The first coffeehouse opened in Constantinople

Coffee brewing likely originated in Ethiopa and the Arabian Peninsula

A mixture of merchants and colonialism then launched the drink across Europe and the New World. Many European coffee traditions, like the Viennese custom of serving it alongside a small cup of water, are remnants of how coffee has been prepared in the Middle East for centuries.

In the 1600s, coffee had religious significance

In the 1600s, coffee was important in multiple religious traditions. In Yemen, it was the drink of choice for Sufi mystics to improve their focus and fuel their grueling meditations. Pope Clement VIII's approval spread coffee’s popularity from the Muslim to the Christian world, paving the way for the cappuccino.

The aqueducts and cisterns of Constantinople

The system of aqueducts that supplied Byzantine Constantinople with water had more than 500 kilometers of channels. These channels fed hundreds of cisterns. The largest were open pools (one, now drained, houses an entire modern shopping center); but the most impressive were vast covered chambers like the Basilica Cistern, still a highlight of any visit to Istanbul.

Revolutionary ideas were brewed in 18th-century coffeehouses

After the Boston Tea Party (1773), colonists boycotted tea and turned to coffee, with coffeehouses becoming hubs for revolutionary discussions. The stimulating import from the Caribbean helped shape the nascent American taste.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

The Chora Church, the height of Byzantine art

The Palaeologan Renaissance took place in the final centuries of Byzantium, and in the face of steep political and economic decline. Perhaps the movement’s most famous artistic product is the Chora Church in Istanbul. Renovated in the early fourteenth century by Theodore Metochites, a learned court official, the church features remarkably vibrant mosaics and frescoes. Although the building was recently reconverted into a mosque, most of its decorations are still visible.

Turkish delight recipes were initially kept secret

The chewy confection dates back to the 1700s, and initially was served at the sultan's court. The palace's secret recipes were eventually published in one of the earliest Ottoman cookbooks by Mehmet Kamil.

Rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire in 60 seconds

In 330 CE, Emperor Constantine made the bold move of shifting the Roman capital to Byzantium and renaming it Constantinople. This decision helped shape the Eastern Roman Empire, or what we now call the Byzantine Empire. Here’s how the city rose to global prominence, and why its legacy lingers today.

Historians believe the first modern restaurant was opened in 1765

A Parisian soup salesman named Boulanger is often credited with opening the first modern restaurant and was renowned for serving meat in poulette sauce.

The New York Stock Exchange was started in 1792

When it first opened, traders would meet both outside on the street and in coffee shops to do business. Today, the NYSE is known as one of the most important financial institutions in the world.

A medieval Italian visits Constantinople

In the tenth century, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I sent Liudprand of Cremona, an Italian bishop, to Constantinople on a diplomatic mission. He was not successful. But the very undiplomatic report he sent back to the emperor about his experiences provides a unique – and often very entertaining – look at life and ceremony in the Byzantine capital, dramatically different from anything in Liudprand’s Italy.

Toasting goes back to at least ancient Greece

The Greeks regularly held symposia featuring wine, food, music, entertainment, and intellectual conversation, hosted by a symposiarch, who acted as emcee. The wine was often drunk in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and ritual madness, which often led to excess.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

Why did the Ottoman Empire violently target Armenians during WWI?

In anticipation of threatened Allied landings at the strategically important Gallipoli peninsula, Ottoman authorities arrested 240 Armenian leaders in Constantinople on April 24, 1915, and deported them east. This roundup is commemorated today by Armenians as the beginning of the genocide, according to this article.

The Silk Road was an ancient series of trade routes between East Asia and Europe

Founded by the Han Chinese in 130 BCE, the Silk Road was a series of trade routes connecting eastern China with the Mediterranean and the rest of Europe. The Persians created a predecessor series of routes, but the Chinese solidified the Silk Road, where travelers traded commerce, ideas, and more.

Pompeii had cafés, nightlife, public baths, and even local elections

This BBC History guide highlights how recognizably modern Pompeii was, from its cafés and bustling public bathing complexes to its theaters, bars, and active voting culture. Historian Mary Beard reveals the city’s surprisingly contemporary feel.

Medieval taverns offered patrons a limited menu

Inns, taverns, and alehouses were more like bars than restaurants, though they did offer patrons (often travelers) food, it wasn't laid out on a diverse menu. Instead, the establishments offered a limited menu, often consisting of a single stew, and hungry customers could grab a bowl to go along with their alcohol.

The first ATM—dubbed a 'cash dispenser'—was installed in 1967 in London

Specifically, the first ATM (which stands for “automatic teller machine”) made its debut at a Barclays bank in London. A timeline of ATM history can help illustrate and visualize other key events in ATM history.

Starbucks operates more than 38,000 stores on six continents

The brand started with a single Seattle cafe and grew into an international sensation, thanks to former CEO Howard Schulz’s bold move toward “reigniting the emotional attachment with customers” rather than focusing on expansion.

The company building Irish pubs across the globe

The Irish Pub Company is a Dublin-based business specializing in designing Irish pubs around the world. The outfit has created over 2,000 custom Irish pubs in over 100 countries, each with its own distinctive flair incorporating essential features of the classic Irish pub. Read about the founders and their clients here.

Europe’s first universities emerged from medieval church school

The modern university can be traced back to the Middle Ages, when schools in Italy, France, and England initially trained clergy before expanding to include lay students. By the 10th and 11th centuries, they taught law, medicine, and theology across Europe.

The rise of the museum gift shop

While museum gift shops are commonplace now, they weren’t when the Met opened in 1870. Nevertheless, the museum was one of the first to offer copies of several of their paintings for visitors to display in their own homes. Read about how the museum gift shop has evolved and how they decide what to carry with this look behind the scenes from Artsy.

Iftar foods from around the world

The global population of Muslims eats and fasts in distinct way around the world. This photo survey spans Morocco's harira soup to Indonesia's kolak (a sweet dessert soup) and Turkey's pide (like pizza but without the tomato sauce). The one universal aspect for most iftar meals is dates and water, following Muhammad's practice. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

The first modern marathon was at the 1896 Olympic Games

The modern marathon was created for the revived Olympic Games in 1896, with the course starting in Marathon and ending in Athens. The race was won by Spiridon Louis, a Greek water carrier who surged in the last stretch to the delight of the hometown crowd.

Washington DC's first public library, built in 1903, now operates as an Apple store

The Carnegie Library served as DC's central library until 1972, when overcrowding forced a move to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. After sitting unused for five years, the building changed hands several times before Apple agreed to restore it and open a store there in 2016.

Meet Hipparchus, the Greek astronomer who created the world's first star map

Astronomer Hipparchus created accurate maps of the night sky way ahead of his time, with coordinates sometimes within a single degree of modern values. Hipparchus founded a new theory of star motion, modeling the sky as a celestial sphere with coordinates similar to latitude and longitude—concepts only recently created in Hipparchus' time.

The recorded history of crude oil use, starting with Babylonians waterproofing boats

The ancient civilization located in modern-day Iraq also used crude oil as mortar in construction, while the Egyptians used it to treat human remains during the mummification process. After the invention of the first motorcar in 1885 and the introduction of the affordable Model T in 1908, demand for crude oil skyrocketed.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.