1)  Roman Numeral IV

Although the Roman numeral for the number 4 has always been taught to have been "IV," according to historians, the ancient Romans probably used "IIII" most of the time. This is partially backed up by the fact that early grandfather clocks displayed IIII for the number 4 instead of IV. Early clockmakers apparently thought that the IIII balanced out the VIII (used for the number 8) on the clock face and that it just looked better.

2)  Base 60

The Babylonians wrote numbers in a system that used 60 as the base value rather than the number 10. They did not have a symbol for "zero."

3)  Fraction Bar

The Romans did not use numerals to indicate fractions but instead used words to indicate parts of a whole. It wasn't until later in h ...