" The Parthenon temple looked a bit like Disneyland . "
Recently, Reddit useru/FlickTheSwitch167asked, “What historical fact have you learned that ruined everything you ever thought you knew about this life?” and I was basically like this with every response:
Here are 32 that truly changed how people look at history.
1.“Ancient Antarctica wasactually a rainforest— a lush and verdant paradise, filled with flora and fauna. Despite the interesting fact that there was a whole continent of animals that lived on this planet that we’ll never know about — as their remains are locked beneath miles of ice — it blew my mind that Antarctica only fully froze overabout 34 millionyears ago, despitebreakingfrom its supercontinent ~180 million years ago. That means Antarctica supported independent life for ~145 million years, which ruined any sense I have of time and perspective. We really are specks on this planet.”
— uranium / oohaaahz
2.“Ninety percentof Native people who lived in the Americas before Columbus died fromdiseasesbrought by explorers.”
— atomic number 92 / HarryHacker42
" That ’s whyTurtle Islandseemed so ' productive ' and welcoming to those first colonizers who be active inland : They were discovering civilize foraging grounds and living web site whose owners had pass away from European disease . "
— u / WizardyBlizzard
3.In fact, “diseases swept through the Native population so quickly that the Euro explorers didn’t even crack the surface of the civilizations they had.”
— uranium / TameImpalaFan69
" There was a Spanish explorer ( Francisco de Orellana ) who first visited the Inca Empire and determine wads of prosperous metropolis and a great civilization , and told his peer about it when he returned home . But when other kinfolk went to visit read city , they recover nothing but jungle and thought the explorer lied about his story . "
— atomic number 92 / Manu82134
" It admit a couple hundred long time for the Spanish to get to the west coast . It ’s entirely likely that urban center fully died out , had their ruins collapsed and overrun by the Amazon jungle , and no one will ever know where they were or what they were like . "
" This dandy had gone on trading ship that snuff it through the Amazon River when he met all these huge cities . It ’s wild to me that it ’s potential there were inland empires following the Amazon , only to melt in a few short years from being swallow up by plague and the hobo camp . Even wilder that apparently , the trading cities were crowing enough to get the same variety of river dealings you ’d have a bun in the oven from modern - day New York or on the River Thames . Just the estimation that a ground we thought was only inhabited by scattered tribes potentially contained some of the biggest trading geographical zone in the New World . "
— uranium / TheStrangestOfKings
4.And this: “Thereasonthey speak Spanish and Portuguese in South America is because the Spanish and Portuguese empires pretty much destroyed everyone and everything in South America.”
— u / pponi
5.“Prehistoric, but still: Given that humans tend to concentrate along coastlines, and that sea levels have risen a bunch in the last 200,000 years, it is likely that our conception of human prehistory is fantastically distorted because most of it was lost under the sea.”
— uracil / HaggeHagglin
6.“Ancient Greek and Roman polychromy [the art of employing many colors in decoration, as in painting or architecture]. TheParthenontemple looked a bit like Disneyland.”
— u / ipakookapi
" Same go for European churches . Statues were painted in meretricious colors . There are still some inside that still have their people of colour . By today ’s standard , it would be considered tacky and in bad taste . "
— u / chinchenping
7.“Not just churches. Castle walls were also covered and painted inside. Exposed stone walls weren’t the normal look.”
— u/-_—
" The Department of the Interior of almost all palace was plastered and intricately / bright painted , or Ellen Price Wood - paneled . Bare gem walls were rare . "
— u / Tharoufizon
8.The Egyptian pyramidswere oncecovered with smooth, white limestone, with a gold cap on top.
— Suggested byu / mimieieieieieandu / manfroze
9.Also, “when the pyramids were being built, mammoths were walking the Earth.Woolly mammothslived on it until around 1700 BCE. TheGreat Pyramidwas completed around 2560 BCE.”
— u / two-
10.You’ve probably heard this one, but “Cleopatrais closerin time to us than the construction of the pyramids.”
— u / llc4269
11.Speaking of Cleopatra, “Shewas Greek, not Egyptian.”
— u / Trackdes1gn
" She was also thefirstPtolemaic ruler of Egypt who actually knew Egyptian . Imagine ruling a place and not verbalise their language . "
— u / kenna98
" Not judgment - change , inevitably , but I recently learned Cleopatra was also a diplomatical badass and legendary leader whoknew many languages . She was verywell respectedin the region . Did n’t know that before . Pretty nerveless . "
— u / IronAndParsnip
12.The first US president, George Washington,was opposedto political parties. He thought they’dtearus apart.
— Suggested by … me .
13.“The Middle East was once the center of knowledge and learning, particularlyBaghdad. As well as the amazing extent of advanced civilizations in South and Central America prior to the 1500s.”
— u / i__Sisyphus
" Yep , theIslamic favorable Age . They were performingsurgery with anesthesiaat the same fourth dimension European doctors were sticking a fleck of wood in your oral cavity and promising to try out to be firm . "
— u / homerteedo
14.“Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.”
— u / Daohor
" IIRC , Oxford University is technically older than England , which in itself is one of the former continuously extant countries going . "
— uracil / AraedTheSecond
" Oxford University hasevidence of teach back to 1096 ; the Kingdom of England wasunified in 927under King Athelstan . "
— uracil / English - Gent
15.“Learning about the depth and breadth of slavery in human history was a real eye-opener. It’s always been a significant part of cultures all around the world. Evidence of slavery predates written records and is included in theCode of Hammurabi, where it was already an established institution. We still haven’t stamped it out today, when slavery affects anestimated 50 million people(that’s more than the total population of California and even more than Spain). It’s wild how awful humans have always been to one another and that we still can’t seem to hold each other accountable for basic human rights, despite indelible proof.”
— u / FridayInc
" Two facts about slavery I ’ve always plant interesting :
1 ) As you said , the number of striver . It’smoreon any apply day than in the history of the African transatlantic slave trade . Some countries today have over half their tourist industry run by hard worker Department of Labor , so be careful where you go on holiday / vacation , family !
2 ) In ancient Rome , they considered grant striver uniforms to give them less individuality , butquickly realizeddoing so would show the slaves how much they massively outnumbered their masters . "
— u / FrostyBallBag
16.“Chainsaws wereinventedfor childbirth. It worked about as well as one might imagine.”
— uracil / kesness
17.“It didn’t ruin everything for me, but thereal storyof Johnny Appleseed was eye-opening. He didn’t plant apple trees for apples to eat and sustain; apples were much different back then. He planted the apple trees to ferment alcohol. His apple trees were for cider, not fruit for food.”
— u / DerekasaurusJax
18.Napoleonwasn’t"cartoonishly short"; he was of average height for his time. The idea that he was short came most likely from British cartoonist James Gillray, who drew him that way, and other cartoonists who followed…doing so mostly, it seems, because Napoleon hated it.
— Suggested byu / DudebroggieHouserandu / howtoreadspaghetti
19.“Can’t remember the exact quote, but it went something like, if the entirety of human history was condensed into a 500-page book … the vast amount of technological advancements, from the discovery of the atom to the modern day, would fit on … the last page. And people wonder why we are reckless. We’re still effectively great apes, but with shiny toys.”
— atomic number 92 / JitterySuperCoffee
Here’sthe actual quote , if you ’re interested .
" Keep in psyche , we have n’t even ventured outdoors of our solar organisation , which is within our whitish path galaxy — just a texture of sand in context to the universe . "
— uracil / cheeseburghers
" You ’d have totravelat the speed of light , constantly for over 100,000 years directly , to get to the end of our extragalactic nebula . It would take constant travel at that rate for MILLIONS of year to get to even the nearest coltsfoot .
" Even under the most ideal circumstances , the entireStar Trekuniverse never make billet outside our own coltsfoot , and that ’s take up that we can feasibly journey at 10 times the speed of visible light . "
— u / amadeus2490
" What blew my mind was that the actual sizing of the ( unobservable ) universe mightbe morelike 7trillionlight - years across . We have access only to the smallest shard of the world . "
— atomic number 92 / howltwinkle
21.“Prior to the rise of the Nazi Party, the Weimar Republic (Germany, basically) was themostprogressivesociety of the time, home to a huge social justice movement, equal rights for women,abortion rights, a bastion for gay people, and with the firsttrans clinic, complete with an entire library of transgender research (which can be seen in the famous Nazi book burning photos…on fire).”
