26 Historical Facts That Ruined People’s Worldview

‘The top spire of Empire State Building was designed for docking blimps’
26 Historical Facts That Ruined People’s Worldview

We’ve all got a general sort of organization of the history of the world in our head. How accurate it is depends on your schooling and your propensity to doze off during class, but things stay in their neat little boxes. Which is why it’s so upsetting when you learn something that messes with your carefully manicured mental garden.

For example, it’s a common belief that Picasso is a great artist from centuries past. Except that he died in 1973. Suddenly, you’re questioning the structural integrity of your mind palace. 

If you want to further test the foundation of your worldview, read ahead for more facts that shattered the perspective of users on Reddit.

oohaaahz 2y ago Ancient Antarctica was actually a rainforest, a lush and verdant paradise, filled with flora and fauna. Despite the interesting fact that there was a whole continent of animals who lived on this planet that we'll never know about - as their remains are locked beneath miles of ice - it blew my mind that Antarctica only fully froze over about 35 million years ago, despite breaking from its supercontinent ~ 180 million years ago. That means Antarctica supported independent life for ~ 145 million years, which ruined any sense I have for time and perspective. We really are specks on this planet.
Kataphractoi . 2y ago More of a fun one, but lighters predate strike matches by a couple centuries. They originated from repurposed flintlock pistols that ignited tinder shoved in the barrel that were set aflame by the trigger mechanism.
FireEnchiladaDragon . 2y ago Old norse runes were found carved up like 20 feet in a cave- when they were translated, they just said this is very high God I love people aksjsj
ipakookapi . 2y ago Ruined in an interesting, not bad way: ancient Greek and Roman polychromy. The Parthenon temple looked a bit like Disneyland.
DudebroggieHouser . 2y ago That Napoleon wasn't cartoonishly short. All those cartoons were a lie...
chinchenping 2y ago There are graffiti that got preserved in Pompei and Herculanum. Because they didn't have paper, public announcement were directly painted on the walls. Some of those graffiti are on par with what you can find on the toilet's wall of trucker's stop. i fucked the barmaid, Felix fucks like a god, Take of your clothes and show us your hairy privates
2y ago Edited 2y ago Can't remember the exact quote but it went something like, If the entirety of human (Homo) history was condensed into a 500 page book, modern anatomical humans wouldn't show up until page 450, and homosapiens wouldn't build empires until page 490, the atomic bomb and the foundation of Rome would be on the final page and only a paragraph apart. And yet in all of this the vast amount of technological advancements from the discovery of the atom to the modern day would fit in the last few sentences, of the last paragraph of
bookon . 2y ago It says here in this history book that luckily, the good guys have won every single time. What are the odds? - Norm MacDonald
UnicornBrainsRPointy 2y ago Victorian era London was a terrible place to be alive as a member of the working class. If I recall correctly. You could pay a penny to sit indoors on a bench but no sleeping! Two Pennies and you could swing your arms over a rope and sleep standing up or if you made hella money that day you could pay 4 Pennies and sleep in a coffin. The water is undrinkable and children expected working hours were 12 to 18 a day starting at 4 yrs old. By those standards a lot of us would look
Plastik-Mann . 2y ago If you look at the history of mankind, you quickly see that nobody ever learned from our history.
blaze1911 . 2y ago The real reason chainsaws were invented. Fuck that.
HaggeHagglin . 2y ago Prehistoric, but still: Given that humans tend to concentrate along coastlines, and that sea levels have risen a bunch in the last 200 000 years, it is likely that our conception of human prehistory is fantastically distorted due to most of it being lost under the sea.
cheeseburghers . 2y ago Edited 2y ago When I learned that NASA had discovered over 100 billion GALAXIES and seeing the image to put into perspective that our entire solar system is only about the size of a coin compared to our galaxy which in relation would be the size of the United States.
two- . 2y ago That when the pyramids were being built, mammoths were walking the earth. Woolly mammoths lived there until 1700 BC. The Great Pyramid was completed around 2560 BC.
MoOsT1cK . 2y ago 95 percent of our species' history is lost forever.
Daohor . 2y ago That Oxford University is older than the Aztec empire.
Dark_Azazel . 2y ago Not really ruined, but have you read Ben Franklin's diaries and shit? Dude was a dirty horn dog.
HarryHacker42. 2y ago 95% of native people before Columbus died of diseases brought by explorers. That's 19 of 20 people, for two continents.
i_Sisyphus . 2y ago That the Middle East was once then center of knowledge and learning, particularly Bagdad. As well as the amazing extent and advanced civilizations in South and Central America prior to the 1500s.
pizzkat . 2y ago That we domesticated pigeons thousands of years ago and then decided we didn't want them anymore. People treat them like vermin after we relied on them for so much (food, messengers etc) The pigeons you see in your cities are not wild, they're abandoned.
Gifford_Roberts . 2y ago The top spire of Empire State Building was designed for docking blimps
llc4269 . 2y ago That Cleopatra is closer in time to us than the construction of the pyramids.
studyinthai333 . 2y ago . Edited 2y ago That up until the 1980s newborn babies used to get operated on without anaesthesia because it was believed they couldn't feel pain.
1337bobbarker 2y ago I'm from Texas, born and raised. I found out within the past few years that the Texas Revolution was mainly due to Mexico outlawing slavery and Texas... not wanting to do that. So everyone at the Alamo essentially died to preserve slavery. Yay.
FireFromThaumaturgy . 2y ago Edited 2y ago When I got older and realized the countless atrocities the United States has committed. Genocide, collusion, bombing our own cities. I used to feel a sense of safety knowing that | lived with the good guys and we stood for justice. That feeling is fleeting
Manu82134 2y ago There was a Spanish explorer that first visited the Inca empire and saw lots of prosperous cities and a great civilisation, and told his peers about it when he returned home. But when other folks went to visit the siad cities they found nothing but jungle and thought the explorer lied about his story. The fact that blew my mind is that nowadays we discovered that his story was true and the people he encounterd died from diseases brought into the new world and the cities and civilization they build were consumed by jungle in the spam

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