6 The last Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, met Wolfgang Mozart when he was six. She helped him when he slipped on the floor, and later, he proposed marriage to her outside Vienna.

It is hard to imagine a connection between the famous Queen of France Marie Antoinette and the musical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but they both shared a special bond when they were young. At the age of six, Mozart had begun to do concerts on his own. His family used to perform in royal courts. During one of his concerts, he met Marie Antoinette at the royal family’s Habsburg summer residence outside Vienna. The last queen of France was seven in 1763 when the meeting happened. What followed afterward was straight out of a fiction book.

Mozart, while walking on a polished floor, slipped. Marie ran to his rescue and helped him. Impressed, Mozart proposed marriage to the young queen. What would have happened if that love story would have actually happened? (source)

7 More than 1,200 years ago, prehistoric Eskimos during the “Meteorite Age” used metal from space rocks to make tools like spears for hunting. Three hundred years later, Earth-mined iron was brought to Greenland.

How cool would it be to have tools made from meteorites? Even though that sounds quite advanced, that is something prehistoric Eskimos did before they were introduced to iron excavated from the Earth for tool-making. Around 10,000 years ago, a giant meteorite fell on the Greenland ice sheet and broke apart into eight huge pieces. One of these pieces was named “Ahigitio” and weighed 31 tons, while another was named “The Man” and weighed 22 tons. These were the huge space rocks they mined for iron using basalt stones to hammer off pieces according to Danish researchers. Knives, harpoons, spears, and other tools were made by the Eskimos for centuries. It was only 300 years after this that the Norse settlers brought iron ore to Greenland. The iron that came from their meteorites could be distinguished from the other iron that was found on the Earth because it contained nickel. (source)

8 Mary Sawyer of Sterling, Massachusetts had a white pet lamb whom she took to school and loved. In 1830, a true story about Mary and her lamb was written inspiring the kids’ rhyme, “Mary had a little lamb…”

Mary really had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow, and who followed her to school. Most of the famous rhyme, “Mary had a little lamb…” is true! A girl named Mary Sawyer of Sterling, Massachusetts rescued a lamb. On May 24, 1830, a story was published about Mary and her lamb who followed her to school. But lambs were not allowed in school, so the teacher kicked it out. We know that from the rhyme. But there is more to that story.

According to the New England Historical Society, Mary loved the lamb so much that she persuaded her reluctant parents to let her raise it. She would hand-feed the lamb who could not swallow at first but learned to do so eventually. Mary stated, “The day the lamb went to school, I hadn’t seen her before starting off; and not wanting to go without seeing her, I called. She recognized my voice, and soon I heard a faint bleating far down the field. More and more distinctly I heard it, and I knew my pet was coming to greet me. My brother Nat said, ‘Let’s take the lamb to school with us.’ ” The first version of the poem was written by John Roulstone, and then fourteen years later, Sarah Josepha Hale added three paragraphs to it with a moral lesson. (source)

9 Pieces from the Wright Brothers’ airplane, Kitty Hawk, were taken aboard the Apollo 11 and landed on the moon along with Neil Armstrong. The pieces were in his “personal preference kit.”

On December 17, 1903, Kitty Hawk took off as the first powered flight. Then, 63 years later, pieces of that flight took off for the moon with the man who is known to be the first to be set foot there. When Apollo 11 left for the moon in July 1969, Neil Armstrong took two pieces of Kitty Hawk’s propeller in his personal preference kit. Each astronaut was allowed to bring along a bag of personal belongings on the spacecraft. He was a fan of the Wright brothers and he described himself to be a “devotee” of theirs in public. In July this year, the pieces of this propeller were put up for sale and were expected to fetch at least $100,000 apiece. (source)

10 The sixth President of the United States, John Quincy Adams. was once gifted a pet alligator by Marquis de Lafayette. He kept in the White House’s bathroom for a few months.

In an election where neither of the candidates won a majority of the votes, John Quincy Adams was chosen as the sixth President of the United States by the U.S. House of Representatives. Not a very popular president, Adams was famous for one thing—for having a pet alligator! French aristocrat Marquis De Lafayette had gifted it to him, and he had accepted the gift for a few months before returning it. This pet alligator was kept in the bathtub of the bathroom of the East Room of the White House for months! It is said that Adams enjoyed the spectacle of watching guests flee the place in sheer terror after seeing the “guest” in the bathroom.

Other presidents of the United States have also kept weird pets. Calvin Coolidge had lion cubs, an antelope, and a wallaby among other pets. Herbert Hoover also had an alligator, Benjamin Harrison had two opossums, and Woodrow Wilson kept sheep. (1,2)