In the Victorian era, bees were depicted in things like jewelry to depict the ethic of working hard and being productive.
Mites are one of the top killers of domestic snakes.
The 4th and 5th movements of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, written in 1830, symbolize a man’s transition from unrequited love into fantasies of delirium, nightmare, and death due to opium. It is believed that during this period, Berlioz was taking opium himself, as was his father the physician.
When Jimmy Carter visited Poland, he tried to say he was happy to be there, but the translator messed up and it came out he was “happy to grasp at Poland’s private parts.”
It wasn’t until as late as 1875 that scientists really understood how human conception took place. Like the ancient Greeks, Leonardo da Vinci believed sperm was a drop of liquid from the male brain and women had a vessel going from their uterus to their nipple – and mother’s milk came from recycled menstrual blood.
This article appears in July 21 • 2017.