30 Interesting Historical Facts That Will Change Your View On The World We Live In
Technically, a samurai from Japan could have sent a fax to Abraham Lincoln.
History can feel distant until a few dates line up in a way that makes the past look surprisingly close. These 30 facts do exactly that, showing how quickly the world changed, and how recently some of the biggest shifts in human life actually happened.
From slavery and segregation to fax machines, moon landings, and modern civil rights, the timeline is shorter than most people expect. The result is a set of historical overlaps that make everyday life look a lot newer, and a lot more fragile, than it seems.
Here are 30 historical facts that may change how you see the world. Read on.
1. Quite an improvement. But a lot more work has to be done.
ShielaJonson2. Just 60 years ago... And the child needed police protection.
ncm423. It aged nicely...
pippers132
4. Same-sex marriages and the Confederacy...
GlobalTom
That timeline gets uncomfortable fast.
5. Yes, it is totally unacceptable. I thought it was just me...
vibeulator
6. Extreme injustice...
gothspiderbitch
7. Telegram and Twitter...
whitemtn27
8. Plausible and interesting...
noaheasterly
Some of these comparisons are almost hard to believe.
9. Yes, he would be more relaxed...
dick_genital
10. Queen Elizabeth and the USA
Gayer_Than_Thou
11. He was too old to enlist when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
daddykool
12. Legendary Betty White...
MatthewIgnatius
It keeps getting more recent than people expect.
That “good old days” vibe hits different in these vintage photos of grandparents who faced zero safety guarantees.
13. That's a long time...
Houckadoodledoo
14. Memory needs refreshing...
lizditz
15. Jimmy Carter - born in 1924
TiffRichElliott
16. Spain and the USA
RobertKistler7
17. The University of Oxford and the Inca Empire
ChadWaIters
That overlap is the whole point.
18. Ha! Awesome!
HelenKennedy
19. Back to the Future reboot...
jbrown_tc
20. What would they see?
J_B_Lane
21. It was quite a year...
opaleyedragon
22. Silent and digital...
Titi_Suru
23. The most recent change, from 49 stars to 50, occurred in 1960 when the present design was chosen, after Hawaii gained statehood in August 1959. Before that, the admission of Alaska in January 1959 prompted the debut of a short-lived 49-star flag.
Obama was born in 1961 in Hawaii.
teddipasketty
24. Segregation was outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
ReggieStein2
25. It was a long battle.
SusanOrr
And then the timeline gets even stranger.
26. Man, that wasn't such a long time ago...
UN_JWFOWLER
27. Woolly mammoths and the pyramids
DrMRFrancis
28. Generations in war
vexwerewolf
29. We are new, but we have still managed to cause such damage to our planet...
SadSonya4
30. Biplanes and supersonic
PaulMeisel
History feels a lot closer after that.
We somehow treat the past like it belongs to another planet, but many of these milestones happened within living memory.
That makes the present look very young indeed.
Want more “wait, that really happened?” moments, like these raw photos from the past?
