Mondo Knows Facts

Ottoman coffeehouses were called schools of wisdom

Constantinople's first coffee houses opened in the sixteenth century and drew crowds Coffee drinking spread from Yemen to the Ottoman capital, where the first coffeehouses opened around 1554. Patrons called them schools of wisdom because men gathered there to read, argue and gossip. Authorities grew nervous about crowds and periodically shut them down, a pattern repeated in cities across Europe. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Tags: coffee, ottoman-empire, public-life

Ottoman coffeehouses were called schools of wisdom: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
Constantinople's first coffee houses opened in the sixteenth century and drew crowds. The figure is taken from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a history fact?
Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.