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Some of the world’s biggest archaeological discoveries not only changed the way we interpret our past but also solved historical mysteries. In addition to making front-page headlines around the world, many discoveries sparked cultural fads. Not every archaeological dig will yield a cache of priceless jewels or one-of-a-kind artifacts, but the finds mentioned below stand out as exceptional.

Tutankhamun’s Tomb

In November 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon located the tomb of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. Unlike other royal tombs, Tut’s had remained virtually undisturbed for more than 3,000 years. Over the next few years, Carter unearthed an eye-popping collection of gold and ivory chests, statues of sacred beings, model boats, and other goods, plus Tut’s mummy and his iconic gold mask inlaid with semi-precious stones. The discovery of the best-preserved Egyptian tomb and its treasures set off a worldwide obsession with Egyptian-themed fashion, jewelry, and art.

The Rosetta Stone

While digging the foundation for a new fort in July 1799, soldiers in Napoleon’s army found a fragment of stone in the Nile that bore the same message in three languages: Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic script, and ancient Greek. By comparing the Greek text to the other two passages, scholars could finally decode the meaning of the hieroglyphics. Before the Rosetta Stone’s discovery, ancient Egyptian writing had been an undecipherable mystery. Later, scholars such as Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion showed that the hieroglyphics on the stone revealed names of important figures and other details of ancient Egyptian history. Reportedly, Champollion was so excited to have deciphered the mystery that he fainted.

The Skeleton of “Lucy”

In 1974, American anthropologist Donald Johanson and grad student Tom Gray stumbled upon “Lucy,” the skeleton of a single individual hominid (Australopithecus afarensis) who lived in present-day Ethiopia a little over 3 million years ago. Lucy proved to be a previously unknown human ancestor who walked upright — demonstrating that bipedalism evolved before larger brains — and was the most complete ancient hominid skeleton that had then ever been found. Since then, anthropologists have unearthed other hominid species with the help of modern technology, including Homo naledi in South Africa, Homo floriensis in Indonesia, and the Denisovans in Siberia.

Lascaux Cave Paintings

The fabulously detailed drawings on the walls of the Lascaux cave, which depict cattle, horses, bison, deer, and other animals, stunned the world when they were discovered by four young men in southwest France in 1940. Dating back about 20,000 years to the middle of the Late Stone Age, the drawings represent some of the earliest known figurative art and are a window into humankind’s cultural development. The Paleolithic painters may have used Lascaux as a ceremonial site or a place to demonstrate their artistic skills, but no one knows for sure.

The Terracotta Army

In 1974, a farmer near the city of Xi’an, China, dug up some fragments of terracotta, which led to the discovery of thousands of life-size carved terracotta soldiers buried in the mausoleum of the first Chinese emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who had died in 210 BCE. Each warrior had a unique expression, and they stood four abreast in trenches as if ready to defend their leader. Carved horses, chariots, swords, and other weapons were also found. Much remains to be discovered at the mausoleum, which includes 600 burial and architectural sites spanning almost 22 square miles.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of religious writings and books of the Hebrew Bible created between 2,000 and 2,300 years ago. Soon after the first seven scrolls were discovered in 1947 by a shepherd exploring a cave on the shore of the Dead Sea, the fragile manuscripts transformed historians’ views of Jewish religious life and culture two millennia ago. The texts revealed a Judean society influenced by different philosophies and practices, a world that gave rise to rabbinic Judaism and Christianity.

L’Anse Aux Meadows Viking Settlement

Thirteenth-century Icelandic sagas told of a group of Vikings, led by Leif Erikson, who sailed across the ocean to a lush new world. In the 1960s, archaeologists Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad discovered exactly where the Norse people landed around 1000 CE — modern-day Canada. The Ingstads located the ruins of European-style buildings at L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland, and further excavations revealed artifacts of Norse origin. The evidence confirmed the first European settlement in North America.

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Whether you’re a baby boomer or a member of Gen Z, chances are we’ve all used the same No. 2 pencils and plastic protractors that have been gracing classrooms for decades. Even as curriculums change and technology advances, many of these simple yet effective supplies remain staples of back-to-school sales across the country. But have you ever stopped to wonder where those tools originally came from? From the surprising food item once used as an eraser to the accidental purpose of Post-its, learn about the origins of everyday school supplies found in backpacks and classrooms around the world.

