Traditionally, priests have come from the Brahmin varna, although in modern times, archakas have been recruited from various communities with lesser regard to caste.

16,594 people were officially executed during the terror, with the ironic inclusion of the instigator of the killings, Robespierre himself.

Shaka kaSenzangakhona, also known as Shaka Zulu, was one of the most influential monarchs of the Zulu Kingdom. Dingane and Mhlangana appear to have made at least two attempts to assassinate Shaka before they succeeded sometime in 1828.

According to Livy, the first 100 men appointed as senators by Romulus were referred to as "fathers", and the descendants of those men became the patrician class. Patricians were historically afforded more privileges than plebeians. Only patricians could hold political offices, and all priesthoods were closed to non-patricians. There was a belief that patricians communicated better with the Roman gods, so they alone could perform the sacred rites and take the auspices.

The samurai were usually associated with a clan and their lord, were trained as officers in military tactics and grand strategy, and they followed a set of rules that later came to be known as the bushidō. Their teachings can still be found today in modern Japanese martial arts.

In 1917, Sanger went to jail for distributing an early version of the diaphragm from a makeshift clinic in a tenement storefront in Brooklyn. Her conviction, when appealed, won an interpretation of New York law that allowed doctors -- though not nurses, as she intended -- to prescribe contraception for medical purposes. Under those constraints, she built the modern family planning movement.

The Year of the Five Emperors refers to the year 193 AD, in which there were five claimants for the title of Roman Emperor: Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Pescennius Niger, Clodius Albinus and Septimius Severus. Out of this chaos, the Severan dynasty was born.

In 1931, the Chicago Tribune proclaimed that "120,000 meals are served by Capone Free Soup Kitchen," making Al Capone out to be a "Robin Hood". Many of those served by Capone said that he was doing more for the poor than the government.

The Romans used human urine to purge bacteria from the mouth. First-century Roman physicians maintained that brushing with urine whitened teeth and fixed them more firmly in the sockets. Upper-class Roman women paid dearly for bottled Portuguese urine, the most highly prized, since it was alleged to be the strongest on the Continent.

The Tale of Two Lovers was one of the bestselling books of the fifteenth century, even before its author, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, became Pope Pius II.