Cincinnati, Ohio, is named after a Roman who lived about 2,200 years before it was founded.
Cincinnatus, who left power to go back to his farm, became Americans' model for Washington, and Revolutionary officers formed the Society of the Cincinnati.
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More amazing facts
- 480 BC · 479 BC Confucius died in 479 BC — one year after the Greeks defeated the Persian fleet at Salamis.
- 479 BC More than 100,000 of Confucius's descendants lie in his family cemetery at Qufu.
- 471 BC A well by the Acropolis held 190 potsherds bearing Themistocles' name, written in just 14 hands.
- 450 BC When a cat died in an Egyptian house, everyone in it shaved off their eyebrows, Herodotus wrote in the 5th century BC. Diodorus claimed that killing a cat, even by accident, could get you lynched.
- 447 BC Gleaming white Greek statues and temples were originally painted in bright colours.
- 440 BC Herodotus wrote that in India gold was dug up by ants bigger than foxes.