“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a motto that works well for Rome. Because of the incredibly advanced craftsmanship of ancient Rome’s architects, as well as their remarkably long-lasting building materials (more on that below), many of the ancient empire’s most marvelous construction projects can still be seen by millions of tourists today — some 6 million people visit the Colosseum each year alone. However, the most amazing engineering achievement might be Rome’s eye-catching aqueducts, one of which still supplies Rome with water millennia after it was built. 

Rome has more water fountains than any other city in the world.

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As befits Rome’s millennia-long history of being at the forefront of water engineering, the Italian capital still boasts more fountains than any other city in the world. Although estimates for the number of fountains run as high as 3,000 and beyond, many are no longer in use.

While the Romans didn’t invent the aqueduct — primitive irrigation systems can be found in Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian history — Roman architects perfected the idea. In 312 BCE, the famed Roman leader Appius Claudius Caecus erected the first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, which brought water to the growing population of the Roman Republic. Today, the Acqua Vergine — first built during the reign of Emperor Augustus in 19 BCE as the Aqua Virgo — still supplies Rome with water more than 2,000 years after its construction (though it’s been through several restorations). 

The main reason for the aqueduct’s longevity, along with that of many of Rome’s ancient buildings, is its near-miraculous recipe for concrete. An analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered that Roman concrete could essentially self-heal due to its lime clasts (small mineral chunks) and a process known as “hot mixing” (mixing in the lime at extremely high temperatures). Today, researchers are studying how the material functioned in the hopes of applying secrets from the “Eternal City” to today’s building materials.

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Compared to dinosaurs, humans have occupied only a speck on the timeline of Earth’s history. Modern humans appeared on the stage 200,000 years ago (up to 7 million years ago if you include the whole human family), while dinosaurs roamed the globe for about 165 million years. Despite the large span of time stretching across three distinct geologic periods (Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous), many people view the “Age of the Dinosaurs” as a monolithic moment in history when dinosaurs all lived together. In fact, more time separates stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex than separates modern humans from “the King of the Dinosaurs.” 

There are U.S. state dinosaur fossils.

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It’s not just state flowers and birds — some states also have fossils to represent them. For example, Colorado’s state fossil is a stegosaurus, Kansas’ is a pteranodon, and Utah’s is an allosaurus. Other states have mammal fossils, like mastodons, whales, and saber-toothed cats.

Stegosaurus roamed what’s now modern-day North America during the late Jurassic period, about 155 million to 145 million years ago. Although it didn’t live alongside the ferocious T. rex, its contemporary, the allosaurus, was also a nightmare of powerful teeth. T. rex didn’t arrive on the scene until some 68 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous — a difference of some 80 million years. So while a comfortable 66 million years separate humans from the dinosaur’s dramatic, likely asteroid-induced downfall, the stegosaurus and T. rex lived even farther apart. This startling fact doesn’t even take into account Triassic dinosaurs, such as herrerasaurus and eoraptor, which are twice as chronologically distant from the T. rex as stegosaurus is. Turns out, the “Age of the Dinosaurs” is much more complex than its name suggests.

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Taxes fund many of the services we need, but no one enjoys paying them — and it’s likely that many of our ancestors didn’t, either. Governments worldwide have levied taxes for thousands of years; the oldest recorded tax comes from Egypt around 3000 BCE. But England — which relied heavily on taxes to fund its military conquests — is known for a slate of fees that modern taxpayers might consider unusual. Take, for instance, the so-called “window tax,” initially levied in 1696 by King William III, which annually charged citizens a certain amount based on the windows in their homes. Some 30 years before, the British crown had attempted to tax personal property based on chimneys, but clever homeowners could avoid the bill by temporarily bricking up or dismantling their hearths and chimneys before inspections. With windows, assessors could quickly determine a building’s value from the street. The tax was progressive, charging nothing for homes with few or no windows and increasing the bill for dwellings that had more than 10 (that number would eventually shrink to seven).

Britain taxed soap.

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The British government taxed many everyday items, including salt, candles, and beer. But its 1643 tax on soap created a lather among soapmakers and drove up prices for shoppers — many of whom turned to French soap-smuggling rings for the lower-cost suds they needed.

Not surprisingly, homeowners and landlords throughout the U.K. resented the tax. It didn’t take long for windows to be entirely bricked or painted over (much like fireplaces had been), and new homes were built with fewer windows altogether. Opponents called it a tax on “light and air” that hurt public health, citing reduced ventilation that in turn encouraged disease. Even famed author Charles Dickens joined the fight to dismantle the tax, publishing scathing pieces aimed at Parliament on behalf of poor citizens who were most impacted by the lack of fresh air. Britain repealed its window tax in July 1851, but the architectural impact is still evident — many older homes and buildings throughout the U.K. still maintain their iconic converted windows.

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Sculpture from classical antiquity is often presented in museums, textbooks, and more as a world of white marble. Whether unearthed from the ground or perched upon crumbling temples, these supposedly pale masterpieces also influenced Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo, who — in the throes of a classic art obsession — created sculptures meant to highlight the natural beauty of stone. Other Renaissance masterpieces, such as Raphael’s early 1500s fresco “The School of Athens,” placed colorful figures of antiquity against a backdrop of white marble. But these representations aren’t an accurate portrayal of the past: Ancient Athens and Rome were full of eye-popping color, with statues sporting vibrant togas and subtle skin tones — in fact, no sculpture was considered complete without a dazzling coat of paint. 

European Renaissance artists invented oil painting.

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The very first known oil paintings were created far from Europe. In the seventh century CE, Buddhist monks in Afghanistan used oil paints to create murals on cave walls.

Over time, these impermanent paints —  left unprotected from the elements — wore away, leaving behind unblemished stone and a false legacy of monotone marble. This perception of the “whiteness” of antiquity was cemented in the 18th century, tied to racist ideals that equated the paleness of the body with beauty. When German scholar Johann Winckelmann (sometimes called the “father of art history”) glimpsed flecks of color on artifacts found near the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, he brushed off the work as Etruscan — a civilization he considered beneath the grandeur of ancient Rome. Besides bits of color still clinging to some statues, other evidence of the Mediterranean’s colorful past survives in frescoes from Pompeii (which even depict a Roman in the act of painting a statue); the Greek playwright Euripides also mentions colored statues in his work Helen. In recent decades, the art world has been busy recreating the colorful past of Western civilization as archaeologists use UV light to illuminate certain pigments and art exhibits travel the world to unshroud the colorful palette of these ancient civilizations.

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