Henry David Thoreau Helped Create the No. 2 Pencil

This bright-yellow tool might never have existed if not for a stroke of luck. According to legend, its creation stems from a discovery made in England in 1564. During a storm, a large deposit of graphite (the “lead” now inside pencils) was unearthed clinging to the roots of a fallen tree, and locals realized that the material could make dark-gray sketch marks on paper. By the following year, Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner had sketched the first known depiction of a wooden pencil (a plug of graphite in a wooden tube), and by 1662, a similar product was being mass-produced in Nuremberg, Germany.

A 1795 innovation led to a modern makeover for the pencil, when French chemist Nicolas-Jacques Conté developed a new technique for producing the actual material used to write. With supplies of high-quality plumbago (then a term for English graphite) cut off due to war between Revolutionary France and Britain, Conté combined a mixture of clay and lower-quality graphite — and found it so successful that a similar formula is still used in pencils today. These “Conté crayons” not only served as a solution to the graphite shortage, but led to further experimentation within the world of pencils.

Another surprising development in the history of the pencil took place in the United States in the 1840s. While working at his father’s pencil factory, transcendentalist writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau — best known as the author of Walden, a landmark series of essays on self-reliance — helped conceive of a new numbering system to describe the lightness and darkness, as well as the hardness and softness, of a pencil’s graphite. Labeled from numbers one to four, this new notation system took off nationwide, and the now-beloved No. 2 pencil became most popular due to the perfect balance of those qualities.

Bread Was Used as an Eraser Before Rubber

What was the classroom like before the modern eraser? Prior to the 1770s, balled-up wads of moist bread were used to correct written mistakes. Fortunately for those who would rather eat bread than use it as a tool, that method was rendered obsolete long before modern schooling began. In 1770, scientist Joseph Priestly (the same man who discovered oxygen) noticed the erasing properties of a substance he initially called “India gum,” but which he later called “rubber” due to the rubbing action required by the user. The same year, British engineer Edward Nairne also stumbled upon rubber’s erasing abilities — allegedly when he accidentally reached for some rubber instead of breadcrumbs. Nairne went on to develop and market the first popular, practical erasers in Europe.

In 1839, erasers became more commonplace after chemist and engineer Charles Goodyear discovered a method for curing natural rubber to prevent rotting. He called this “vulcanization” — named after the Roman god of fire — and patented the process in 1844. A Philadelphia stationer named Hymen Lipman took the development of erasers one step further in 1858 by attaching one to the end of a pencil, forever simplifying the ability to correct one’s mistakes.

Protractors Were Commonly Used for Navigation

While many of us probably haven’t picked up a protractor since high school math class, the instrument used to measure angles served an important role in the field of navigation for at least 500 years. Or perhaps even longer: An early precursor to modern protractors was discovered in the tomb of an Egyptian architect named Kha, dating back to around 1400 BCE. In the 1589 work Briefe Description of Universal Mappes & Cardes, Thomas Blundeville described a protractor-like tool used to prepare maps and navigational charts, and by the 1600s, the tool was commonly used by sailors at sea.

In 1801, U.S. naval captain Joseph Huddart designed a more sophisticated protractor meant for plotting the direction of a ship. Protractors were also used for coastal surveying projects, and in the 20th century, they found their place in the sky as an instrument for aviation navigation — as well as, of course, head-scratching problems in math class.

Glue Sticks Were Inspired by Lipstick Applicators

Kindergarten teachers around the world are no strangers to messy, glue-covered hands, but thanks to the German company Henkel, craft time became a whole lot cleaner with the advent of the glue stick. Henkel’s invention of the Pritt brand glue stick in 1969 featured a design inspired by twist-up lipstick applicators. Adhesives researcher Dr. Wolfgang Dierichs first proposed the design in 1967 after witnessing a woman applying lipstick during a flight. Dierichs was amazed at how careful the lipstick application process was and determined the method could also be applied to glue. Though the company struggled to thicken the glue at first, the solution proved to be a mixture of soap gel and water-soluble adhesive. In 1971, two years after the creation of the glue stick, Carl Weller filed a patent for the first glue gun — though that product should probably remain out of the hands of school children.

