Random Events that Wine Changed World and Altered History (17 items)

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  (#1) The Need to Store Wine Pushed People to Create Some of the First Storage Devices

  One of the unfortunate things about wine is that if you don't store it right, it doesn't age well and it goes bad. This means that early wine makers either had to drink up awfully fast, or they had to figure out a means of preserving and keeping the wine. In China, dating all the way back to around 7,000 BC, people began making fermented fruit and honey wine, and storing it in earthenware jars. These jars then became pots, amphoras, and eventually the bottles we see today. This storage method could also be used for various foods, meaning people could keep food fresh longer, too.
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  (#7) Wine Kept Roman Troops Happy and Healthy as They Conquered Most of Europe

  Wine keeps people happy, right? Well, the Romans certainly thought so. In 200 BC, they began to dictate that all soldiers should drink 2-3 liters of wine for their health and morale. It might sound crazy but this wine, called posca, did in fact have medicinal properties! It's full of antioxidants and vitamin C, and because it's very acidic, it kills all the bacteria in the water, keeping the soldiers on their feet! Around this time, with the help of posca, Rome managed to defeat Carthage, who had a pretty solid stranglehold over the Mediterranean, thus strengthening their empire. 
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  (#10) The Ottoman Empire Began to Crumble Thanks to a Love of Wine

  Süleyman the Magnificent pushed the Ottman Empire to be massive, up to the point where they even had Somalia under their rule. However, his predecessor Selim II preferred getting drunk to expanding his empire, and his favorite drink was wine. In fact, the only time when he tried to really take over anything was when he sought out Cyprus, the maker of his favorite wines. However, Cyprus was having none of that and fought back, killing 90% of his navy and 30,000 sailors. While he was doing all this, the rest of the empire began to call into disrepair, and thus was the beginning of the fall. 
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  (#15) Rasputin Drank Poisoned Wine, but Survived to Be Horrifically Butchered Instead

  Rasputin was known as a mystic and an amazing lover, particularly by the wife of the Czar at the time. Playing around with the Czar's wife also earned him a lot of enemies, and they set out to kill him. The first thing they tried was poisoning his wine with a dose of poison large enough to kill five men. It could have ended there, but apparently he really, really liked wine, and swallowed it down with no ill effects. From there, it just gets grisly: determined to kill him, his enemies shot him numerous times (with no luck), cut off his penis, wrapped him in a rug, threw him in a river, buried him, dug him up, and eventually burned his remains. 
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  (#2) Wine Determined Whether or Not the Greeks Thought You Were Civilized

  If the ancient Greeks thought you were cool, chances are, you really were. And the best way to get those Greeks to like you? Why, give them wine, of course! You see, the ancient Greeks believed that creating wine was a fine art, so much so that they had a god that was focused on drinking it. If you could create wine, the Greeks would consider you civilized rather than backwards and barbarous, at least according to Thucydides, and many alliances were formed when the Greeks respected other "civilized" societies. In short, the ancient world looked the way it did because the Greeks respected other winemakers. 
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  (#4) Wine Encouraged Cross-Continental Trading

  By around 900 BC, the Romans really had this whole wine thing down to a science. They were growing grapes, making different varieties of wine, and storing it in amphora. The obvious next step was to start trading it. Some of the very first cross-continent trading was with wine, and that trade developed and grew until it became the booming industry we see today. From there blossomed political alliances, the trading of information and techniques, and of course, even more varieties of wine.

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