Mind-Blowing Facts About Time
(Full list at the end, without
pictures)
1. Cleopatra
lived closer to the building of Pizza Hut than the pyramids.
The
Great Pyramid was built cerca 2560 BC, while
Cleopatra lived around 30 BC. The first Pizza Hut opened in 1958, which is
about 500 years closer.
2. Every two
minutes, we take as many photos as all of humanity took during the 1800s.
On the
left is the first photograph ever taken (1826), View from the Window at Le
Gras by French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. On the right is a cat who accidentally took a
picture of itself (2013). It’s estimated that in 2014, humans will take 880
billion photos (not including cats). In fact, 10% of all the photos ever taken
were taken in the past 12 months.blog.1000memories.com
3. Oxford
University is older than the Aztecs.
wallpapers87.comTeaching started in
Oxford as early as 1096, and by 1249, the University was officially founded.
The Aztec civilization as we know it began with the founding of Tenochtitlán in
1325.smithsonianmag.com
4. Will
Smith is now older than Uncle Phil was at the beginning of "The Fresh
Prince."
When
James Avery (Uncle Phil) started on The Fresh Prince, he was 45-years-old.
Today, Will Smith is a slightly older 45.
5. In the
span of 66 years, we went from taking flight to landing on the moon.
museumvictoria.com.auIn 1903 the Wright brothers successfully flew a plane for a
whopping 59 seconds. 38 years later, in 1941, the Japanese used flight to bomb
Pearl Harbor. Only 28 years after that, Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969.
6. There is
more processing power in a TI-83 calculator than in the computer that landed
Apollo 11 on the moon.
audacity.orgThe
guidance computer from the Apollo 11 mission ran at 1.024 MHz, about 1/6th of
the processing power of a TI-83 calculator. One is used by students to play
Tetris, the other took humans to the moon.quora.com
7. The
oldest living person's birth is closer to the signing of the Constitution than
present day.
zimbio.comMisao Okawa was born in 1898, an astonishing 116
years ago. The Constitution was signed in 1787, which makes her life 4 years
closer to the historic Philadelphia convention than to today.youtube.com
8. John
Tyler, America's 10th President, has two living grandchildren.
John
Tyler served from 1841 to 1845, a full 20 years before Abraham Lincoln. He had
a son, Lyon, at age 63. Lyon would have Lyon Jr. and Harrison at 71 and 75,
respectively. Both are still alive today and in their 80's.
John Tyler
was America's 10th President, serving from 1841 to 1845, but somehow two of his
grandsons are still alive. Mental Floss first
reported on this fact in 2012, but since then Snopes has verified
their identities, while New York Magazine even
interviewed one of the grandsons. As of last year, both Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr.
and Harrison Tyler were still only in their 80s.
Time is now
ruined.
9. The first
pyramids were built while the woolly mammoth was still alive.
While
most mammoths died out long before civilizations arose, a small
populations survived until 1650 BC. By that point, Egypt was halfway
through its empire, and the Giza Pyramids were already 1000 years old.
10. The fax
machine was invented the same year people were traveling the Oregon Trail.
The
first fax machine was developed by Alexander Bain in 1843, meanwhile The Great
Migration began across America.
11. France
was still executing people by guillotine when Star Wars came out.
Star
Wars premiered in theaters in May 1977. The last execution by guillotine took
place September 10th of the same year.
12. Betty
White is older than sliced bread.
Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented sliced bread in 1928, while Betty White
was born in 1922. Bread had existed prior, just not in the pre-sliced form. Sliced bread was introduced in 1928 by inventor
Otto Frederick Rohwedder. Before this moment, bread
was sold in whole loaves as bakers didn't trust sliced bread could stay fresh. Betty White was born in 1922 and spent her
early years not eating sliced bread. But White recently celebrated her 92nd birthday, which means she's been able to
experience the first "greatest invention" much longer than most of
us.
14.
Everything in this 1991 RadioShack ad exists in a single smartphone.
huffingtonpost.comGordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, stated that over
the history of computing, the number of transistors on circuits doubles
approximately every two years. Moore’s Law has held true for over 40 years and
successfully predicted our incredible advancement in mobile technology.mooreslaw.org
15. When Warner Brothers formed, and the last time the Cubs won the
World Series, the Ottoman Empire was still alive.
Harry,
Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New
Castle, Pennsylvania in 1903. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire spanned from 1299
to 1923, when Turkey became an independent nation.
The Chicago
Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908. This was back when there were still teams such as the Brooklyn Superbas and the Boston Doves. The Ottoman Empire, which was founded in the 13th century, also
existed back then.Mehmed VI was
the last sultan of the empire and his reign ended in 1922 when the sultanate
was abolished and the Turkish government took governing control over the new
republic -- 14 years after the Cubs last won the World Series.
Image Right: WikiCommons
16. Harvard University was founded before calculus was derived.
Harvard
is the oldest higher education institution in the US, founded in 1636.
Calculus wasn't derived until later in the 17th century, with the work of
Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton.
Established
in 1636, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher education in the U.S. The "New College," as it was originally called, had no calculus
classes because it didn't exist yet. The invention of calculus would come in
the late 17th century with Gottfried Leibniz's 1684 publication of "Nova Methodus," and in part with Isaac Newton's "Principia" in 1687, followed by additional explanations and
reformulations by subsequent mathematicians. Also, European physicist, mathematician
and astronomer Galileo was still alive during Harvard's early years -- he died
in 1642.
17. The last time the Chicago Cubs won a World Series, women were not
allowed to vote.
The
infamous cold streak by the Chicago Cubs baseball team extends back to 1908,
when they won their second World Series. Women in the US acquired the vote in
1920.
18. Humans never fully experience the "present" - we're
always living in the past.
reddit.comEvery human being is living at least 80
milliseconds in the past. David Eagleman believes that our consciousness lags
behind actual events and that when you think an event occurs, it has already
happened before your brain has a chance to create a cohesive picture of the
world.scientificamerican.com
19. There was more time between the Stegosaurus and the Tyrannosaurus
Rex than between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and you.
joelaudati.comThe Stegosaurus lived ~150 million years ago, while the T-Rex lived
only ~65 million years ago. Practically yesterday.
20. If you’re over 45, the world population has doubled in your
lifetime.
washingtonpost.comIn 1968, the world population was 3,557,000,000. Today, the world
population is 7,217,000,000 and grows by over 200,000 daily.worldpopulationstatistics.com
21. There are whales alive today who were born before Moby Dick was
written.
wikimedia.orgSome of the bowhead whales living off the coast of
Alaska are well over 200 years old. They were born well before Moby Dick was
written in 1851.smithsonianmag.com
22. If the history of Earth were compressed to a single year, modern
humans would appear on December 31st at about 11:58pm.
airandspace.eduThe human race has lived on Earth for only 0.004% of the planet's
history.
4. The
Pyramids of Giza were built in the time of wooly mammoths.
From what we
can tell, the last of the wooly mammoth died out around 1700 B.C. on Russia’s
Wrangel Island. In Egypt, the Pyramids of Giza were built around4,000 years ago, although there have been claims
that they're even older. This also means that Cleopatra's
time on Earth is actually
closer to us in history than to the construction of the pyramids.
5. The fax
machine was invented the same year as the Oregon trail migration.
The first
fax machine was invented in 1843 by a Scottish mechanic namedAlexander Bain. This early model used a
combination of synchronized pendulums, electric probes and electrochemically
sensitive paper to scan documents, and then send the information over a series
of wires to be reproduced. The "Great
Migration" on the
Oregon trail began the same year, when a wagon train of about 1,000 migrants
attempted to travel west, but probably died of dysentery along the
way.
Image Left: WikiCommons
6. The
jewelry store Tiffany & Co. was founded before Italy was a country.
While Rome
was officially a holdout for a number of years after, in 1861 General Giuseppe Garibaldi led a successful campaign to gather the various
city-states and bring them under one nation. Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B.
Young founded Tiffany & Young in 1837 and then
became Tiffany & Co. in 1853. This means Audrey Hepburn could have gotten "breakfast at
Tiffany's" before she could have had her Italian "Roman Holiday.
Similarly,
Macy's was founded in 1858, also before Italy became the nation we know it as today.
Image: Tiffany
7. France
was still using the guillotine when "Star Wars" came out.
The last
time the guillotine was used as a form of execution in France was in 1977. The guillotine lasted for about two centuries. The first
"Star Wars" film was also released in 1977 a few months before the execution.
Another
mind-blow French historical fact: The Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889, which is the same year Nintendo was founded
and that Van Gogh painted"The Starry
Night."
1. The continents look entirely different than you think they do.
The map you're used to is more Western-focused and stretches out the
size of continents near the poles. Africa and South America are actually way
bigger. Here's a more accurate representation of the world, according to the The Gall-Peters Projection map, created in 1885.
Image: WikiCommons H/T: BuzzFeed
3. There are castles and even lighthouses that are less expensive than NYC
apartments.
With New York City rent rising over an average $3,000 a month even in
Brooklyn this year, it's becoming more and more appealing to perhaps move
somewhere else. If you're one of the lucky ones who has a bit of money to burn,
might as well spend it on a real-life castle or lighthouse, right?
Image: Monlin
4. The
United States hasn't even made it into the Top 50 list of longest-lasting empires.
The United
States has only been around for a blip in history. Institutions like Bank of
America aren't even 100 years old. This
doesn't necessarily discount their trustworthiness, but just make sure to
remember that not all pillars of authority are eternal.
5. 10
percent of the entire world population is still illiterate.
Unfortunately
certain countries are also skewing the data upwards on this statistic. Nations such as Afghanistan
only have a 28 percent literacy rate for the total population.
6. You
thoroughly enjoy celebrating some pretty dark holidays.
Labor Day was created
as a bandaid to coverup multiple massacres of
American workers. Columbus Day is named
after a brutal tyrant whose history is largely a fraud. Thanksgiving is a sham celebration of Pilgrims and Native Americans coming
together. Really, just don't celebrate anything.
7. A whole
ecosystem lives in your belly button.
Scientists
found 2,368 different species of bacteria living in belly buttons after swabbing the
navels of just 60 people. In that study, 1,458 might have
been entirely new to the scientific record. Aladdin could have showed Jasmine a
"whole new world" just by looking toward their stomachs.
8. You can't
see as many colors as a chicken. You'll
also never see all the beautiful colors of a rainbow.
Everyday you are
missing out on aspects of the universe simply because our bodies cannot process
their wonders. How can we be supreme rulers of the world and have full domain
over all other living beings when chickens can see more colors than we can? We
need to rethink our place. Also rainbows are actually made up of more than 1 million colors, many of
which we can't see either. We are missing out!
9. We
haven't figured out the secret to immortality, but this jellyfish has.
The Turritopsis nutricula can live
forever by reverting back to its early stage of life after becoming sexually
mature. Although immortality may not be a real possibility for humans just yet, it is good to know that the basic
idea isn't just science fiction.
10.
Americans spend 38 hours a year stuck in traffic.
Almost an entire work week of just
being stuck! Washingtonians have it worst with an average of 67 hours a year,
which is time they probably wish they could have back.
1. Google's founders were willing to sell to
Excite for under $1 million in 1999—but Excite turned them down.
*
2. There was a third Apple founder. Ronald
Wayne (pictured at home in 2010) sold his 10% stake for $800 in 1976.
*
3. The famous Aaron Burr “Got Milk?” ad from
1993 was directed by Michael Bay.
*
4. According to Amazon, the most highlighted
Kindle books are the Bible, the Steve Jobs biography, and The Hunger Games.
*
5. A California woman once tried to sue the
makers of Cap'n Crunch because Crunch Berries
contained "no berries of any kind."
*
6. Wilford Brimley was Howard Hughes's
bodyguard.
*
7. During WWI, German measles were called
"liberty measles" and dachshunds became "liberty hounds."
*
8. In a 2008 survey, 58% of British teens
thought Sherlock Holmes was a real guy, while 20% thought Winston Churchill was
not.
*
9. At one point in the 1990s, 50% of all CDs
produced worldwide were for AOL.
*
10. Toy companies failed to duplicate the
success of Theodore Roosevelt's teddy bear with William Taft's "Billy
Possum."
*
11. Nutella was invented during WWII, when an
Italian pastry maker mixed hazelnuts into chocolate to extend his chocolate
ration.
*
12. In response to The Lorax, the forest
products industry published Truax to
teach kids the importance of logging.
*
13. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima for
work when the first A-bomb hit, made it home to Nagasaki for the second, and
lived to be 93.
*
14. A British man changed his name to Tim Pppppppppprice to make it harder for telemarketers to
pronounce.
*
15. J.P. Morgan once offered $100,000 to
anyone who could figure out why his face was so red. No one solved the mystery.
*
16. Prairie dogs say hello with kisses.
*
17. In the mid-1960s, Slumber Party Barbie
came with a book called "How to Lose Weight." One of the tips was
"Don’t eat."
*
18. A 2009 search for the Loch Ness Monster
came up empty. Scientists did find over 100,000 golf balls.
