The Editors at Very Cool Facts

The End of 2,500 Years of Kings in Iran Iran's history stretches back more than 2,500 years to the Persian Empire founded by Cyrus the Great.   Over the centuries, Persia became a crossroads of civilization, shaped by empires, trade, and foreign powers. By the early twentieth century, a very different force would transform the region: oil.   This week we take a slightly longer look at Iran’s past. the story includes a remote drilling camp that struck oil for the first time in the Middle East,...

The Aisle of Infinite Possibility I went into the supermarket for toothpaste.   I needed one tube.   What I encountered was an orthodontic summit.   Whitening. Advanced whitening. Clinical whitening. Extra whitening. Enamel repair. Charcoal purification. Baking soda revival. Fresh mint. Cool mint. Arctic blast mint. A mint so intense it suggests a weather advisory.   I stood there, trying to decide what kind of person I was.   Was I advanced whitening? Was I enamel repair? Was I someone who...

How The Money Actually Moved Early New England fortunes took shape through continual risk and motion. Ships crossed oceans, and cargoes changed. When one trade became illegal, unfashionable, or merely awkward to explain, another obligingly appeared. The money did not disappear; it rerouted. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, New England merchants, especially those based in Boston, grew wealthy through Atlantic commerce tied to enslaved labor in the Caribbean. They also...