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France was still executing people by guillotine when Star Wars came out.
Star Wars premiered in theaters in May 1977. The last execution by guillotine took place September 10th of the same year.
Every two minutes, we take as many photos as all of humanity took during the 1800s.
On the left is the first photograph ever taken (1826), View from the Window at Le Gras by French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. On the right is a cat who accidentally took a picture of itself (2013). It’s estimated that in 2014, humans will take 880 billion photos (not including cats). In fact, 10% of all the photos ever taken were taken in the past 12 months.
Oxford University is older than the Aztecs.
Teaching started in Oxford as early as 1096, and by 1249, the University was officially founded. The Aztec civilization as we know it began with the founding of Tenochtitlán in 1325.
Will Smith is now older than Uncle Phil was at the beginning of "The Fresh Prince."
When James Avery (Uncle Phil) started on The Fresh Prince, he was 45-years-old. Today, Will Smith is a slightly older 45.
In the span of 66 years, we went from taking flight to landing on the moon.
In 1903 the Wright brothers successfully flew a plane for a whopping 59 seconds. 38 years later, in 1941, the Japanese used flight to bomb Pearl Harbor. Only 28 years after that, Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969.
There is more processing power in a TI-83 calculator than in the computer that landed Apollo 11 on the moon.
The guidance computer from the Apollo 11 mission ran at 1.024 MHz, about 1/6th of the processing power of a TI-83 calculator. One is used by students to play Tetris, the other took humans to the moon.
The oldest living person's birth is closer to the signing of the Constitution than present day.
Misao Okawa was born in 1898, an astonishing 116 years ago. The Constitution was signed in 1787, which makes her life 4 years closer to the historic Philadelphia convention than to today.
John Tyler, America's 10th President, has two living grandchildren.
John Tyler served from 1841 to 1845, a full 20 years before Abraham Lincoln. He had a son, Lyon, at age 63. Lyon would have Lyon Jr. and Harrison at 71 and 75, respectively. Both are still alive today and in their 80's.
The first pyramids were built while the woolly mammoth was still alive.
While most mammoths died out long before civilizations arose, a small populations survived until 1650 BC. By that point, Egypt was halfway through its empire, and the Giza Pyramids were already 1000 years old.
The fax machine was invented the same year people were traveling the Oregon Trail.
The first fax machine was developed by Alexander Bain in 1843, meanwhile The Great Migration began across America.
Betty White is older than sliced bread.
Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented sliced bread in 1928, while Betty White was born in 1922. Bread had existed prior, just not in the pre-sliced form.
This is what the difference in Olympic Gold looks like across 56 years of women’s vault.
On the left, Larisa Latinya wins gold for the USSR in 1956. On the right, McKayla Maroney wins gold for the US in 2012.
Everything in this 1991 RadioShack ad exists in a single smartphone.
Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, stated that over the history of computing, the number of transistors on circuits doubles approximately every two years. Moore’s Law has held true for over 40 years and successfully predicted our incredible advancement in mobile technology.
When Warner Brothers formed, the Ottoman Empire was still alive.
Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania in 1903. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire spanned from 1299 to 1923, when Turkey became an independent nation.
Harvard University was founded before calculus was derived.
Harvard is the oldest higher education institution in the US, founded in 1636. Calculus wasn't derived until later in the 17th century, with the work of Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton.
The last time the Chicago Cubs won a World Series, women were not allowed to vote.
The infamous cold streak by the Chicago Cubs baseball team extends back to 1908, when they won their second World Series. Women in the US acquired the vote in 1920.
Humans never fully experience the "present" - we're always living in the past.
Every human being is living at least 80 milliseconds in the past. David Eagleman believes that our consciousness lags behind actual events and that when you think an event occurs, it has already happened before your brain has a chance to create a cohesive picture of the world.
There was more time between the Stegosaurus and the Tyrannosaurus Rex than between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and you.
The Stegosaurus lived ~150 million years ago, while the T-Rex lived only ~65 million years ago. Practically yesterday.
If you’re over 45, the world population has doubled in your lifetime.
