Time and progress, as we know it, work in mysterious ways. While most of us enjoy technological achievements in celluloid form à la “Barbenheimer,” one of the oldest indigenous tribes in the world, the Yanomami, are fighting for their survival in the Amazon.

But this is just a mere example of the different timelines that happen at the same time, yet in different parts of the world. As u/Cuish, who asked the AskReddit community “What other things oddly existed at the same time?”, noted, the last execution by guillotine in France occurred in 1977, the same year that George Lucas’ Star Wars forever altered the course of sci-fi movies. Scroll down below and explore these intriguing random facts for yourself.

#1

Nintendo was founded when Jack the Ripper was roaming the streets of London.

Image credits: SublimeVibe

#2

Sharks are older than trees and Saturn’s rings.

Image credits: jjc89

#3

The Qing Dynasty of China collapsed in 1912, the same year as the Titanic disaster.

Image credits: TailsxCream4Eva

#4

Oxford University celebrated its 200th graduating class by the time the Aztec Empire started in Central America.

Image credits: LambertonRegistry

#5

My favourite that I’ve seen:

When Harvard opened, they didn’t have calculus classes because *calculus hadn’t been invented yet.*

Image credits: DJBlok

#6

Prisoners began to arrive to Auschwitz a few days after McDonald’s was founded.

Image credits: delifte

#7

Dali designed the Chupa Chups lollipop logo.

Image credits: botulizard

#8

*Frozen* came out the same year Mississippi officially abolished slavery.

Image credits: ItsGotThatBang

#9

Musashi was wandering around Japan having duels when Michelangelo was painting the Sistine chapel

Image credits: Cream-of-Mushrooom

#10

There are definitely Japanese people alive right now who have interacted with actual samurai.

(Japan started modernizing and abolishing the samurai in the 1860s, so a samurai born in the 1840s that lived to be 100 would overlap with the lifespan of someone who is 80+ years old)

Image credits: sailormegtune

#11

Humans and Dodo birds coexisted up until the 1600s 

Image credits: Ledge_r

#12

Pablo Picasso died the same year Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” was released.

Image credits: PrescottEagle

#13

The last execution by guillotine occurred on September 10th, 1977.

The Atari 2600, the first successful home video game console, released the very next day. In a sense, the boundary separating the “era of guillotines” and the “era of video games” is less than 24 hours. It’s basically a fine line with no overlap.

Image credits: SleeplessShitposter

#14

William Shakespeare and Pocahontas were alive at the same time.

Image credits: Dabrigstar

#15

Something that oddly did NOT exist at the same time: Tyrannosaurus Rex is closer in time to humans than to a Stegosaurus.

Image credits: Ts4EVER

#16

2 empires, The Roman Empire and The Ottoman Empire, spanned the entire gap from Jesus to Babe Ruth.

Image credits: Choice_Hold2805

#17

I watched the first moon landing with a woman who’d been in Paris for Lindbergh’s first transcontinental flight landing.

Edit: wow this blew up! And my first award!! Trippy, thanks—and I owe it all to Mrs. B.

Image credits: zestyspleen

#18

Samurai, the fax machine, and Abraham Lincoln all existed at the same time

Image credits: An-Ugly-Croissant17

#19

I always found it strange that Victorian England and the Wild West happened at the same time.

Image credits: Latvian_Pete

#20

The last mammoths lived at the time the pyramids were under construction.

Image credits: Hopeful_Mecha_Angel

#21

Henry VIII lived long enough to be able to receive a labiaplasty.

#22

Cleopatra lives closer to us than when the pyramids were built

#23

The Jonestown Massacre and the airing of The Star Wars Holiday Special happened within the same 48 hours.

#24

Dmitri Shostakovich (major Russian composer who became huge in the 1920s) attended a performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar” in London, 1975. He actually loved it and watched it again the next day, claiming he wished he could’ve written something for a rock band.

#25

John Tyler was the 10th President of the United States, serving from 1841 to 1845. He still has one living grandson.

#26

King Mongkut of Siam (the King featured in Roger’s and Hammerstein’s the King and I) ruled at the same time President Lincoln entered office. Mongkut even offered the president a couple of elephants for the war effort. Technically, the letter was addressed to Buchanan, but he had left office by the time the letter arrived.

#27

COVID-19 and the last American Civil War pensioner

Irene Triplett was born in 1930 to an elderly Civil War veteran and his wife. Somehow she inherited his pension when her father died and she died in March of 2020.

#28

The Roman Empire could’ve ended in 1922 if you see the Ottomans as legitimate successors to the Eastern Roman Empire as they never officially got rid of the titles Vasileus and Kaysar i Rum

#29

Salvador Dali attended an Alice Cooper concert once

#30

Galileo Galilei could have taught at Harvard.

