{"id":35132,"date":"2024-04-08T16:53:42","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T14:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=264793"},"modified":"2024-04-09T17:12:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T15:12:50","slug":"10-strange-historical-facts-that-sound-fake","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/10-strange-historical-facts-that-sound-fake\/","title":{"rendered":"10 strange historical facts that sound fake"},"content":{"rendered":"

The past is often stranger than we could possibly imagine \u2013 studded with surprising coincidences and pivotal moments that occurred concurrently in disparate parts of the globe… <\/p>

By Charlotte Hodgman\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 08 April 2024 at 14:53 PM<\/p>

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Wooly mammoths survived into the age of the pyramids<\/h2>\n

Contrary to the popular belief that mammoths died out around 10,000 years ago, after the end of the last ice age, small numbers of the huge mammals survived in several locations for another 6,000 years or so.<\/p>\n

In fact, a population of woolly mammoths roamed Wrangel Island, in the Arctic Ocean off Siberia, as recently as 3,700 years ago \u2013 centuries after the construction of both the pyramids of Giza<\/a> and Stonehenge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Woolly\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Despite the belief that mammoths died out 10,000 years ago, they roamed the earth at the same time as the construction of the pyramids. (Image by Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

You could take the London Underground to watch England\u2019s last public hanging<\/h2>\n

On 26 May 1868, Irish republican\u2028 activist Michael Barrett, convicted for \u2028his role in a bombing, was hanged \u2028outside Newgate Prison in what \u2028proved to be England\u2019s last public\u2028execution.<\/p>\n

Many of the thousands \u2028who gathered to watch the grisly\u2028 event may have travelled there by\u2028Tube, on the Metropolitan Line \u2028that had opened five years earlier. Newgate was just a 10-minute\u2028stroll from Farringdon Station.<\/p>\n

Jack the Ripper was still making headlines when Nintendo was founded<\/h2>\n

Most people know Nintendo as a leading light of late 20th-century video game culture, producing hits ranging from Super Mario Bros<\/em> to The Legend of Zeld<\/em>a. But the company was actually founded in Kyoto, Japan, in 1889 to produce handmade hanafuda playing cards.<\/p>\n

In England that same year, the notorious serial killer dubbed Jack the Ripper<\/a> was still making newspaper headlines, the fifth murder attributed to \u2018Jack\u2019 having been committed the previous November.<\/p>\n

Conspiracy: A HistoryExtra podcast series<\/h4>\n

Member exclusive |<\/strong> Was the moon landing faked? Did Shakespeare actually write his plays? Were the pyramids built by aliens? Expert historians offer their perspectives on history\u2019s biggest conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n

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\"Conspiracy<\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/section>

Cleopatra lived nearer in time to the first moon landing than the building of the pyramids of Giza<\/h2>\n

Incredible as it might sound, Cleopatra<\/a> (c69\u201330 BC), the last active ruler of\u2028ancient Egypt, was born more than\u20282,400 years after the completion\u2028of Giza\u2019s three main pyramids\u2028(constructed c2550\u20132490 BC). In 1969,\u2028\u2018only\u2019 two millennia after her death, US astronaut Neil Armstrong took his first momentous steps on the Moon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Great Wall of China was finally completed two years after the world\u2019s first telephone call<\/h2>\n

The Great Wall of China<\/a>, one of the planet\u2019s most famous artificial structures, was largely built over a long period extending from the third century BC to the 17th century AD, and eventually stretched 13,171 miles (21,196km).<\/p>\n

Despite its ancient origins, though, construction work on the Wall wasn\u2019t actually completed until 1878, during the late Qing dynasty. Two years earlier, Alexander Graham Bell had catapulted the world into a new era of modernity with his groundbreaking invention: the telephone. On 10 March 1876, he made the world\u2019s first phone call, to his assistant: \u201cMr Watson. Come here. I want to see you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Balliol\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Balliol College, Oxford, which was founded at the same time as existence of the Aztec empire. (Photo by: Planet One Images\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire<\/h2>\n

The culture now known as Aztec<\/a> may seem like ancient history, but the origin of this Mesoamerican empire is usually dated to 1325, with the founding of the capital city, Tenochtitlan (the site of modern-day Mexico City).<\/p>\n

By contrast, teaching at Oxford University \u2013 which still welcomes hundreds of students every year \u2013 began in one form or another as early as 1096. University, Balliol and Merton Colleges were all founded between 1249 and 1264.<\/p>\n

Machu Picchu and the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes were finished within a century of each other<\/h2>\n

The Italian Renaissance and the Inca empire aren\u2019t often associated with each other, yet both were phenomena of the same era. The Peruvian mountaintop citadel of Machu Picchu was completed around 1450, at the height of the empire\u2019s power, and was probably occupied until c1530. More than 6,500 miles away, as Inca emperors continued to enjoy their mountaintop retreat, in 1512 Italian artist Michelangelo was putting the finishing touches to his frescoes on the Vatican\u2019s Sistine Chapel ceiling.<\/p>\n

A samurai could have sent a fax to Abraham Lincoln<\/h2>\n

Perhaps the most bizarre of all the facts gathered here is that there was a 22-year window during which a Japanese samurai could, in theory, have sent a fax to US president Abraham Lincoln<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s samurai class existed until the end of the feudal system in 1868; the electric printing telegraph (a forerunner of the digital fax machine) was patented in 1843; and Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.<\/p>\n

Coca-Cola is older than the Eiffel Tower<\/h2>\n

On 8 May 1886, Dr John Pemberton\u2028sold the first glass of Coca-Cola\u2028at Jacobs\u2019 Pharmacy in Atlanta,\u2028charging five cents a glass. Nearly\u2028three years later, on 31 March 1889, construction of the 300-metre-high Eiffel Tower<\/a> in Paris, France,\u2028was completed.<\/p>\n

Star Wars<\/em> was rleased in the same year that France carried out its last execution by guillotine<\/h2>\n

Although a punishment most widely associated\u2028with the bloody Reign of Terror period of the French Revolution<\/a> in the late 18th century, the guillotine was still used as a method of execution well into the 20th century. In fact, the last person to be executed by guillotine in France was Tunisian immigrant Hamida Djandoubi, in September 1977 \u2013 the same year that George Lucas\u2019s epic blockbuster film Star Wars<\/em> was first shown on the big screen.<\/p>\n

This content first appeared in the June 2023 issue of BBC History Revealed<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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