# Historical events that seem out of place on the timeline? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 13, 2014, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341 "2014-05-13T13:05:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/1 "2014-05-13T13:05:55Z")
I came across these recently from various websites and found them really fascinating. Are there are any other examples you can think of? [ul] [li]Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.[/li][li]Sharks have been around longer than trees.[/li][li]Stegosauruses lived closer in time to us than to t-rexes.[/li][li]Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Luxor pyramid in Las Vegas than the Egyptian pyramids at Giza.[/li][li]Mammoths were still alive when the pyramids were built. Wonder if they helped?[/li][li]The fax machine was invented while people were crossing the Oregon Trail.[/li][li]Nintendo was founded in 1889 – as a playing card company.[/li][li]Humans reached outer space before accepting plate tectonics.[/li][li]Tiffany & Co. (the jewelry store) is older than Italy, the country.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/2 "2014-05-13T13:27:47Z")
Are you sure the third one isn’t “t-rexes lived closer to us in time than they did to stegosaurus”? ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/3 "2014-05-13T13:44:24Z")
Agreed, the stegos were Jurassic beasties, which was well before the late-Cretaceous T-rex. And the Wrangel Island mammoths were a dwarf variety and probably the last surviving population (until about 1600 BC IIRC). They would not have been very useful as draft animals for pyramid builders. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/4 "2014-05-13T14:11:29Z")
During the height of the segregationists activity in the 1960’s, the first black US President was already born. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/5 "2014-05-13T14:49:51Z")
Everyone knows the first nuclear reactor was built under a squash court in Chicago in 1937, right? Wrong The world’s first nuclear reactor was in West Africa, [almost two billion years ago](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor). ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/6 "2014-05-13T15:18:12Z")
This is one of those that I knew, sort of, but it hit home hard one day: Mount Everest is way, WAY younger than the dinosaurs. That entire range of mountains hadn’t even gotten started when the dinosaurs died out. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/7 "2014-05-13T15:51:34Z")
The Appalachians were already ancient and heavily eroded when the first animals appeared. ---
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/8 "2014-05-13T16:29:57Z")
Genghis Khan came on the scene 100 years AFTER the Crusades started. I always think of him as barbarian, so pre-history, or at least, ancient times. But nope. He’s practically modern. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/9 "2014-05-13T18:19:12Z")
The earliest mammals evolved at about the same time as the earliest turtles and crocodiles. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/10 "2014-05-13T18:49:19Z")
In part of my own country, in my own lifetime, interracial marriage was a criminal offense. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/11 "2014-05-13T20:40:50Z")
> [@LibrarySpy](#): > > Genghis Khan came on the scene 100 years AFTER the Crusades started. I always think of him as barbarian, so pre-history, or at least, ancient times. But nope. He’s practically modern. Along the same lines, the Roman Empire (if we accept the eastern part of the empire as the continuation of the Roman Empire) didn’t fall until just a few years before the discovery of the New World (1453 to 1492). And the Ottoman Turks held on to the shreds of their empire until the First World War. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/12 "2014-05-13T21:41:02Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > Along the same lines, the Roman Empire (if we accept the eastern part of the empire as the continuation of the Roman Empire) didn’t fall until just a few years before the discovery of the New World (1453 to 1492). And the Ottoman Turks held on to the shreds of their empire until the First World War. Heh, “when did the Roman Empire end?” is a great trick question - the trick being “what, exactly, do you consider the Roman Empire to be”. The Muscovites, for example, claimed themselves to be the inheritors of Byzantium after its fall to the Turks, and thus the “Third Rome”. > **[Succession of the Roman Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Rome)** > > The continuation, succession, and revival of the Roman Empire is a running theme of the history of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. It reflects the lasting memories of power, prestige, and unity associated with the Roman Empire. > Several polities have claimed immediate continuity with the Roman Empire, using its name or a variation thereof as their own exclusive or non-exclusive self-description. As centuries went by and more political ruptures occurred, the idea of institutional continuity ... This would lead to the conclusion that “Rome” did not fall until the Communist revolution, in 1916! Or perhaps, under Putin, it still lives … 😃 But yeah, the best date would still be the fall to the Turks. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/13 "2014-05-13T22:11:47Z")
The first humans didn’t reach New Zealand until about 1250 CE ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/14 "2014-05-13T22:20:56Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > The first humans didn’t reach New Zealand until about 1250 CE Not sure it fits this thread - but the first humans to reach New Zealand discovered gigantic eagles that lived there, which (allegedly) occasionally ate people. > **[Haast's eagle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast's_eagle)** > > Haast's eagle (Hieraaetus moorei) is an extinct species of eagle that lived in the South Island of New Zealand, commonly accepted to be the pouākai of Māori mythology. It is the largest eagle known to have existed, with an estimated weight of 10–18 kilograms (22–40 pounds), compared to the next-largest and extant harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja), at up to 9 kg (20 lb). Its massive size is explained as an evolutionary response to the size of its prey—the flightless moa—the largest of which could H... They (the eagles) were driven to extinction. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-that-seem-out-of-place-on-the-timeline/688341/15 "2014-05-13T22:44:51Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Are you sure the third one isn’t “t-rexes lived closer to us in time than they did to stegosaurus”? Oh, thanks 🙂 > [@Malthus](#): > > Not sure it fits this thread - but the first humans to reach New Zealand discovered gigantic eagles that lived there, which (allegedly) occasionally ate people. > > [Haast's eagle - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast's_eagle) > > They (the eagles) were driven to extinction. :eek: