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A favorite "today I learned" of mine is that staircases in medieval castles were constructed with steps of slightly different heights in order to trip invaders. In particular, the last step at the top of a staircase was tall, with the intent of causing a stumble and generating a loud footfall (for those sneaking around) or sending the intruder into the room headfirst (into a ready weapon, in the case of a siege).

Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap-22FjgoE4

This was the perfect strange comedy for my Friday morning, thank you for sharing!

Also interesting how people speed up after tripping.

I had an over weight friend in highschool who could run really fast. He did this by basically by making his top half fall forward which caused his legs to move quickly to keep him from landing on his face.

I think this is a similar phenomenon where the people tripping up the stairs have an imbalance causing their top half to fall forward. As a result the unconsciously speed their bottom half up to catch the top half from falling.