In the 1st century CE, Hero of Alexandria described the 'aeolipile'—a hollow sphere spun rapidly by jets of pressurized steam.
Often regarded as the earliest recorded steam reaction turbine, the copper device wasn't scaled to power factories at the time and instead amazed crowds as a mechanical marvel.
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Quick Guess: What was Hero of Alexandria's 1st-century spinning steam sphere called?
Verified Answer: Aeolipile
Quiz Question: What was Hero of Alexandria's 1st-century spinning steam sphere called?
Correct Answer: Aeolipile
Named after Aeolus, god of winds, the aeolipile used steam jets to spin a metal sphere.
Forged between Hittite King Hattusili III and Pharaoh Ramesses II, this bilingual peace pact survives on clay tablets housed in Istanbul and temple walls in Egypt.
Dating back to 9600–8200 BCE, the monumental T-shaped limestone pillars of Göbeklitepe were carved thousands of years before pottery, metallurgy, or Stonehenge.
Queen Cleopatra of Egypt lived closer in time to the 1969 Moon landing than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Teaching at England's University of Oxford was already underway more than two centuries before the Aztec Empire began.