Allow Me to Completely Alter Your Perception of History
The original fax machine was invented nearly twenty years before the American Civil War, and six years before Edgar Allen Poe died.
The telephone was invented before Edison’s lightbulb and phonograph.
The phonograph was invented before Edison’s lightbulb.
Beethoven was born only five years before the onset of the American Revolution.
Ten years after Beethoven’s death, electrical communication (via the telegraph) would be invented.
The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was the only successful slave revolt in all of human history.
The dinosaurs lasted over three times longer than humans live apart from them (dinosaurs evolved into existence about 240 million years ago. They went extinct only about 65 million years ago).
Christopher Columbus never actually landed on the present-day America mainland, he merely landed on islands far South of Florida.
The South American mainland was actually discovered on accident by Pedro Cabral in 1494.
The modern-day German region was one of the first nations to institute religious freedom (in 1648).
England created a government of the people about one hundred years before the American Revolution would seek to do so in North America.
Russia still technically had serfdom in 1917 (though Tsar Alexander II had attempted to abolish it in 1861…It was repealed by his son, Alexander III).
Some of the last surviving World War One veterans could have watched the first few recent “Iron Man” movies.
On that note, those who were children or young adults in the Victorian Era (when everyone wore top hats and the airplane was not even invented yet) would have been great grandparents during the 1950s and 60s (the age of classic rock and roll, classic automobiles, and nuclear weapons).
The first firearms were manufactured just under 150 years before the Medieval Ages would end.
(OPINION) Remember Joan of Arc, who led France to Victory during the Hundred Years’ War? Well, France was arguably the “bad” side in that conflict, and England was “good” (one main cause of the war was that France stated that the land promised to England could not pass through a female line, which is kind of sexist, in my opinion).
The wireless telegraph was invented 56 years before the first satellite was launched into outer space.
The lighter was invented three years before the match (the first modern lighter was invented in 1823, and the match was invented in 1826).
The water heater (invented in 1889) was invented about seventeen years before the water cooler was (invented in 1906).
The first successful airplane flight took place three years before the invention of the water cooler.
The first film (“Garden Scene”) was shot in 1888.
The first vapor-compression refrigerator was invented in 1834, literally seven years after Beethoven died.
Oxford and Cambridge Universities are older than the Aztec Empire. Oxford shall also turn 1,000 years old within the current century.
The automobile was invented when Ulysses S. Grant was still the American President and also before the telephone, Edison lightbulb, Edison phonograph, video film, and the airplane (the early combustion engine was first patented around 1872).
Although modern blood transfusions were not possible until just over one hundred years ago, when the first blood bank was established on a battlefield in Belgium during the Great War, the earliest recorded successful blood transfusion took place about two hundred years ago, in 1795.
The University of Harvard and the College of William and Mary were founded nearly 150 years before the American Revolution would even take place.
King George III actually did not care as much about keeping the colonies as did his chosen prime minister, William Pit the Younger, who was mentally insane and was boldly intent on keeping the colonies under control.
The Tea Tax that led to the Boston Tea Party actually lowered the price of tea (the thinking was, however, that after the East India company had run other markets out of business, they could ramp up the prices again, forming a monopoly).
The first airplane was invented only 66 years before Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon.
The first subway station (as in, underground train) opened in England in 1843. The purely-electric metro train quickly spread into major use shortly after its debut in 1897. By World War One, most major developed cities would have had at least one subway system.
When Mark Twain died, the telephone, lightbulb, water heater and cooler, wireless telegraph, automobile, refrigerator, electric heating and air conditioning, the metro system, and the airplane would have all been around for some time (the least of which had been present for seven years).
The first solar panel was invented in France in the early 1870s; that’s roughly seventy years before the invention of nuclear power.
Although many artists throughout the 1700s are associated with the Italian Renaissance, the Renaissance actually officially ended over one hundred and fifty years before then, in 1527.
The British Empire was arguably the largest empire that ever existed (though not the longest lasting). It is possibly rivaled by that created by Alexander the Great.
(Note: I like to consider myself well-versed in history, but I am still susceptable to mistakes. If you see anything that you feel is incorrect, please let me know in the comments, and I will look into it. Thanks!).