#31

Anne frank and Martin Luther King Jr. were born the same year.

#32

Christopher Lee saw the last public execution.

#33

Women in Switzerland got right to vote in 1971 when India was already having a woman prime minister !

#34

People walked on the moon before we put wheels on a suitcase

#35

Bro, South African Apartheid ended the year that Jurassic Park came out. We were eating popcorn drooling over dinosaur puppets, while they were still fighting to use the same toilet as white people. Pitiful it took so long. Of course, hindsight tells us Apartheid started and ended with $$$ in mind. It was economic disparity that finally pushed for the end of said segregation…As it goes with much of the civil rights successes throughout the 20th century ?

#36

The last assault on the Capitol happened the same year the last Spider-Man movie (No Way Home) was released in 2021.

#37

The Islamic caliphate existed during WW1

#38

How about a twist on an old favourite:

Mammoths still existed when Ea-Nasir was selling s****y copper

#39

If you were born before January 7, 1989, you existed at the same time as Emperor Hirohito.

#40

Harriet Tubman was alive at the same time as both Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan.

Image credits: notasleannotasmean

#41

The Titanic maiden voyage happened the same year as MDMA was created.

Image credits: BrianH-84

#42

In 1922, Betty White and the Ottoman Empire both existed.

Image credits: Glade_Runner

#43

Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barbara Walters [were born in 1929.](https://twitter.com/WhatTheFFacts/status/446672526572519425), Barbra Walter died in December 2022.

Image credits: NYSenseOfHumor

#44

The first episode of Doctor Who aired the day after Kennedy was assassinated.

Image credits: EightThreeEight838

#45

The last WW1 veteran lived long enough to see the release of Minecraft.

Image credits: planetary_facts

#46

Pablo Picasso died 2 years before the Vietnam war ended

Image credits: AdamMundorf

#47

Orville Wright of the Wright brothers lived long enough to see Chuck Yaeger break the sound barrier and travel on an airliner that had a wingspan equal to the distance he covered in his first flight (37m) 

Image credits: cruiserman_80

#48

The last surviving witness to the Lincoln assassination appeared on the TV game show *I’ve Got a Secret* several weeks before his death in 1954.

Image credits: the2belo

#49

The last lynching happened in Mobile, AL on 21 March **1981**.

In 1994 the following bands released albums:

– Notorious BIG
– Oasis
– Hootie and the Blowfish
– Usher
– Korn
– Outkast
– Beck
– Soundgarden
– Green Day
– Pearl Jam
– Nine Inch Nails
– The Lion King ( I **can** feel the love tonight)
– The Cranberries
– Bon Jovi
– Ace of Base
– Sheryl Crow

What a decade to be a music fan.

#50

The Marquis de Lafayette (from the American Revolutionary War and the Hamilton musical) lived long enough to have seen the first 3D motion picture. (Stereoscopy was invented a year before his death.)

#51

The fax machine was invented the same year that Victoria, British Columbia was established as a trading post.

Image credits: JustSomeApparition

#52

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Edison, John Philip Sousa, and Clint Eastwood were all alive at the same time.

#53

When the Civil War broke out in America, the modern bicycle had just been invented. (1860 for Michaux and Lallement’s ‘velocipede’ and 1861 for the attack on Ft. Sumter)

Also, Nintendo is only 21 years younger than Tabasco sauce. (1868 and 1889)

#54

Man walked on the moon, Wendy’s was founded, and Sesame Street first aired all in the same year.

#55

Winston Churchill:

• rode in a cavalry charge

• commanded nuclear weapons

#56

You were alive at the same time as the last living Civil War widow. She only died three years ago.

#57

Classic pirates, cowboys, and samurai.

#58

Kobe Bryant and the last Shah of Iran shared the earth for a few months

#59

Current U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein is older than the Golden Gate Bridge.

#60

Henry Kissinger is still alive and opining in 2023

#61

Queen Elisabeth II and Marilyn Monroe were born in the same year, 1926.

#62

Goodfellas was released a few weeks before West and East Germany reunited

#63

Laws making interacial marriage illegal in Mississippi were still on the books in 1994.

#64

John Cena and John Oliver were both on the same day, ALSO in 1977.

#65

Nikola Tesla could have witnessed the US Civil War and World War 2. (1856-1943)

#66

Karl Marx once wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln

#67

I forget the specifics, but technically a samurai could have sent a fax to Abraham Lincoln.

#68

Aboriginal Australians were on Earth the same time as wooly mammoths.