15 Fascinating Things That Our Ancestors Did

There is no denying the fact that there is something extraordinary about every era. Time has changed a lot and with changing time, a number of things have also upgraded or modified. For instance, we have progressed a lot in terms of technology and various inventions have made life much easier now in comparison to ancient times.

However, some bizarre things were in trend in old days that our ancestors used to practice. Those trends were so weird or strange that you might not be able to believe some of them to be true initially. Here we have listed 15 such creepy things and some of them might give you goosebumps:

1Bloodletting

Presently antibiotics, medicines, injections or surgeries are employed by doctors to cure diseases; however, before the 20th century, disease or illness was treated by bloodletting and it was among the most common ways. Needless to say, it made the patient’s condition worse and did more harm than good in view of the fact that the concerned person used to get weaker than ever.

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2Blackened teeth

People make all the possible attempts to whiten their teeth so that they look good and confident while smiling; nevertheless, in England in the 16th and 17th centuries, there was a trend of blackened teeth.

Sugar was imported into the country at that time and hence it was so costly that only upper class Elizabethans were able to purchase it. We all know that teeth get decayed with the consumption of excessive sugar and the same happened with Elizabeth I. She lost many teeth and it became difficult for people to understand what she wanted to say whenever she spoke. Only few teeth remained in her mouth and those too were rotten and blackened. From that point, black teeth became status symbol for people there and those individuals who didn’t have black teeth made use of coals or cosmetics to get the desired black color.

3Chopines or zoccoli

You may find it very surprising or even unbelievable but chopines which were 20 inches high shoe-covers were in trend from the 15th to 17th centuries. There is no denying the fact that they were uncomfortable and people needed servants’ help to wear them. However, they were liked by individuals not only in terms of fashion but also for the fact that they saved clothes from being muddy or stained.

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4First and second sleep

In the Middle Ages, the Europeans practiced biphasic sleep, i.e., sleeping two times a day. The time of the first sleep was from sunset to midnight and then they used to wake up for around two to three hours. During this time, they prayed, read or played and then again went back to sleep till sunrise.

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5Bathing machines

In the modern times, people are free to go to a beach and swim but things were quite different in the 18th and 19th centuries as people didn’t have freedom of swimming openly and if they wanted to swim, they needed to use a bathing machine. Bathing machines are special carts which have the appearance of beach huts. They were driven into water and the concerned person could swim without anyone seeing him/her.

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