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Wanna feel your mind melt?
You are now living in a time that’s closer to the year 2060 than the year 1960. And you likely know people who were alive then. Maybe that’s even you.
Strange how time messes with our heads, and how we have a difficult go of it keeping things in perspective.
Here are just a few other mind-blowing tidbits from Reddit.
1. Carbonated beverages
The first carbonated drink to be sold to the public was invented by Swiss watchmaker and amateur scientist J. J. Schweppe in 1783, who sold his delicious “sparkling water” to thirsty customers in Geneva.
In just seven years, he was doing business so fast that he moved the factory to London and introduced a new flavor, sparkling lemon, to stand out from competitors who were trying to imitate his drink.
– DarkSyrupp
2. Touch screens
We think they’re one of the main defining features of modern technology since they only really got big in the late 2000s / early 2010s, but they were actually invented 55 years ago in 1965. It’s kind of crazy to think about, but while most of our grandparents were getting rid of their black and white TVs, researchers already had touchscreen devices in the labs.
It wasn’t really until the 80s that it really got good, but by 90s it was easily sophisticated technology. In fact, Microsoft even had a Windows XP tablet out by 2001 that had seriously good finger/stylus recognition, but it didn’t really pick up until smartphones became a thing a decade later.
You could also consider the magnetic drawing board to be a touch screen since it more or less has a stylus and surface for you to draw on, but that was actually invented later than the touch screen in 1974!
– Noisetorm_
3. The electric car
What is likely the first human-carrying electric vehicle with its own power source was tested along a Paris street in April 1881 by French inventor Gustave Trouvé. The first crude electric car was built in the 1830s but it was essentially a semi-functioning model.
The electric car was a direct competitor to gasoline powered vehicles until the 1920s when roads got better, people started driving further than the range of an electric car, and the world started finding major oil reserves.
– Buwaro
4. Brain Surgery
In 1997, archaeologists discovered an ancient tomb in the French village of Ensisheim from 5,000 BC, which contained the decomposing body of a 50-year-old man with holes in his skull.
After a thorough examination, it was determined that the holes, located near the frontal lobe, were caused by a type of surgery, not by forced trauma, and the operation appears to have been successful because the wounds healed before the patient’s death. To this day, however, researchers cannot say for sure what exactly the surgery was trying to fix.
– [deleted user]
5. Dinosaurs
I don’t know if this counts but Dinosaurs lived on the earth a lot longer than most people think.
When you think of dinosaurs, you think of their extinction but they roamed the earth for 165 million years.
Compare that to our 6 million and it’s almost mind boggling, at least imo.
– saymynamebastien
6. Concrete
Its use goes as far back as the Mayans, but more notably in Egyptian construction as well as in Rome.
The Romans had an arguably greater concrete mix than we currently have, but that was never passed down.
Eventually the use of concrete fell out of popularity for centuries as we seemingly lost the information needed to create it, as if the recipe was thrown out and nobody wrote it down.
– DanBeecherArt
7. The Stanley Cup
It predates the NHL, and if you look at the history of teams that have won it, there is a year where it wasn’t awarded due to the Spanish Flu pandemic.
The top of it is the original trophy, but the rings on the bottom are replaced every couple of years when they fill up with names.
– onzie9
8. The Theory of Quantum Mechanics
Some of the earliest discoveries in the field date back to the early 19th century, starting with Faraday’s discovery of Cathode Rays in 1838, Gustav Kirchhoff’s work on black body radiation in 1850, and Boltzmann’s theory of discrete energy states in 1877. The name itself was coined by Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, and Wolfgang Pauli in the early 1920s.
For comparison, the theory of plate tectonics was first put forward in 1912 and wasn’t widely accepted until 1965.
– ksheep
9. P**n
P**nography, as we know it today, predates sliced bread by at least fifty years.
The oldest surviving hardcore p**n film is (of course) a French film called L’Ecu d’Or ou la Bonne Auberge, and was released in 1908.
– TheLastIronMan
10. Ferns
The Fern (class Polypodiopsida) class of nonflowering vascular plants that possess true roots, stems, and complex leaves and that reproduce by spore constitute an ancient division of vascular plants, some of them as old as the Carboniferous Period (beginning about 358.9 million years ago) and perhaps older. Their type of life cycle, dependent upon spores for dispersal, long preceded the seed-plant life cycle.
For comparison, that puts them about 113 million years older than non-bird dinosaurs, which lived between about 245 and 66 million years ago.
– Master_of_Rivendell
11. Ancient People
A lot of times you hear people talk about the life expectancy of ancient people being around 35, so you picture a really young society when you think of the Romans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, or even hunter-gatherers. This isn’t really the case.
The average is 35 because infant mortality and early childhood death was so common. If you just take the life expectancy of people who reach adulthood (16), then the life expectancy is easily in the early 60s. There were plenty of 70 and even 80-year-olds 2000 years ago.
– GateNerd
12. The Earth
It is almost impossible to comprehend how much time goes by in 4.65 billion years, when a human lifespan is ~80 years.
Our brain can’t really understand that large a quantity of time.
– CaesarManson
13. The AUX connector
The Aux connector that we still use for headphones and speakers was invented in 1877.
There have been improvements since, but the basics of it are pretty much the same.
– given2fly_
14. Lighters
When you think about it, [the fact that the lighter is older than the match] makes sense.
The lighter is a simple mechanical concept: some flammable gas and a spark. The match, on the other hand, is a complex chemical reaction.
– 2RoadsDivergred
15. Sharks
I knew they were old, but d**n not that old!
I looked it up, and fossils are said to be around 450 million y/o.
My contribution to this thread was Ferns (359 million y/o), but sharks are another 100 mill before that.
Mind = blown.
– Master_of_Rivendell
Mind = blown, indeed.
Do you have any more fun facts like this?
Share them with us in the comments.
