"Isfahan is half the world," Persians said under Shah Abbas.
The city's great square, Naqsh-e Jahan, was a polo ground — and its stone goalposts still stand.
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More amazing facts
- 1596 The flush toilet was invented by Elizabeth I’s godson, the poet John Harington.
- 1596 · 1775 Some 179 years passed between the first flush toilet (1596) and the patent for the S-bend that traps smells with water (1775).
- 1598 · 1605 While False Dmitry I ruled in Moscow (1605–1606), the first part of Don Quixote came out in Madrid.
- 1599 · 1673 High heels were made for men. Persian horsemen used them to grip their stirrups, and after Shah Abbas’s embassy to Europe in 1599 aristocrats copied the style.
- 1600 · 1601 Some scientists think the 1600 eruption of Peru's Huaynaputina caused the cooling behind Russia's Great Famine of 1601–1603, which helped spark the Time of Troubles.
- 1600 · 1826 Janissary officers had kitchen titles: a company commander was the çorbacı, the "soup server". The cauldron was sacred to the corps, and overturning it signalled revolt.