Scotch Tape Was Used to Paint Cars and Repair Blimps

Long before tape became a mainstay of arts and crafts classrooms, it was developed for a different artistic purpose. Working for the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (later known as 3M), inventor Richard Drew created the first masking tape in 1925 to facilitate painting two-tone automobiles, a popular design trend at the time. The tape would help cover up one part of the car while the other part was painted. However, the painters found the initial design subpar, since it had adhesive only at the edges, and angrily told Drew to take his “Scotch” tape back — at the time, “Scotch” unfortunately often meant “cheap.”

Drew went back to the drawing board, and in 1930, he successfully produced the first roll of a new cellophane tape, which received rave reviews. This transparent tape became so popular that it was used as an anti-corrosive layer on Goodyear blimps, and in 1946, the tape was even used to help repair the rudder of an airplane that had been damaged by cows. While that may not sound reassuring for travelers, it goes to show how versatile the product was before it became an everyday household and classroom tool for art projects, gift-wrapping, and more.

Post-it Notes Were Used as Bookmarks in Church Hymn Books

The company 3M brought us not only Scotch tape, but also Post-it Notes. In 1968, Spencer Silver, a chemist at the company, started working on an adhesive that was sticky enough to attach to surfaces but could peel apart without leaving damage. He struggled to find a practical application for the product, but in 1974, his colleague Art Fry approached him seeking assistance with a problem he kept encountering during church. Fry had been bookmarking his hymn book with regular pieces of paper during choir practice and found that they kept falling out. Fry was delighted that the Post-its could be used without damaging the pages, and he even started using them around the office to convey messages.

Though Silver and Fry saw the immediate benefit of Post-it Notes, it was a challenge to convince the larger public of their usefulness. It wasn’t until a 1978 marketing campaign known as the Boise Blitz — which distributed free samples to offices in the Idaho city — that the Post-it Note achieved more widespread popularity. A reported 90% of recipients in the marketing campaign said they would buy the product again, and the rest is history.

Index Cards Were Invented by the Founder of Modern Taxonomy

Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus is considered the father of modern taxonomy — scientific classification schemes — but he’s also responsible for the invention of a helpful item now used at school for memorization and more. In the 1760s, Linnaeus was searching for a way to organize what he found to be an overwhelming amount of research and information that was being discovered in other countries around the world. The result of his quest? The simple yet sturdy index card. Linnaeus found these small pieces of paper, which he cut down by hand, easier to organize and retrieve than regular paper, and used them frequently. Today, a set of over 1,000 paper slips used by Linnaeus can be viewed at the Linnaean Society in London. Though slightly flimsier, these historic relics are largely indistinguishable from modern index cards.

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Jaw-dropping. Death-defying. Head-scratching. Few entertainers reach the heights achieved by early 20th-century illusionist Harry Houdini, who earned renown for his ability to free himself from seemingly impenetrable modes of confinement. The escape artist’s legend endures not only because he constantly introduced new mesmerizing challenges to his repertoire, but also because he was a skilled promoter who used embellishment and misdirection to his advantage. For decades, biographers have had to contend with Houdini’s changing accounts of formative events in his life, along with the myths that built up around his celebrated performances.

Nevertheless, several truths have emerged, like Houdini himself rising to the surface after one of his patented underwater escapes. Here are seven facts about the life of a man who pushed the boundaries of reality to great effect and everlasting fame.

Houdini Was Inspired by the “Father of Modern Magic”

According to the researcher John Cox, Houdini’s beginnings as a serious stage artist can be traced to his discovery of Frenchman Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, the “father of modern magic.” After reading Robert-Houdin’s memoir in 1891, the New York City teen — then known as Ehrich Weiss — quit his job as a tie-cutter, changed his name to Harry Houdini, and set his legendary career in motion. However, his eventual mastery of stagecraft seemingly soured Houdini on the tricks of his predecessor, and in 1908, he bluntly denounced the methods of his erstwhile hero with the publication of The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin.