*
19. After OutKast
sang “Shake it like a Polaroid picture,” Polaroid released a statement that
said, “Shaking or waving can actually damage the image.”
*
20. New Mexico State's first graduating class
in 1893 had only one student—and he was shot and killed before graduation.
*
21. In the mid-1980s, Fergie of The Black
Eyed Peas was the voice of Charlie Brown's sister Sally.
*
22. Jonas Salk declined to patent his polio
vaccine. "There is no patent," he said. "Could you patent the
sun?"
*
23. Only one McDonald’s in the world has
turquoise arches. Sedona, AZ thought yellow clashed with the natural red rock.
*
24. The 50-star American flag was designed by
an Ohio high school student for a class project. His teacher originally gave
him a B–.
*
25. According to the National Insurance Crime
Bureau, the most commonly stolen vehicle in 2012 was the 1994 Honda Accord.
*
26. After leaving office, Lyndon Johnson let
his hair grow out.
*
27. Crabs have their own version of the fist
pump. Male crabs wave their claws in the air to attract females.
*
28. Calvin Klein's Obsession for Men is used
by researchers to attract animals to cameras in the wilderness.
*
29. Sean Connery turned down the Gandalf role
in Lord of the Rings. "I read the book. I read the script. I saw the
movie. I still don't understand it."
*
30. E.B. White of Charlotte's Web fame is
the "White" of Strunk and White, who wrote The Elements of Style.
*
31. Chock Full o' Nuts coffee does not
contain nuts. It's named for a chain of nut stores that the founder converted
into coffee shops.
*
32. 12+1 = 11+2, and "twelve plus
one" is an anagram of "eleven plus two."
*
33. San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh
played Screech's cousin on a 1996 episode ofSaved by the Bell: The New Class.
*
34. At the height of Rin Tin Tin's fame, a
chef prepared him a daily steak lunch. Classical musicians played to aid his
digestion.
*
35. The Arkansas School for the Deaf's nickname is the Leopards. The Deaf Leopards.
*
36. If your dog's feet smell like corn chips,
you're not alone. The term "Frito Feet" was coined to describe the
scent.
*
37. A sex pheromone found in male mouse urine
was named "darcin," for Jane Austen's Mr.
Darcy.
*
38. Barry Manilow did not write his hit
"I Write the Songs."
*
39. He did, however, write State Farm's
"Like a Good Neighbor" jingle.
*
40. And "I am stuck on Band-Aids, 'cause
Band-Aid's stuck on me."
*
41. Winston Churchill's mother was born in
Brooklyn.
*
42. Officials in Portland, Ore., drained 8
million gallons of water from a reservoir in 2011 because a buzzed
21-year-old peed in it.
*
43. There's a basketball court above the
Supreme Court. It's known as the Highest Court in the Land.
*
44. If you start counting at one and spell
out the numbers as you go, you won't use the letter "A" until you
reach 1,000.
*
45. On a 1999 episode of The West Wing, Nick
Offerman ("Ron Swanson") played a man lobbying the White House to
build a $900 million wolves-only roadway.
*
46. The medical term for ice cream headaches
is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.
*
47. After Leonardo da Vinci's death, King
Francis I of France hung the Mona Lisa in his
bathroom.
*
48. Redondo Beach, CA adopted the Goodyear
Blimp as the city's official bird in 1983.
*
49. In 2001, Beaver College changed its name
to Arcadia in part because anti-porn filters blocked access to the school's
website.
*
50. Peeps Lip Balm is something that exists.
*
51. Quentin Tarantino played an Elvis
impersonator on The Golden Girls.
*
52. Wendy's founder Dave Thomas dropped out
of high school but picked up his GED in 1993. His GED class voted him Most
Likely to Succeed.
*
53. Sleeping through winter is hibernation,
while sleeping through summer is estivation.
*
54. In Spain, Mr. Clean is known as Don Limpio.
*
55. In Qaddafi's compound, Libyan rebels
found a photo album filled with pictures of Condoleezza Rice.
*
56. Reed Hastings was inspired to start
Netflix after racking up a $40 late fee on a VHS copy ofApollo 13.
*
57. Marie Curie's notebooks are still
radioactive. Researchers hoping to view them must sign a disclaimer.
*
58. Hunger Games author
Suzanne Collins also wrote for Clarissa Explains It All.
*
59. When three-letter airport codes became
standard, airports that had been using two letters simply added an X.
