We are not as smart as we think we are

Sure, with every passing year more knowledge becomes available to humanity in general, but most people don't care about expanding their horizons. Most people are too busy idolizing the latest pop-singing boy band or swooning over the latest movie heartthrob or twerking (or frugging or watusiing) their way through their otherwise humdrum existence.

The people of antiquity, people who lived hundreds and thousands of years ago, the people we think we are so much smarter than, they're the ones I find fascinating.

Who first looked into the night sky and saw not only a hunter with three stars in his belt but also a dog at his side?

Who decided to divide each day into 24 hours and each hour into 60 minutes and each minute into 60 seconds?

Who decided that a mile would consist of 5,280 feet or that there are 240,000 miles between the earth and the moon?

Who first discovered that meat and different kinds of vegetables tasted much better when cooked in or over a fire?

Who first noticed that seasons rolled around on a regular basis and kept count of the number of days in a year? Same thing with the phases of the moon and the number of days in a lunar cycle?

Who decided that men's shirts would button left over right but that women's shirts (okay, blouses) would button right over left?

Who decided that a circle would have 360 degrees?

Lots of common, everyday things we never think twice about were not common until someone thought about them for the very first time.

Here's a fun fact: In 1791 the French National Assembly defined a meter (well, no, actually, it was a metre) as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. I wonder how they knew that.