Houdini’s Performances Were a Family Affair

Although Houdini is largely remembered as a one-man show, a couple of loved ones were prominently involved in his performances. He shared the stage with his younger brother Theo in the early 1890s and later helped establish Theo as a rival illusionist and escape artist named Hardeen, with their manufactured “bad blood” providing extra publicity for their dueling performances.

Houdini spent even more time working with his wife, Bess, who faithfully served at his side after taking over for Theo in 1894. Although she reportedly retired in 1908, Bess occasionally rejoined her husband on stage, and once again became a trusted partner by the time he launched his late-career 3 Shows in One act.

Houdini’s “Mirror” Handcuffs Challenge Cemented His Fame

The performance that solidified Houdini’s iconic status took place in March 1904, when the “Handcuff King” agreed to a challenge from the London Daily Mirror which placed him in a pair of special cuffs that allegedly took five years to construct and “could not be picked.” Working his magic from behind a curtain, an exasperated Houdini appeared at one point to stretch, get a glass of water from Bess, and accept a cushion. He later dramatically slashed off his coat with a penknife and emerged triumphant after more than an hour’s struggle. As with many of Houdini’s tricks, the secret to this famous escape went to the grave with its master, although some have speculated that he simply used a key that was passed along in the cushion or glass of water.

Houdini Once Dazzled Teddy Roosevelt

While Houdini could command crowds of 10,000 spectators for his outdoor shows, he likely got one of his biggest kicks from a semi-private performance for Theodore Roosevelt aboard the SS Imperator in June 1914. The illusionist employed a slate trick, a common practice among mediums at the time, where the participant writes down a question and then a “spirit” answers it. Houdini had Roosevelt write down a question, “Where was I last Christmas?” and then placed it between the pages of a book. The book was then reopened to reveal a map of South America and details of the former President’s then-unknown trip to a tributary of the Amazon River. Houdini reassured his stunned audience that he wasn’t really communicating with spirits, though he declined to admit that he’d learned of Roosevelt’s expedition from editorial friends at the U.K.’s Telegraph, and then used his sleight-of-hand skills to slip the map into the book.

Houdini’s Screen Career Flopped

After years of filming his performances, Houdini went all-in on the burgeoning motion-picture industry as he entered his 40s. He starred in the 15-part serial The Master Mystery (1918) and a pair of feature films, and by 1921, he had also launched an interrelated web of companies to produce, develop, and distribute movies. But while audiences loved his live shows, Houdini failed to find the magic formula with his big-screen offerings, which typically showcased him escaping hairy situations set up by the action-romance script. After The Man From Beyond (1922) and Haldane of the Secret Service (1923) bombed, Houdini abandoned his Hollywood hopes and returned to his tried-and-true methods of entertainment.

Houdini Almost Died While Being Buried Alive

Houdini’s death-defying stunts occasionally veered off their carefully planned paths, and while the story that he got trapped beneath a frozen river may have ultimately been a fabrication, an attempt at a “buried alive” trick nearly took his life. According to Cox, the incident likely happened when Houdini, preparing for a show in the Los Angeles area in spring 1919, did a test run of being handcuffed and buried beneath six feet of soil. The earth proved weightier than expected, however, and after his cries for help went unnoticed, the almost-suffocated showman managed to dig his way to the surface. Houdini later referred to it in an article for Collier’s as “the narrowest squeak of my life.”

Houdini Was Anti-Spiritualist But Also Believed in Communicating With the Dead

Few public figures were more vocal than Houdini when it came to opposing the Spiritualist movement that gained steam in Western culture after World War I. He feuded with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the topic, undertook a lecture tour to expose the methods employed by mediums, and even testified in congressional hearings about a proposed bill to regulate the fortune-telling business. Yet for all his skepticism, Houdini remained intrigued by reincarnation and the possibilities of communicating with the dead. He and his wife agreed to try to contact one another should death pull them apart, a pact faithfully followed by Bess for a full decade following Houdini’s passing on Halloween 1926. As far as we know, there was no evidence of contact.

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Nellie Bly is best known for her solo journey around the globe in just 72 days, but her work as an investigative reporter, which focused on uplifting society’s most downtrodden, is no less noteworthy. Her in-depth, first-person exposés of abuse, injustice, and corruption were devoured by readers who reacted with shock, awe, and calls for reform. Elizabeth Cochrane — the real woman behind the famed pen name — was known for risking her personal safety to advocate for others. More than a hundred years after her death in 1922, here’s the backstory on one of America’s earliest correspondents.