— u / BlckAlchmst
22.“The inventions of Nikola Tesla andwhat littleThomas Edison actually invented himself.”
— u/0odreadlordo0
" Even the radio . Not Marconi . Itwas Tesla . Tesla file his own introductory radio patent software in 1897 . They were granted in 1900 . Marconi ’s first patent covering in America , filed on Nov. 10 , 1900 , was sprain down . Marconi ’s revised applications over the next three years were repeatedly rejected because of the priority of Tesla and other inventor . In 1943 , the Supreme Courtaffirmeda 1935 opinion of the US Court of Claims that essentially invalidate Marconi ’s title of having invent radio , and clarified Tesla ’s function in inventing wireless . "
— u / Puppy - Zwolle
23.“The fax machine wasinventedin 1843.”
— u / nreshackleford
24.“Viking helmetsdid not havehorns.”
— uracil / Fragmented - Rooster
25.“No one outside of America thinks thePuritanswerea bunch of sweet, oppressed, morally pure goody-goodies.”
— u / Beth_Harmons_Bulova
26.“Wedomesticatedpigeons thousands of years ago and then decided we didn’t want them anymore. People treat them like vermin after we relied on them for so much (food, messengers, etc.). The pigeons you see in your cities are not wild; they’re abandoned.”
— u / pizzkat
" Also blow my brain that there was an integral species of pigeons — the passenger pigeon — that American settler manage to trace to extinction . In 1850 , the rider pigeon wasthe most abundant birdin North America ( and perhaps the world ) , with single flocks that count in themillions . By 1914 , the lastlivingpassenger pigeon had died . Wewiped outhundreds of millions of wench in less than 65 years . "
— u / clearly_i_mean_it
27.“More of a fun one, but lighterspredatestrike matches. They originated from repurposed flintlock pistols that ignited tinder shoved in the barrel that was set aflame by the trigger mechanism.”
— u / Kataphractoi
" They start way before that , actually . Having a serrate piece of metallic element that you used to take a piece of flint or pyrite wasthecommon mode to light a fire yard of twelvemonth ago . This is the principle of the modern lighter . "
— u / LeTigron
28.“T. rex iscloser in timeto us than it is to stegosaurus.”
— u / JakScott
29.“I grew up in a conservative hometown. When I was in late college, I began to learn how the Bible is essentially a long game of telephone, and one where the members playing telephone purposely exaggerated and changed what they repeated to the next person. The Bible was written by men whonever metJesus, who got their information about Jesus from other people, in a time period that relished mystics. And it was normal to change facts, and people did not have any understanding of ‘facts’ in general or reliability. The men also changed what they wrote about Jesus based on political changes at the time.”
— u / HighestTierMaslow
" Do n’t forget the translations oftranslationsof translations that alsounintentionallychanged the significance because of interpretation based on the morals of the time . It ’s just a massive mess that ’s kind of funny to take as , well … gospel . "
— u / dogman_35
" I was raised as a Christian and was a pretty fleeceable child . I have it off so many of the Bible stories — especially Moses being delivered the Ten Commandments directly from God . Now , I screw this makes no sense , but hear me out … I take on that the Bible had arrived this path too . I believed the book was delivered by God as a miracle . When I learned that humankind had not only drop a line the books but also had chosen which books were to be included ( excluding 20 or soGospels ) , my world collapsed . I was about 13 at the fourth dimension , but that was it . The entire foundation collapsed in an moment , and my feeling followed . "
— atomic number 92 / SuperfluousPedagogue
— uranium / Knowing_Loki
31.“History is written by the victors, so no matter how much history I read and study, and stories and myths, history is a jigsaw puzzle, and somebody is holding on to the pieces that make it all fit…worst case, they died with them.”
— uranium / bellmospriggans
“ ' It order here in this story book that luckily , the good guy have succeed every undivided time . What are the betting odds ? ' — Norm Macdonald . "
— u / bookon
32.And finally…“Not necessarily a historical fact, but more of a fact of history. Out of everything we know, there is so much more we don’t know and simply never will know. Even worse, a lot of the things we believe we know are from commonly accepted theories that are held on to by elitist, aging historians and only become refuted and debunked as they literally die off. The field of history as much as history itself is so ridiculously fascinating.”
— u / OriVerda
Note : Some compliance have been edited for duration and/or clearness .
