History is packed with overlooked events, bizarre coincidences, and forgotten turning points, and here are 10 fascinating historical facts that often get lost in popular memory.
Oxford predates the Aztec Empire
Teaching at Oxford (in some form) dates back to at least 1096, while Oxford University itself wasn’t founded until 1167. The Aztec Empire began its formation with the founding of Tenochtitlan in 1325. That means education at Oxford predates the Aztec Empire by over a century and a half.
Cleopatra lived closer to the Moon landing than the pyramids
Construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza was completed around 2560 BCE. Cleopatra VII ruled Egypt around 30 BCE. Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 CE. Cleopatra lived approximately 2,500 years after the Great Pyramid was finished but under 2,000 years before Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon.
The Tokyo firebombing was history’s most destructive air raid
Although remembered as the final chapter of World War II, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki pale in comparison to Operation Meetinghouse.
On March 9–10, 1945, the U.S. firebombing of Tokyo killed an estimated 100,000 people, making it the deadliest air raid in human history. In just a few hours, over 16 square miles of the city were flattened by firestorms. Over one million people lost their homes.
Harvard was founded before calculus was invented
Harvard College was founded by the Massachusetts General Court in 1636. Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz independently created infinitesimal calculus not until the mid-to-late 1660s and 1670s. Early students of Harvard University graduated without ever having taken a course in calculus because calculus had not been invented yet.
Mammoths survived while the pyramids were built
While most woolly mammoths became extinct at the end of the last Ice Age, a small population somehow managed to survive on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean, off the coast of Siberia, until about 1700 BCE. By then, the Pyramids of Giza were already hundreds of years old, and major ancient civilizations were thriving throughout Mesopotamia and Egypt.
The fax machine predated the telephone
In 1843, Scottish inventor Alexander Bain patented the “Chemical Printing Telegraph”, the earliest forerunner to the fax machine. Alexander Graham Bell didn’t patent the telephone until 1876. Transmitting images over wires actually came more than three decades before sending human speech.
Oregon was founded as a white-only state
When Oregon became a state in 1859, its constitution contained a provision saying that Black people could not enter the state, live in the state, or own property in the state. Oregon was admitted to the Union as the only state to have such an exclusion in its original state constitution. This ban persisted in state law for decades after passage of federal civil rights protections.
France used the guillotine during the Star Wars era
The final execution by guillotine in France occurred on September 10, 1977, when Hamida Djandoubi was killed by guillotine for the crime of murder.
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope had opened in theaters in May of 1977.
Nintendo started in 1889 making playing cards
Nintendo started out in Kyoto, Japan way back in 1889 as a playing card company. Founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi, Nintendo originally produced hand-painted Japanese playing cards called Hanafuda.
Before Nintendo started making electronic toys and video games late in the century, they ran several smaller businesses, like taxi companies and love hotels.
The AP exchanged photos with Nazi Germany
In secret exchanges brokered in Lisbon and Stockholm, places safe for both countries to meet, the Associated Press (USA) and Nazi Germany had a deal during World War II to trade press photographs.
Thousands of photographs crossed between hostile countries using diplomatic channels so newspapers in the United States could print photographs taken within Nazi Germany and the Nazi propaganda ministry could use AP photos as well.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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