25 Myths About The Middle Ages You Probably Thought Were True

Or see here.  Not quite the breadth, a bit more depth.
We record today that calculus was invented simultaneously by Newton and Liebnitz, and refined by four great mathematicians into the safe tool we have today.
And yes, Archimedes of Syracuse brought us right to the threshold of calculus and maybe a little past it.
But we also know that this indispensible, world-changing math was discovered and taught in a variety of schools across India and China.  Why was it lost?  Or, to put the question the right way round, why this time WASN'T it lost?
A large part of the reason has to be the university system, maybe the greatest contribution of the Middle Ages.  See the video.

Some myths I've never heard of before. But yeah, it just proof again that you should never take something on face value (especially on the internet) - maybe some of his stuff needs to be checked too, who knows and who has the time?! On a side note, the guy's voice will drive me crazy if I have to listen to another one of his lists!

Speaking of cleaning habits:

The best/simplest advice I've come across was that human nature hasn't changed all that much. It rang pretty accurate to me. So just like today you get people that bath twice a day to people that don't bath that often, you'd get them back in the day too. Granted, running a bath was a b#tch those days, but that's about the biggest difference (and might at most changed the twice a day person to a once a day person, maybe, even then, if you ever roughed it, you know you can do wonders with a bucket of cold/luke/warm-if-you're-lucky water and a cloth).

The old tribes in Africa had really good teeth for people that didn't have fluoride toothpaste. Reason why - they sat for hours a day cleaning their teeth with sharp sticks. It was time consuming, but worked just as well if not better.

Also, I'm sure that if riders ran out of ale/wine, they would drink water from the streams. So some might have taken a liking to it too, who knows. But only a few probably, with that much beer around, who'd prefer water?! LOL Side note, one of these days Amy will be able to tell us how much beer $50 of TNBW prize money can buy! No pressure Ames!

And then this ... slightly different reason for not taking a bath, but related to the topic of bathing:

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/beauty … 7519995565

So who's with me?! No more bathing. Yay!!!

But yeah, my characters bath and wipe and clean themselves. If they didn't ... *shudders, I'd probably never read or write a historical romance novel ever again*

Oh, I'm going for the 100 dollar prize. Hope springs eternal.