Woolly mammoths seem old-school. Hunted by Neanderthals for tens of thousands of years, these elephant-like mammals, some with tusks up to 15 feet long, evolved hair and layers of fat to withstand the frigid temperatures of the ice age tundra as they roamed the northern reaches of Asia, Europe, and North America. Although no longer among us, their bones — and in some cases mummified remains — fill natural history museums around the world. But these ancient beasts aren’t as ancient as you might think. In fact, it’s estimated that the last woolly mammoth died around 1700 BCE — some 800 years after ancient Egyptians built the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Mammoths and mastodons are the same animal.

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While they’re very similar — hairy, huge tusks, elephantine — there are some differences if you know where to look. Mammoth skulls have a knob on top, unlike the mastodon’s smooth domes, and mastodon teeth are designed for snapping twigs, whereas mammoth teeth are built for grazing.

As the Earth began transitioning out of the last ice age some 12,000 years ago, a warming world altered the woolly mammoth’s ecosystem. Melting glaciers created a wetter planet that destroyed the vegetation mammoths relied on for food, and this dramatic shift — along with continued human predation — led to complete extinction of the creatures in most areas around 8000 BCE. However, small pockets survived on some islands that benefited from both cold-weather vegetation and protection from human hunters. 

Some of the last known mammoths lived in isolation on Wrangel Island, a Russian possession in the Arctic Ocean just northwest of Alaska, and they didn’t have an easy go of it. Scientists who compared a 4,300-year-old mammoth bone from Wrangel Island to mammoth specimens 10 times older and from the Siberian mainland found that these final woolly mammoths experienced what scientists call a “genetic meltdown” due to the limited gene pool on the island, with mutations that likely made it harder to mark territory and choose mates. As for the ancient Egyptians, they kept chugging along until the death of Cleopatra, in 30 BCE. With its transformation into a Roman province, the 3,000-year-old dynasty also went the way of the woolly mammoth.

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Not everyone gets to meet their idols. Henry Ford, one of America’s manufacturing giants, did — and was even lucky enough to become friendly with his hero. The automobile creator long looked up to serial inventor Thomas Edison, and in 1891, toward the start of his career, landed a job as a night engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. Eventually, the two inventors crossed paths at a work party, where Edison supposedly inspired Ford to further pursue his experimental automobiles. Ford had recently created his first prototype, the Ford Quadricycle, and eventually left the company to work on prototypes that became the Model T. But that wasn’t where their relationship ended — Edison and Ford quickly became friends, corresponding regularly, dedicating speeches to one another, and even purchasing neighboring estates in Florida. So it’s no surprise that the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, features artifacts from both inventors, though some are unusual — such as a test tube that supposedly contains Edison’s final breath.

Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb.

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Credit for Edison’s best-known invention is somewhat misplaced; he did make improvements to the incandescent bulb, but he didn’t create it. Inventors tinkered with the bulbs for at least 40 years before Edison received his patent, which added bamboo filaments to help bulbs last longer.

Legend has it that Ford, who had an eccentric bent and was interested in life after death, obtained the vial by asking Edison’s son Charles to capture his friend’s final breath. However, that tale is a bit hyperbolic. Historians believe that the tube was actually given to Ford as a sentimental gesture in honor of his friend. According to a letter written by Charles Edison in 1953, a set of empty test tubes was close to his father’s death bed when the inventor died in 1931. Charles requested that the attending doctor seal the tubes with paraffin wax, potentially capturing his father’s last breaths, and later gifted one to Ford. The test tube at the Henry Ford Museum is not the only one of its kind — Edison’s estate includes a collection of 42 test tubes that supposedly contain the inventor’s final breaths.

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Umbrellas have been around for a long time — at least 3,000 years, according to T.S. Crawford's A History of the Umbrella — but they were used by only select segments of the population for much of that history. Ancient Egyptians used them to shade their pharaohs, setting the tone for an association with royalty and nobility that would also surface in China, Assyria, India, and other older civilizations. Meanwhile, they were deemed effeminate by ancient Greeks and the Romans who assumed many of their cultural habits. It should be noted that these early umbrellas protected against the sun, not rain, and were generally used by women to shield their complexions. The association between women and umbrellas persisted through much of Europe for centuries, and stubbornly remained into the 18th century, even after the first waterproof umbrellas had been created (around the 17th century in France).

Baltimore was once the umbrella capital of the world.

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The nation’s first umbrella factory opened in Baltimore in 1828. The Beehler Umbrella Factory motto was “Born in Baltimore, Raised Everywhere!” By the 20th century, Baltimore factories made 1.5 million umbrellas annually, and the city was deemed the umbrella capital of the world.

In England, at least, the man credited with ushering in a new age of gender-neutral weather protection was merchant and philanthropist Jonas Hanway. Having spotted the umbrella put to good use during his many travels, Hanway took to carrying one through rainy London in the 1750s, a sight met with open jeering by surprised onlookers. The greatest abuse apparently came from coach drivers, who counted on inclement weather to drive up demand for a dry, comfy ride. But Hanway took the derision in stride. Shortly after his death in 1786, an umbrella advertisement surfaced in the London Gazette, a harbinger of sunnier days to come for the accessory’s reputation as a rain repellant for all.

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