I've never really paid a lot of attention to ancient history. I knew that Molon Labe was the response given by the Spartan commander to the commander of the Persians.
What I didn't know was that there were just 3,000 Spartans holding off 250,000 Persians, and that the Spartans inflicted such heavy losses that Xerxes, the Persian commander, that Xerxes had to find an alternative strategy to beat them.
I also didn't know that Spartans were raised from childhood to be warriors. Taken from their mothers at age seven, they were subjected to deprivation, rigorous physical training, and military training. They were barely allowed to become fathers. It was thus that they became the fiercest warriors of their time, maybe of all time. They're also the pinnacle of the ideal of the statist society citizen.
More interesting than I would have thought.