*
60. Just before the Nazis invaded Paris, H.A.
and Margret Rey fled on bicycles. They were carrying the manuscript for Curious George.
*
61. William McKinley was on the $500 bill,
Grover Cleveland was on the $1,000, and James Madison was on the $5,000.
*
62. In 1999, the U.S. government paid the
Zapruder family $16 million for the film of JFK's assassination.
*
63. How many licks does it take to get to the
center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know. But on average, a Licking
Machine made at Purdue needed 364.
*
64. Janis Joplin left $2,500 in her will for
her friends to "have a ball after I’m gone."
*
65. Fredric Baur invented the Pringles can.
When he passed away in 2008, his ashes were buried in one.
Mind-Blowing Facts About Time
Cleopatra lived closer to the
building of Pizza Hut than the pyramids.
The Great Pyramid was built cerca 2560 BC,
while Cleopatra lived around 30 BC. The first Pizza Hut opened in 1958, which
is about 500 years closer.
Every two minutes, we take as many
photos as all of humanity took during the 1800s. On the left is the first photograph ever
taken (1826), View from the Window at Le Gras by French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. On the right is
a cat who accidentally took a picture of itself (2013). It’s estimated that in
2014, humans will take 880 billion photos (not including cats). In fact, 10% of
all the photos ever taken were taken in the past 12
months.blog.1000memories.com
Oxford University is older than the
Aztecs. Teaching started in Oxford as
early as 1096, and by 1249, the University was officially founded. The Aztec
civilization as we know it began with the founding of Tenochtitlán in
1325.smithsonianmag.com
Will Smith is now older than Uncle
Phil was at the beginning of "The Fresh Prince." When James Avery (Uncle Phil) started on The
Fresh Prince, he was 45-years-old. Today, Will Smith is a slightly older 45.
In the span of 66 years, we went
from taking flight to landing on the moon.
In 1903 the Wright brothers successfully flew a plane for a whopping 59
seconds. 38 years later, in 1941, the Japanese used flight to bomb Pearl
Harbor. Only 28 years after that, Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969.
There is more processing power in a
TI-83 calculator than in the computer that landed Apollo 11 on the moon. The guidance computer from the Apollo 11
mission ran at 1.024 MHz, about 1/6th of the processing power of a TI-83
calculator. One is used by students to play Tetris, the other took humans to
the moon.
The oldest living person's birth is
closer to the signing of the Constitution than present day.Misao
Okawa was born in 1898, an astonishing 116 years ago. The Constitution was
signed in 1787, which makes her life 4 years closer to the historic
Philadelphia convention than to today.youtube.com
John Tyler, America's 10th
President, has two living grandchildren.
John Tyler served from 1841 to 1845, a full 20 years before Abraham
Lincoln. He had a son, Lyon, at age 63. Lyon would have Lyon Jr. and Harrison at
71 and 75, respectively. Both are still alive today and in their 80's.
John Tyler was America's 10th
President, serving from 1841 to 1845, but somehow two of his grandsons are
still alive. Mental Floss first reported on this fact in 2012, but since then
Snopes has verified their identities, while New York Magazine even interviewed
one of the grandsons. As of last year, both Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. and
Harrison Tyler were still only in their 80s.
The first pyramids were built while
the woolly mammoth was still alive.
While most mammoths died out long before civilizations arose, a small populations survived until 1650 BC. By that point,
Egypt was halfway through its empire, and the Giza Pyramids were already 1000
years old.
The fax machine was invented the
same year people were traveling the Oregon Trail. The first fax machine was developed by
Alexander Bain in 1843, meanwhile The Great Migration began across America.
France was still executing people by
guillotine when Star Wars came out. Star
Wars premiered in theaters in May 1977. The last execution by guillotine took
place September 10th of the same year.
Betty White is older than sliced
bread. Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented sliced bread in 1928, while Betty White
was born in 1922. Bread had existed prior, just not in the pre-sliced
form. Sliced bread was introduced in
1928 by inventor Otto Frederick Rohwedder. Before
this moment, bread was sold in whole loaves as bakers didn't trust sliced bread
could stay fresh. Betty White was born in 1922 and spent her early years not
eating sliced bread. But White recently celebrated her 92nd birthday, which
means she's been able to experience the first "greatest invention"
much longer than most of us.
Everything in this 1991 RadioShack
ad exists in a single smartphone. Gordon
Moore, co-founder of Intel, stated that over the history of computing, the
number of transistors on circuits doubles approximately every two years.