In 1968, the world population was 3,557,000,000. Today, the world population is 7,217,000,000 and grows by over 200,000 daily.
There are whales alive today who were born before Moby Dick was written.
Some of the bowhead whales living off the coast of Alaska are well over 200 years old. They were born well before Moby Dick was written in 1851.
If the history of Earth were compressed to a single year, modern humans would appear on December 31st at about 11:58pm.
The human race has lived on Earth for only 0.004% of the planet's history.
If that’s not enough, this is what’s happening in the world at this very moment.
This brilliant comic by artist XKCD is called Frequency. It’s one thing to talk about time...it’s another thing to feel it.
Our obsessive fascination with time is unique to the human race. Although we've tried to measure it, track it, and define it since the dawn of civilization, facts like these show us how inaccurate our perceptions can be and how much we have yet to learn about the fourth dimension. Share this post with others and enlighten them about time!
idrinkcheapbeer
Hey dipshit, McKayla Maroney didn't win a gold medal in the vault in 2012.
HanJan117
But that vault helped her win the team gold medal, so it's still a gold medal vault
idrinkcheapbeer
No, no it's not.
SwiftyMC
What is going on in Phoenix. People are buying shoes then getting laid
havoc9000
Well where else are we supposed to put it?
ijustneedthistosavethings
But no one really buys to kill a mockingbird apparently.
dreadpiratekhan
Little-known fact: it's the only place on Earth where the pickup line "Nice shoes. Wanna fuck?" works.
ElectricMonkey
Steve Irwin with the turtle that belonged to Charles Darwin http://imgur.com/WEb0VJQ
LyndiaCooey71
I like this list, but processor power is not measured in Hz. A 3.2GHz Haswell is orders of magnitude faster than a 3.2GHz Northwood.
OldSpice
TIL no one buys to kill a mockingbird
MandMEnterprises
It's because anyone who wants to read it already owns it or gets it from a friends or library.
aggressivecanadian
i stared at the little box that says "to kill a mocking bird" for about 5 minutes before realizing that it wasnt going to blink
TheGirafe
TIL I learned no one hits a hole in one.
exxs
I was about to post exactly this, but I remembered that the internet means you will never have an original idea. :(
KingMe343
The women's vault one makes us look freakin super human.
NASCARcauseracecar
Just imagine being in 1956 Olympics and then some girl with 2012 level skills shows up out of no where and does that vault.
jeep44
I was thinking that,too-how would they have scored it then?
PerkyPervertedPet
They would have made her to their supreme leader.
twerking2beyonce
imagine being in 2012 and some girl with 2068 level skills shows up!
Dolphinia
She wouldn't be able to do that vault with 1956 gym equipment.
NASCARcauseracecar
Not with that attitude
Graceeeeeee
I enjoyed this very much. thanks op!
Hauthaimsanwich
I second this! :)
BatteryLife
Hope this makes it to the front page!
flickerdart
It already has a couple of times.
AfterTheRainComesTheRainbow
Clickbait title. OP should work for online news sites.
linkskywalker14
One of my favorites: Julius Caesar's life was closer to present day, than it was to the building of the Pyramids.
secretonline
The "cubs last win was before women got to vote" is incorrect. Women got the vote in New Zealand on 19 September 1893.
PutThatDown
Ha ha ha, everyone knows the universe revolves around America!
OracleForCheap
Most of these are reposted together now and then. But the title. Really? No.
LockedKeye
#1 the Guillotine was actually a rather humane--if gruesome--way to execute people.
Zokathra
I'll be raising my glass every time that Phoenix guy gets laid
ohnoanotherputz
He just wants to see what he looks like in a mirror with a condom on.
Lexsteel11
Did anyone ever buy To Kill A Mockingbird?
Escueleto
False alarm, he's just jerking into a condom.
cupOjoe96
Still counts
8bitTunes
It's 4AM, I'm pretty sure it's a bad choice! don't do it!
Bitcerto
I used to live in Phoenix and both bought shoes and put on condoms. Glad I can contribute.
TheBeerDoctor
I live in Phoenix and really wish I was currently contributing to the condom statistic...
