Once, when I was about 15, I was standing in my parents' kitchen thinking about menstruation (as 15-year-olds are wont to do) when a question came to mind: Who invented tampons? I decided to ask my mother, who is not known for her trivia skills. She responded immediately, without blinking.
"Dr. Herman Tampon."
Clearly, I needed to go to the Internet. Wikipedia told me that tampons were originally used by the ancient Egyptians, which was a good enough answer for me at the time -- so I stopped reading.
That means I didn't learn the following, fascinating history of tampons, which is much more interesting than you or I likely would have expected; thankfully, the explainers at Fusion realized this, and decided to make a video detailing the ubiquitous menstrual product's history. The first in the new website's "Mansplainer" series, the video is packed with not-entirely-useful-but-very-intriguing information that could maybe (maybe) make for a good conversation opener one day. If, of course, you are surrounded by people who also contemplated menstruation a lot as teenagers.
Watch the video below:
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