Moore’s Law has held true for over 40 years and successfully predicted our
incredible advancement in mobile technology.mooreslaw.org
When Warner Brothers formed, and the
last time the Cubs won the World Series, the Ottoman Empire was still
alive. Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack
Warner opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania in
1903. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire spanned from 1299 to 1923, when Turkey
became an independent nation. The
Chicago Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908. This was back when there
were still teams such as the Brooklyn Superbas and
the Boston Doves. The Ottoman Empire, which was founded in the 13th century,
also existed back then.Mehmed VI was the last sultan
of the empire and his reign ended in 1922 when the sultanate was abolished and the Turkish government took governing control
over the new republic -- 14 years after the Cubs last won the World Series.
Harvard University was founded
before calculus was derived. Harvard is
the oldest higher education institution in the US, founded in 1636. Calculus wasn't derived until later in the
17th century, with the work of Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton. Established in 1636, Harvard is the oldest
institution of higher education in the U.S. The "New College," as it
was originally called, had no calculus classes because it didn't exist yet. The
invention of calculus would come in the late 17th century with Gottfried
Leibniz's 1684 publication of "Nova Methodus,"
and in part with Isaac Newton's "Principia" in 1687, followed by
additional explanations and reformulations by subsequent mathematicians. Also,
European physicist, mathematician and astronomer Galileo was still alive during
Harvard's early years -- he died in 1642.
The last time the Chicago Cubs won a
World Series, women were not allowed to vote.
The infamous cold streak by the Chicago Cubs baseball team extends back
to 1908, when they won their second World Series. Women in the US acquired the
vote in 1920.
Humans never fully experience the
"present" - we're always living in the past. Every human being is living at least 80
milliseconds in the past. David Eagleman believes that our consciousness lags
behind actual events and that when you think an event occurs, it has already
happened before your brain has a chance to create a cohesive picture of the
world.scientificamerican.com
There was more time between the
Stegosaurus and the Tyrannosaurus Rex than between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and
you. The Stegosaurus lived ~150 million
years ago, while the T-Rex lived only ~65 million years ago. Practically
yesterday.
If you’re over 45, the world
population has doubled in your lifetime.
In 1968, the world population was 3,557,000,000. Today, the world population
is 7,217,000,000 and grows by over 200,000 daily.worldpopulationstatistics.com
There are whales alive today who
were born before Moby Dick was written.
Some of the bowhead whales living off the coast of Alaska are well over
200 years old. They were born well before Moby Dick was written in
1851.smithsonianmag.com
If the history of Earth were
compressed to a single year, modern humans would appear on December 31st at
about 11:58pm. The human race has lived
on Earth for only 0.004% of the planet's history.
The Pyramids of Giza were built in
the time of wooly mammoths. From what we
can tell, the last of the wooly mammoth died out around 1700 B.C. on Russia’s
Wrangel Island. In Egypt, the Pyramids of Giza were built around4,000 years
ago, although there have been claims that they're even older. This also means
that Cleopatra's time on Earth is actually closer to us in history than to the
construction of the pyramids.
The fax machine was invented the
same year as the Oregon trail migration.
The first fax machine was invented in 1843 by a Scottish mechanic namedAlexander Bain. This early model used a combination of
synchronized pendulums, electric probes and electrochemically sensitive paper
to scan documents, and then send the information over a series of wires to be
reproduced. The "Great Migration" on the Oregon trail began the same
year, when a wagon train of about 1,000 migrants attempted to travel west, but
probably died of dysentery along the way.
The jewelry store Tiffany & Co.
was founded before Italy was a country.
While Rome was officially a holdout for a number of years after, in 1861
General Giuseppe Garibaldi led a successful campaign to gather the various
city-states and bring them under one nation. Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B.
Young founded Tiffany & Young in 1837 and then became Tiffany & Co. in
1853. This means Audrey Hepburn could have gotten "breakfast at
Tiffany's" before she could have had her Italian "Roman Holiday. Similarly, Macy's was founded in 1858, also
before Italy became the nation we know it as today.
France was still using the
guillotine when "Star Wars" came out.
The last time the guillotine was used as a form of execution in France
was in 1977. The guillotine lasted for about two centuries. The first "Star
Wars" film was also released in 1977 a few months before the
execution. Another mind-blow French
historical fact: The Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889, which is the same year
Nintendo was founded and that Van Gogh painted"The
Starry Night."
