Jerusalem siege rival factions burned food famine

Jerusalem’s defenders reportedly destroyed their own food during a siege

During the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, rival factions inside the city fought one another. According to the ancient historian Josephus, they destroyed stores of grain that could have sustained the population. Internal conflict worsened the famine just as Roman forces tightened their blockade.

A Japanese surgeon used general anesthesia decades before ether surgery

In 1804, Japanese surgeon Hanaoka Seishū performed breast surgery using a herbal anesthetic preparation that rendered his patient unconscious. This was decades before ether anesthesia became established in Western surgery. Hanaoka's method was developed within a different medical tradition and did not become the basis of modern inhaled anesthesia, but it demonstrates that surgical anesthesia has more than one historical origin.

≈4.3 million Suns

Stars reveal a giant black hole at our galaxy’s center

More than 100 stars have been tracked orbiting something invisible at the center of the Milky Way. Their motion shows that about 4.3 million Suns’ worth of mass is packed into an extremely small region, providing strong evidence for a supermassive black hole.

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Jerusalem siege rival factions burned food famine

Jerusalem’s defenders reportedly destroyed their own food during a siege

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