Cells are named after monks' rooms.
Robert Hooke looked at cork under a microscope and saw tiny chambers like monastery cells. Samuel Pepys sat up until 2 a.m. reading his Micrographia and called it the most ingenious book he had ever read.
More amazing facts
- 1661 · 1662 The last confirmed sighting of a dodo was in 1662 — just as Louis XIV was beginning to rebuild Versailles.
- 1662 Theologians once argued over whether chocolate broke a fast.
- 1664 · 1667 In 1667 the Dutch chose a tiny nutmeg island over Manhattan.
- 1665 · 1666 Newton made his greatest discoveries during a plague lockdown.
- 1666 · 1687 No apple hit Newton on the head.
- 1668 The monk Dom Pérignon did not invent champagne; he tried to get rid of the bubbles.