Each April 1st, pranksters unleash hoaxes upon their friends, colleagues, and sometimes the entire internet. But despite its popularity, no one agrees on where April Fool’s Day comes from. As QI gleefully exposed, the origins are as elusive as the trickster spirit it embodies. Calendar Confusion? One popular theory, which QI examined with skept

Few festivals are as viscerally British as Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Bonfire Night, celebrated every 5th of November. It commemorates the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in which Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators attempted to blow up the House of Lords and assassinate King James I. But QI revealed something more intriguing: Bonfire Night m

The BBC Two panel show QI (Quite Interesting), renowned for its quirky, fact-laden episodes, has offered viewers a treasure trove of little-known truths about the world. One recurring theme that often arises is the history of festivals—those jubilant, sometimes bizarre, always revealing expressions of human culture. Behind the glitter of parad

Medical Knowledge: Physicians occasionally acted as expert witnesses, examining bodies for cause of death. Poison Detection: Medieval scholars tried to identify poisons using basic chemical tests or animal trials. Fingerprinting: Although fingerprinting as forensic evidence emerged only in the 19th century, medieval documents show aw