MrNotanNSAagent
You'll be Arnold Schwarzenegger by sun up
asterysk
TI-83+ still costs $100, the same price as it did fifteen years ago.
Incantanto
Believe me, those 14th century Oxford rooms are bloody freezing.
stillcleaning
Doesn't the Oxford and Harvard ones cancel each other out? Or was it just the US when considering Harvard? I'm too lazy to go back & check.
Incantanto
Yeah, Harvard is the oldest uni in the us, Oxford the oldest in the English speaking world.
PeskyGentlemen
People don't buy To Kill A Mockingbird enough
Muhfynmann
To be honest the only time I've ever seen the movie is inside the Xbox game, The Darkness. The whole movie plays on a TV in an apartment
bingotown
The comic probably refers to the book, anyway.
suesli
...You do know it's actually a book, right?
Muhfynmann
Yes. Guess I should've phrased it as my only exposure to it was through the film hidden in the game.
skyhook
Mark Hamill is currently older than Alec Guinness was during the filming of Star Wars ep4.
ANGRYBATMAN
http://imgur.com/qaSaig6
OneDayiWillDateAlisonBrie
nsfw:
Hybris51129
Hadn't seen this one before.
UsingaLongRelativelyEasyToReadUsernameForaHigherChanceOfUpVotes
$1600 for a computer with a 20mb hard drive.
jeep44
I paid that for an IBM-PC with a 20 meg HD in 1986
infogulch
The XKCD is much more impressive when viewed on the site than through a gif: https://xkcd.com/1331/
PutThatDown
Thank you!
OrthoLoess
It's also a gif on the site, but the version stolen for buzzfeed is cut to a few seconds.
MrBananaBeak
That clickbait title though.
krauraurgg
I clicked only because I thought the article had to be ironic. I thought people stopped posting shit like that in 2009 or so.
deGoodMan
What happened next will blow your mind!!
iSoulend
The complete repost for unreal internet points though. Even in the descriptions the date is wrong.
solomine
I enjoyed the post much more than the title made me think I would
IWasInThePool
Someone in Phoenix just put on a condom.
ThatGuyWhoDownvotesFrontPageEditsAndDickbuttAndRepostStatistics
"Artist XKCD?" The author's name is Randall Munroe, the COMIC is called XKCD.
JamEngulfer
But his username and IRC nick were xkcd. That's where it came from
AntonioStark
Whoisthis4chan.gif
YouGottaBeFresh
Could you explain it to me I don't understand the purpose??
MikaRRR
we know..
lousku
It's originally his nick.
OrthoLoess
He chose it as his online handle originally, looking for something that was couldn't be said at all, so that it couldn't be mispronounced 1/
OrthoLoess
"It's just a word with no phonetic pronunciation -- a treasured and carefully-guarded point in the space of four-character strings." 2/3
OrthoLoess
Source: http://xkcd.com/about/ 3/3
DorMin2
If you want to be really pedantic, the preferred capitalisation is xkcd.
clavdivscaesar
His username on the forum is XKCD, though. He probably used it elsewhere before that.
ThatGuyWhoDownvotesFrontPageEditsAndDickbuttAndRepostStatistics
He has stated that xkcd was his four-character ID at NASA.
hugglesthemerciless
That is so cool! I'm happy to have learned this
JamEngulfer
But he's also said that he derived 'XKCD' from the 4 letter unpronounceable string with the fewest search results
striporama
still waiting for someone to hit a hole-in-one
spiritof76
serious question. how do we know how old whales are?
dp487
Eye structure, for one. Some specimens have also been found to have harpoon tips embedded in them that were made in the 1800s.
spiritof76
"OOOOOOOoooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwww" - whale, 1847
IamNEMesis
You cut it open and count the rings, of course!
spiritof76
I told him I already got one!
jackbos
You have a fax here. It says you died of dysentery.
flyingpillowfilledwithseethinghatred
"here lies 'shitface' " my teacher wasnt happy when she saw that
ChameleonFacedGoon
I refuse to believe that one
vechs
That's what it says, right here: "Died of dysentery." We weren't even testing for that.
