"It usually takes 100 years to make a law, and then, after it's done its work, it usually takes 100 years to be rid of it." —Henry Ward Beecher
In the code of laws of Hammurabi (1792–1750 B.C.), one of the first law codes in history and among the greatest ancient codes, the penalty for medical malpractice was for the doctor's hands to be cut off. (source) [ Ancient Civilisations | Medicine | Laws ]
The oldest recorded death sentence is contained in the Amherst papyri, dating to 1500 B.C., which listed Egyptian state trials. A teenaged male, convicted of "magic", was sentenced to kill himself by either poison or stabbing. [ Ancient Egypt | Laws and Customs ] (source)
Oxford University once had rules that specifically forbade students from bringing bows and arrows to class. [ Medieval England | Laws and Customs ]
Marco Polo reported a strict sense of justice in India. If a man would not pay his debt, the creditor would draw a circle around the debtor. If the debtor should try to step out of the circle, he would be liable to punishment by death. [ Laws and Customs | India ] (source)
Ben Jonson, the brilliant English dramatist and poet (1572-1637), was working as an actor and playwright in 1598 when he killed another actor in a duel. He was tried, and successfully defended himself by claiming the right of clergy, namely, that he could read and write. (source)
When a Chinese bystander ashore was killed accidentally by a cannon salvo of greeting from an England ship, during the early days (1830s) of the China-Western trade, the England were forced to turn over to China the hapless gunner, who was promptly strangled. (Strangling was thought by the Chinese to be a less severe punishment than other forms of execution, because the body would not be permanently disfigured.) [ China | Laws and Customs ] (source)
From 1836 to 1895, the Red Flag Act in England required that any self-propelled vehicle be preceded by a man carrying a red flag by day and a red lantern by night. In effect, this limited the speed of such vehicles to that of a person and retarded development of all self-propelled vehicles, including automobiles. [ Transportation | Laws and Customs ]
In 1853 Illinois passed a law that required any black entering the state and staying more than ten days to pay a fine of $50. If he could not pay, the black could be sold into slavery for a period commensurate with the fine. [ Slavery | Laws and Customs ] (source)
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crime, shall ever be tolerated in this state." Thus read the state of Michigan's constitution in 1850. Inadvertently, it legalized slavery as an appropriate punishment for crime. Not until 1963 was the comma shifted from its position after servitude to a position after slavery, and slavery was once again outlawed in the state. [ Laws and Customs | Slavery ] (source)
The Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves. Issued by Abraham Lincoln to take effect on New Year's Day 1863, the proclamation freed only slaves in the areas controlled by the rebel Confederate government, where Lincoln had no authority to enforce it. [ Misconceptions | Laws and Customs | Slavery ] (source)
An unidentified U.S. congressional clerk was once instructed to write "All foreign fruit-plants are free from duty". Instead, he wrote "All foreign fruit, plants are free from duty". This extra comma cost the U.S. government $2,000,000 before a new session of congress was able to rectify the error. (source)
The United States Refuse Act of 1899 is a long-ignored federal statute. It prohibits all industrial discharge into bodies of water. (source)
Witchcraft was not legalised in Great Britain until 1951. The last person in Great Britain to be convicted under the Witchcraft Act was Jane Rebecca Yorke, who was convicted in September 1944. She received a lenient sentence and a fine. [ Laws and Customs | Lasts ] (source)
In 1666, a law was passed in England requiring all corpses to be buried in a wool shroud, thereby extorting support for Britain's flagging wool industry, especially since the Black Death was devastating England at the time. The act was finally repealed 148 years later, in 1814.
The City Council of Chico, California, once issued an edict banning nuclear weapons from the city. Anyone caught detonating a nuclear device within the city limits could face a fine of up to $500. [ Laws and Customs | Weapons ] (source)
In the city of Milwaukee, residents must keep pet elephants on a leash while walking them. (source)
In the U.S. state of Oklahoma, an inland state, it is illegal to catch whales or to get a fish drunk. (source)
In York, England, it is still legal to kill a Scotsman if he is carrying a bow and arrow and is within the city walls after dark, except on Sundays. (source)
In the United Kingdom, it is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the reigning monarch's image upside-down. (source)
It is illegal to die in the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament, and it is also illegal to enter them wearing a suit of armour. (source)
It is illegal to drive while blindfolded in the U.S. state of Alabama. (source)
In Milan, it is against the law not to smile, except during a funeral or hospital visit. (source)
The principle of habeas corpus (Latin for "having the body"), a fundamental guarantee of personal liberty that states that no-one can be imprisoned without a specific charge and a proper trial, was passed into law because of a prank. When England's House of Lords met to vote on the principle in 1679, chances of passage were slim until one mischievous vote-tallier counted the "yea" of a very fat peer as ten votes. No-one noticed the joke or called for a recount, and the Act of Habeas Corpus passed into law.
"Time immemorial" is defined as beyond the memory of any living person, or a time indefinitely long ago. However, for the purposes of English law, a statute in 1275 decreed that time immemorial was any point in time prior to 1189, the year when Richard I began his reign. (source)
It isn't true that many of the strange, outdated laws that are still on the books in various jurisdictions are never enforced. In 1999, after falling out of his canoe on the Rifle River in Michigan, a 25-year-old man was convicted for violating an 1897 law prohibiting cursing in front of women and children, and sentenced to four days work in a child-care program plus a $75 fine. However, the law was struck down by the Michigan Court of Appeals in 2002 and the conviction thrown out. [ Laws and Customs | Misconceptions ] (source)
From all levels of government, Americans get 150,000 new laws and 2 million new regulations every year. (source)
In 1971, in order to show how easy it is to pass so-called "special bills", representative Tom Moore, Jr. introduced a bill in the Texas (U.S.A.) House of Representatives, which was subsequently passed unanimously, commending Boston mass murderer Albert De Salvo, who was known as "the Boston Strangler". The bill stated that De Salvo's "dedication and devotion to his work has enabled the weak and lonely throughout the nation to achieve a new degree of concern for their future", and that he was "officially recognized by the state of Massachusetts for his noted activities and unconventional techniques involving population control and applied psychology". (source)
The following curious was enacted during the reign of Richard I., for the government of those going by sea to the Holy Land: "He who kills a man on shipboard, shall be bound to the dead body and thrown into the sea; if the man is killed on shore, the slayer shall be bound to the dead body and buried with it. He who shall draw his knife to strike another, or who shall have drawn blood from him, to lose his hand; if he shall have only struck with the palm of the hand, without drawing blood, he shall be thrice ducked in the sea." [ The Crusades | Laws and Customs ] (source)