Bly Originally Planned To Be a Teacher

Nellie Bly didn’t set out to become famous. Born Elizabeth Cochran (she would later add the “e” to appear distinguished) in 1864, the future writer lived the first years of her life in upper-class comfort outside of Pittsburgh thanks to her father’s work as a judge and mill owner. His death six years later left the family in financial upheaval that would forever impact Cochrane’s life; along with her mother, Cochrane and her four siblings were forced from their home and nearly penniless. Realizing she’d have to make her own way in the world, Cochrane enrolled as a teenager at Pennsylvania’s State Normal School with the goal of teaching, but left after just one semester of study drained her tuition fund.

An Angry Letter Got Bly Her First Writing Job

After dropping out of college and returning to Pittsburgh, Cochrane spent her days working in her mother’s boarding house and reading local newspapers. In 1885, a columnist for the Pittsburg Dispatch penned a diatribe against employed women, whom he called a “monstrosity.” Incensed, Cochrane submitted an anonymous letter to the editor that caught the paper’s attention, and the editor published an ad asking for the unnamed writer to come forward. Cochrane responded in person, and was granted her first step into a writing career when the editor asked her to write an article on “the woman’s sphere.” In “The Girl Puzzle,” her first published piece, Cochrane expressed the difficulties faced by low-income women, including unemployment, violence, and homelessness.

Nellie Bly’s Pen Name Came From a Song

Women reporters of the late 19th century often stamped pseudonyms on their work. When it came to investigating unscrupulous characters and social ills, pen names offered women a layer of personal security against backlash. Nellie Bly was no different; in her case, the staff at the Pittsburg Dispatch snagged the moniker from “Nelly Bly,” a popular song by Pittsburgh composer Stephen Foster. The alternate spelling was an accident, a typo that went to print and stuck around for all of Bly’s career.

Bly’s Reporting Improved Mental Illness Treatment

In 1887, Bly launched her first undercover story for The New York World, becoming a “girl stunt reporter,” part of a then-popular movement of female reporters who embedded themselves in investigations to expose dangerous working conditions, corrupt public figures, and social atrocities. Bly’s initial investigation involved a 10-day stay at the infamous Blackwell’s Island Asylum in New York City, where women experiencing mental health crises (as well as others sent there for a variety of reasons, including not speaking English) were subjected to cruel “treatments,” rotten food, and abuse. After her release, Bly penned a story that exposed the institution’s horrors and led to public calls for improved conditions, including a grand jury investigation and budget increases to properly house and help patients. It also became one of her most famous books, titled Ten Days in a Mad-House.

Nellie Bly Was the Star of Her Own Board Game

Bly’s 1889 world traveling stunt catapulted her to stardom. Using Jules Verne’s adventure novel Around the World in 80 Days as a road map, the journalist launched a world tour from Hoboken, New Jersey, that took a mere 72 days. Along her route — which included a detour in France to meet the book’s author — Bly cabled her adventures back to her newspaper editors in the U.S., allowing readers to follow along. Upon her return, the McLoughlin Brothers publishing company produced a board game that replicated her adventure, offering players “plenty of excitement on land and sea.” (The results also became her final book, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, which became a massive success.)

Nellie Bly Was a Patent-Holding Inventor

In 1895, Bly married Robert Seaman, an industrialist some 40 years her senior. Taking a leave from journalism — and her byline — Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman became involved in her husband’s metalworks business, where she helped conceptualize steel barrels that would later evolve into the modern 55-gallon oil drum. The former reporter didn’t hold the patent for the barrels, but she did hold patents for two other inventions: a stacking trash can and a milk can.

Bly Was an Advocate for Workers’ Rights

After Seaman’s death in 1904, Bly became the sole manager of their manufacturing company. In an effort to improve the welfare of her employees, she began offering unprecedented benefits, including health care, library access, and fitness programs. Financial problems, including the cost of her programs, ultimately led Bly to file for bankruptcy. But despite this failure, she was recognized as an advocate for workers — an unsurprising move from one of America’s earliest watchdogs.