Galileo's middle finger is on display in a Florence museum.
It was removed in 1737 when his remains were moved to a new tomb, and it now stands in a glass jar, pointing at the sky.
More amazing facts
- 1636 · 1703 Harvard is 67 years older than St Petersburg: the Massachusetts college was founded in 1636, and Peter the Great founded his city on the Neva in 1703.
- 1637 In 1637 a single tulip bulb could cost more than ten years of a skilled craftsman's wages.
- 1637 · 1718 The word "tulip" comes from "turban". The flower reached Europe from the Ottoman Empire, its name from a Persian word for turban — and the Ottomans had their own Tulip Period some 80 years after the Dutch mania.
- 1638 Russia’s first tea arrived in 1638 with the envoy Vasily Starkov, a gift to Tsar Michael from a Mongol khan.
- 1642 Abel Tasman sailed right around Australia without ever seeing it. In 1642–43 he passed far south and east of the mainland, finding Tasmania and New Zealand along the way.
- 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.