When George Washington died in 1799, Congress could think of no better way to honor the first president than by laying him to rest in the U.S. Capitol. The building had been under construction since Washington himself laid the cornerstone in 1793, and plans were quickly approved to add a burial chamber two stories below the rotunda with a 10-foot marble statue of Washington above the tomb. Visitors would be able to view the grave via a circular opening in the center of the rotunda floor. There was just one problem: Washington had already designated his Mount Vernon estate to be his final resting place, meaning neither he nor anyone else is actually buried in what’s still called the Capitol Crypt.

George Washington won both of his presidential elections unanimously.

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He ran essentially unopposed in both 1788 and 1792, thereby winning every available electoral vote — 69 the first time, 132 the second — in each election.

This crypt, which was finally completed in 1827, has gone by a few different names over the years. The 1797 plan by architect William Thornton labeled the space the “Grand Vestibule,” whereas architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe’s 1806 plan referred to it as the “General Vestibule to all the Offices” and an 1824 report of the Commissioners of Public Buildings simply called it the “lower rotundo.” For those who’d like to see the crypt today, it’s included in most tours of the Capitol.

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Winter, spring, summer, fall — outside of the tropics and the planet’s poles, most temperate areas of the globe experience the four seasons to some extent, although how we choose to view those weather changes can differ from country to country. Take, for example, ancient Japan’s calendar, which broke the year into 72 microseasons, each lasting less than a week and poetically in tune with nature’s slow shifts throughout the year.

Each season has two starting dates.

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There are two ways to celebrate the start of a new season. Astronomical seasons are marked on the solstices and equinoxes, which fluctuate annually. For consistent data collection, scientists prefer meteorological seasons (for example, meteorological fall starts on September 1).

Japan’s microseasons stem from ancient China’s lunisolar calendar, which noted the sun’s position in the sky along with the moon’s phases for agricultural purposes. Adopted by Japanese citizens in the sixth century, the lunisolar calendar broke each season into six major divisions of 15 days, called sekki, which synced with astronomical events. Each sekki was further reduced into three ko, the five-day microseasons named for natural changes experienced at that time. Descriptive and short, the 72 microseasons can be interpreted as profoundly poetic, with names like “last frost, rice seedlings grow” (April 25 to 29), “rotten grass becomes fireflies” (June 11 to 15), or “crickets chirp around the door” (October 18 to 22).

In 1685, Japanese court astronomer Shibukawa Shunkai revised an earlier version of the calendar with these names to more accurately and descriptively reflect Japan’s weather. And while climate change may affect the accuracy of each miniature season moving forward, many observers of the nature-oriented calendar find it remains one small way to slow down and notice shifts in the natural world, little by little.

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Tiny, hidden survival tools packed into the waistband of your pants may sound like something fantastical from a spy movie, but in the case of British wartime pilots, they were a reality. During World War II, the Royal Air Force sent its aviators skyward with all the tools they’d need to complete a mission, along with a few that could help them find their way home if they crash-landed behind enemy lines. One of the smallest pieces of survival gear pilots carried was a compass built into the button of their trousers.  

Britain was the first country to create an air force.

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Established in April 1918, seven months before the end of World War I, Great Britain’s Royal Air Force was the first of its kind. The sky-patrolling force launched with 300,000 service members nearly three decades before the U.S. designated its own Air Force branch in 1947.

Three months after entering World War II, the British military launched its MI9 division, a secret intelligence department tasked with helping service members evade enemy forces or escape capture. Between 1939 and 1945, masterminds at MI9 created a variety of intelligence-gathering and survival tools for troops, such as uniform-camouflaging dye shaped like candy almonds, ultra-compressed medications packed inside pens, and button compasses. The discreet navigational tools were typically made from two buttons, the bottom featuring a tiny needle. When balanced on the spike, the top button acted as a compass that rotated with the Earth’s poles; two dots painted on the metal with luminous paint represented north, and one indicated south.  

MI9 distributed more than 2.3 million of its button compasses during the war. They could be paired with secretive maps that were smuggled to captured service members inside care packages delivered to prisoner-of-war camps. Often printed on silk for durability and waterproofing, the 44 different maps (sent to different camps based on location) were tucked discreetly into boot heels and board games. The ingenuity worked — by the war’s end, MI9 was credited with helping more than 35,000 Allied soldiers escape and make their way home.

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If you think meeting new people nowadays is difficult, imagine doing it without a phone, a car, or even a bike. This was the case for much of human history, of course, and it had such a profound effect on social interactions that the average distance between the birthplaces of spouses in England was just 1 mile prior to the invention of bicycles. Those calculations come from Yale’s Stephen Stearns, a professor of evolutionary biology, who studied parish registries of birth, marriage, and death. He found that most couples weren’t just from the same village — they were often from neighboring farms.

Bicycles have always been known as bicycles.

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Karl von Drais’ original invention was known as a Laufmaschine (“running machine”), and early bikes were also known as velocipedes and dandy horses.

The bicycle was invented in 1817, which geneticist Steve Jones called “the most important event in recent human evolution” in his book The Language of the Genes. In addition to increasing genetic diversity by making it easier for couples who lived farther away from each other to meet and reproduce, bicycles were also intrinsically linked to women’s rights because they allowed women greater autonomy in the early 20th century. No less an authority than Susan B. Anthony proclaimed in an 1896 interview with journalist Nellie Bly that bicycling “has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel.”

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