers helped scientists double- check their math. Through the 1800s, human computers analyzed data and did calculations at astronomical observatories, helping publish nautical almanacs and predicting the passing of comets. At the turn of the 20th century, human computers in the U.S. government — usually women — did calculations that eventually helped launch people into space. Their story is now immortalized in the 2016 film Hidden Figures.

Hurrier

Coal mines were never fun places to work. But in the early 1800s, some coal chutes and tunnels were only 2 feet high. Coal was transported up these tunnels in baskets called “corfs,” which were pushed and pulled along a system of rails. The people doing the pushing and pulling? They were hurriers — small boys or girls, sometimes as young as 4 years old. Because the tunnels were so tight, many hurriers pushed the coal by walking on all fours, pushing the corf with their heads (causing some children to develop bald spots).

Uinyo

During the early days of Korea’s Joseon dynasty, it was taboo for women to visit male doctors. (Confucian principles — and a spoonful of social shame — demanded strict segregation of the sexes.) Predictably, many women died. So, in the early 1400s, the Korean government allowed some women to practice as female-only doctors, calling them uinyo. Uinyo specialized in giving medical care to other women at state-sponsored health clinics.

Coffee Sniffer

Back in the 1780s, Frederick II of Prussia didn’t like coffee — he considered it a foreign good that didn’t help the local economy. So he tried curbing coffee consumption by imposing an exorbitant 150% tax on it. Citizens revolted. A black market for unroasted, smuggled beans boomed. When Frederick realized this underground market for coffee was hurting his bottom line, he hired a league of 400 “coffee sniffers” to, quite literally, sniff out the smuggled beans.

Sluggard Waker

Churchgoers know that it can be difficult sometimes to keep your eyelids open during a dull sermon. Back in 18th-century England, this problem was remedied by a sluggard-waker, a man whose sole job was to prowl the pews and wake sleepy parishioners — sometimes by hitting them over the head with a brass-tipped stick.

Night Soil Men

In the 19th century, most cities did not have municipal sewer systems. Instead, people relied on outhouses and privies. These, however, were not bottomless pits — they had to be routinely emptied. The person responsible for this unpleasant task was the night soil man. Named because he usually worked under the cover of darkness, the night soil man emptied privies with long-handled buckets and loaded them onto carts, taking the fertilizer to local farms. (But, more often, dumped into the nearest waterway.)

Herb Strewers

Before the invention of the flush toilet in the 18th century, cities often smelled less than desirable. But if you were wealthy enough in the 17th century, you could hire an herb strewer to keep the aroma fresh. King George III, for instance, employed a herb strewer named Mary Rayner, a woman who spent more than 40 years scattering flowers, herbs, and other natural fragrances throughout the royal residence to make it smell welcoming; popular plants included lavender, roses, chamomile, sweet yarrow, basil, marjoram, and violets.

Aircraft Listeners

The first practical demonstration of using radar for aircraft detection occurred in the 1930s. By then, airplanes had already been taking flight for more than three decades. Consequently, during times of war, soldiers had to deploy clever methods to find enemy aircraft. During World War I, aircraft listeners used war tubas, which, according to CNN, were “essentially large horns connected to a stethoscope.” Other aircraft listeners used acoustic mirrors, large concrete dishes that amplified sound coming from above.

Knocker-Uppers

Before the advent of the alarm clock, industrial-era workers who needed help waking up in time for work would hire knocker-uppers. These hardy souls would rise in the early hours of the day and patrol the streets with sticks, tapping on their clients’ bedroom windows each morning. Some knocker-uppers, like Mary Smith, were not fans of the stick method: She roused the local sleepyheads by shooting peas at their window panes.

Linkboys

In William Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Falstaff says, “Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern.” Turns out, that’s a pretty accurate description of a linkboy. Typically a young, low-class male, linkboys escorted pedestrians through dark city streets with a torch. The job eventually became obsolete after cities installed streetlamps. (Incidentally, the phrase “can’t hold a candle to…”  was likely a reference to linkboys; anybody who couldn’t “hold a candle” better than a low-class linkboy was viewed as extremely inferior.)

Linotype Operators

Starting in the late 19th century, lines in newspapers and magazines were often created with a linotype machine. The linotype machine was revolutionary for its time. Before the machine, each letter of an article was individually set by hand into a mold for print. The linotype machine eliminated this process by having operators type each line with a special 90-key keyboard, creating a “line o’ type” set in lead, and then that stamp was used to print the text. This technology was used for almost 100 years, eventually tapering off in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Water Carriers

Water carriers still exist, but they’re an endangered profession. These vital workers have been around for millennia, trudging water from rivers and wells to people’s homes. Some used buckets hanging from a yoke or leather sacks, while others lugged large tankards over their shoulders. And while the water carrier was mostly replaced by modern plumbing, some places still commemorate the once-vital profession. In Hamburg, Germany, a water-carrier named Hans Hummel is celebrated as the local mascot, with more than 100 statues of his likeness sprinkled throughout the city.