DefinitelyNotAnAssassinHidingInAHaybale
Beautifully executed.
ebock
not gonna lie, the one about never living in the "present" generated a pretty hard eye roll.
Zev610
It's just so slight you never notice it. Kind of like how satellites have to be adjusted for time dilation.
Zev610
Why? It's kind of true. There is a millisecond or so of input lag between the eye and the brain. So our present is really the past. 1/2
Someguy1hi
It's also a psychological theory that we dont live in the present. We constantly construct reality between experiences and expectations.
critternyc
There is no 15" woofer on your smartphone. Stop playing your crappy music through it while riding the subway alone.
Himser
Whoever actually made a Smartphone with AM would receive my dollars so fast. (and add CB and Radar scanner as well)
bananerbread
Pretty sure smart phones don't have cd players either.
IAMFROOPLAPA
This fucking annoying guy at my high school goes around the entire school with a portable soaker in his jacket pocket playing shitty rap.
agonarch
They're also only rarely x86 compatible (and those ones tend to be crap)
HailSatinGodOfFabric
Not are they in ear headphones.
ChocksAway
--despite what that same subway passenger might think, amirite?
Idownvoteifunnyand9gagrepoststoimgur
I wish it was legal for me to slap the phone out of the person's hand and stomp on it when this happens. Thank goodness for my headphones.
ircanuck
Or CB radios, radar detectors or scanners (radio).
sleepy63
you can listen to scanner traffic in many locations by visiting a website
TacticalPuke
That still takes a server, so yes, "You have all of this in one of today's smartphones and a webserver connected to a 15" subwoofer." #myass
CastrovalvanCelery
scanner apps and walkie-talkie
SargnargThaHardgeHag
But.. That's not the constitution...
AmazingBeans
I'm just waiting for MisleadInformation to throw something in.
AltCaledor
plot twist: op is MisleadInformation. dun dun duuuun =O
growlerfull
And Mckayla Maroney got silver in the Olympic vault.
PleaseStopUsingApostrophesToMakeThingsPlural
And, try as I might, I can't fit a CD into my smart phone.
jazzybear
And that's not a bowhead whale.
NoGodPleaseNoNoNoNooooooooooo
ThatRussian
I would also like to point out that it says Жmerica. So does your constitution, btw! I find that very curious.
hipbonejars
That's just a fancy A. Here the Constitution says Article I. http://haykin.net/innovationsparks/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/constitution2.gif
jazzybear
Also, that computer runs on an x86-16 instruction set and the majority of smartphones use ARM instruction sets.
nacko
Think functionality, less implementation details.
chbarts
You could install an emulator. What the phone can't do is detect police radar. That's the biggest problem with the picture I can see.
LokiKingOfJotunheim
Maybe you should build one
somenub755
Intel's chips are not ARM tho. Maybe there is a very specific Intel phone that has a huge screen and a CD player an all the other steps...?
somenub755
And all the other stuff*
TGWeaver
Everyone's praising this for being fresh and informative but it's a goddamn repost with a shitty clickbait title. Buzzfeed is leaking.
Rev0lver0celot
Imgur is pretty much just buzzfeed with ancient unfunny memes interspersed nowadays
TGWeaver
And more circlejerking.
SailorVSays
I think this was actually from Cracked originally.
dlozilgaii
Yeah the fucking title....come on
PuppiesStartedEveryWar
Imgur is just Last Week on Reddit (And Reddit is Last Week on 4chan)
WingsOnAHorse
Also, inaccurate as all these "Amazing facts!" compilations. As an engineer, while it might be true that modern calculator has more >
WingsOnAHorse
processing power than what took us to the moon, using MHz comparison is just silly. Processors are very complicated devices and one >
WingsOnAHorse
numeric value like that is pretty worthless. And implying that Bain's machine resembled late 1900s fax machines is... *sigh*
WingsOnAHorse
And then there are things like "Ottoman empire was still a thing in early 1900s"... Yeah, the first world war is still taught in schools.
eidolways
As a fellow engineer, thank you. Unfortunately, it means marketing is right: bigger numbers are all the buyers look for.