The continents look entirely
different than you think they do. The
map you're used to is more Western-focused and stretches out the size of
continents near the poles. Africa and South America are actually way bigger. Here's
a more accurate representation of the world, according to the The Gall-Peters Projection map, created in 1885.
There are castles and even
lighthouses that are less expensive than NYC apartments. With New York City rent rising over an
average $3,000 a month even in Brooklyn this year, it's becoming more and more
appealing to perhaps move somewhere else. If you're one of the lucky ones who
has a bit of money to burn, might as well spend it on a real-life castle or
lighthouse, right?
The United States hasn't even made
it into the Top 50 list of longest-lasting empires. The United States has only been around for a
blip in history. Institutions like Bank of America aren't even 100 years old.
This doesn't necessarily discount their trustworthiness, but just make sure to
remember that not all pillars of authority are eternal.
10 percent of the entire world
population is still illiterate.
Unfortunately certain countries are also skewing the data upwards on
this statistic. Nations such as Afghanistan only have a 28 percent literacy
rate for the total population.
You thoroughly enjoy celebrating
some pretty dark holidays. Labor Day was
created as a bandaid to coverup multiple massacres of
American workers. Columbus Day is named after a brutal tyrant whose history is
largely a fraud. Thanksgiving is a sham celebration of Pilgrims and Native
Americans coming together. Really, just don't celebrate anything.
A whole ecosystem lives in your
belly button. Scientists found 2,368
different species of bacteria living in belly buttons after swabbing the navels
of just 60 people. In that study, 1,458 might have been entirely new to the scientific
record. Aladdin could have showed Jasmine a "whole new world" just by
looking toward their stomachs.
You can't see as many colors as a
chicken. You'll also never see all the beautiful colors of a rainbow. Everyday you are
missing out on aspects of the universe simply because our bodies cannot process
their wonders. How can we be supreme rulers of the world and have full domain
over all other living beings when chickens can see more colors than we can? We
need to rethink our place. Also rainbows are actually made up of more than 1 million
colors, many of which we can't see either. We are missing out!
We haven't figured out the secret to
immortality, but this jellyfish has. The
Turritopsis nutricula can
live forever by reverting back to its early stage of life after becoming
sexually mature. Although immortality may not be a real possibility for humans
just yet, it is good to know that the basic idea isn't just science fiction.
Americans spend 38 hours a year
stuck in traffic. Almost an entire work
week of just being stuck! Washingtonians have it worst with an average of 67
hours a year, which is time they probably wish they could have back.
Google's founders were willing to
sell to Excite for under $1 million in 1999—but Excite turned them down.
There was a third Apple founder. Ronald
Wayne (pictured at home in 2010) sold his 10% stake for $800 in 1976.
The famous Aaron Burr “Got Milk?” ad
from 1993 was directed by Michael Bay.
According to Amazon, the most
highlighted Kindle books are the Bible, the Steve Jobs biography, and The
Hunger Games.
A California woman once tried to sue
the makers of Cap'n Crunch because Crunch Berries
contained "no berries of any kind."
Wilford Brimley was Howard Hughes's
bodyguard.
During WWI, German measles were
called "liberty measles" and dachshunds became "liberty
hounds."
In a 2008 survey, 58% of British
teens thought Sherlock Holmes was a real guy, while 20% thought Winston
Churchill was not.
At one point in the 1990s, 50% of
all CDs produced worldwide were for AOL.
Toy companies failed to duplicate
the success of Theodore Roosevelt's teddy bear with William Taft's "Billy
Possum."
Nutella was invented during WWII,
when an Italian pastry maker mixed hazelnuts into chocolate to extend his
chocolate ration.
In response to The Lorax, the forest
products industry published Truax to teach kids the importance of logging.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima
for work when the first A-bomb hit, made it home to Nagasaki for the second,
and lived to be 93.
A British man changed his name to
Tim Pppppppppprice to make it harder for
telemarketers to pronounce.
J.P. Morgan once offered $100,000 to
anyone who could figure out why his face was so red. No one solved the mystery.
Prairie dogs say hello with kisses.
In the mid-1960s, Slumber Party
Barbie came with a book called "How to Lose Weight." One of the tips
was "Don’t eat."
A 2009 search for the Loch Ness
Monster came up empty. Scientists did find over 100,000 golf balls.
After OutKast
sang “Shake it like a Polaroid picture,” Polaroid released a statement that
said, “Shaking or waving can actually damage the image.”
