Fascinating facts
This activity is suitable for students of all age groups, you can download a free, printable PDF version here.
Students could use a simple image labelling app like Photo Label to annotate an image from the resource with ‘fascinating facts’ about a revolutionary innovation, idea, person or event. Our Using objects, artworks and other sources to find out about the past guide includes plenty of tips for looking closely at sources and investigating further. Students should consider what might make a fact truly fascinating for someone who knows very little about the theme. Try linking facts to people and their everyday lives, or to something very famous; try expressing weights or distances in forms people can relate to e.g. ‘it weighed as much as two elephants…that’s as far as Edinburgh to London…that’s the same as £5 in today’s money…etc’.
Did you know…
- Today, smallpox is the only human disease to have been completely eradicated worldwide, largely as a result of vaccination – a revolutionary medical procedure discovered by Edward Jenner during the Age of Revolution
- After he was shot and killed at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson’s body was placed in a barrel of brandy to preserve it on the six week journey back to England
- The first known flight to carry people took place in Paris, France in 1783, in a balloon
- In today’s money, the final bill for the construction of the SS Great Britain would have been 13½ million pounds?
