London’s 17th-century coffee houses were called “penny universities”: for a penny, the price of entry and a cup, you could listen to scholars and merchants for hours.
They gave birth to both Lloyd’s and the Stock Exchange.
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More amazing facts
- 1644 In 17th-century Sweden a coin could weigh almost 20 kg. Copper plates were worth their weight in metal, so large payments went by cart.
- 1648 In 1648, as Europe signed the Peace of Westphalia, the Cossack Semyon Dezhnev became the first European to sail the strait between Asia and America — 80 years before Bering.
- 1652 Cape Town began as a vegetable garden.
- 1653 · 1666 The first European account of Korea was written by a sailor chasing his back pay. Hendrick Hamel spent 13 years stuck in Korea and wrote his report to claim wages from the Dutch East India Company.
- 1653 · 1666 The Russian Church split over how many fingers to cross oneself with.
- 1661 · 1662 The last confirmed sighting of a dodo was in 1662 — just as Louis XIV was beginning to rebuild Versailles.