New Mexico State's first graduating
class in 1893 had only one student—and he was shot and killed before
graduation.
In the mid-1980s, Fergie of The Black
Eyed Peas was the voice of Charlie Brown's sister Sally.
Jonas Salk declined to patent his
polio vaccine. "There is no patent," he said. "Could you patent
the sun?"
Only one McDonald’s in the world has
turquoise arches. Sedona, AZ thought yellow clashed with the natural red rock.
The 50-star American flag was
designed by an Ohio high school student for a class project. His teacher
originally gave him a B–.
According to the National Insurance
Crime Bureau, the most commonly stolen vehicle in 2012 was the 1994 Honda
Accord.
After leaving office, Lyndon Johnson
let his hair grow out.
Crabs have their own version of the
fist pump. Male crabs wave their claws in the air to attract females.
Calvin Klein's Obsession for Men is
used by researchers to attract animals to cameras in the wilderness.
Sean Connery turned down the Gandalf
role in Lord of the Rings. "I read the book. I read the script. I saw the
movie. I still don't understand it."
E.B. White of Charlotte's Web fame
is the "White" of Strunk and White, who wrote The Elements of Style.
Chock Full o' Nuts coffee does not
contain nuts. It's named for a chain of nut stores that the founder converted
into coffee shops.
12+1 = 11+2, and "twelve plus
one" is an anagram of "eleven plus two."
San Francisco 49ers coach Jim
Harbaugh played Screech's cousin on a 1996 episode ofSaved
by the Bell: The New Class.
At the height of Rin Tin Tin's fame,
a chef prepared him a daily steak lunch. Classical musicians played to aid his
digestion.
The Arkansas School for the Deaf's nickname is the Leopards. The Deaf Leopards.
If your dog's feet smell like corn
chips, you're not alone. The term "Frito Feet" was coined to describe
the scent.
A sex pheromone found in male mouse
urine was named "darcin," for Jane Austen's
Mr. Darcy.
Barry Manilow did not write his hit
"I Write the Songs."
He did, however, write State Farm's
"Like a Good Neighbor" jingle.
And "I am stuck on Band-Aids,
'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me."
Winston Churchill's mother was born
in Brooklyn.
Officials in Portland, Ore., drained
8 million gallons of water from a reservoir in 2011 because a buzzed
21-year-old peed in it.
There's a basketball court above the
Supreme Court. It's known as the Highest Court in the Land.
If you start counting at one and
spell out the numbers as you go, you won't use the letter "A" until
you reach 1,000.
On a 1999 episode of The West Wing,
Nick Offerman ("Ron Swanson") played a man lobbying the White House
to build a $900 million wolves-only roadway.
The medical term for ice cream
headaches is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.
After Leonardo da Vinci's death,
King Francis I of France hung the Mona Lisa in his bathroom.
Redondo Beach, CA adopted the
Goodyear Blimp as the city's official bird in 1983.
In 2001, Beaver College changed its
name to Arcadia in part because anti-porn filters blocked access to the
school's website.
Peeps Lip Balm is something that
exists.
Quentin Tarantino played an Elvis impersonator
on The Golden Girls.
Wendy's founder Dave Thomas dropped
out of high school but picked up his GED in 1993. His GED class voted him Most
Likely to Succeed.
Sleeping through winter is
hibernation, while sleeping through summer is estivation.
In Spain, Mr. Clean is known as Don Limpio.
In Qaddafi's compound, Libyan rebels
found a photo album filled with pictures of Condoleezza Rice.
Reed Hastings was inspired to start
Netflix after racking up a $40 late fee on a VHS copy ofApollo
13.
Marie Curie's notebooks are still
radioactive. Researchers hoping to view them must sign a disclaimer.
Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins
also wrote for Clarissa Explains It All.
When three-letter airport codes
became standard, airports that had been using two letters simply added an X.
Just before the Nazis invaded Paris,
H.A. and Margret Rey fled on bicycles. They were carrying the manuscript for
Curious George.
William McKinley was on the $500
bill, Grover Cleveland was on the $1,000, and James Madison was on the $5,000.
In 1999, the U.S. government paid
the Zapruder family $16 million for the film of JFK's assassination.
How many licks does it take to get
to the center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know. But on average, a Licking
Machine made at Purdue needed 364.
Janis Joplin left $2,500 in her will
for her friends to "have a ball after I’m gone."
Fredric Baur invented the Pringles
can. When he passed away in 2008, his ashes were buried in one.