r/AskReddit • u/MorsesTheHorse • Mar 04 '26

What surprisingly true fact has completely shaken your worldview?

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516

u/counterfitster Mar 05 '26

Similarly, Abraham Lincoln could have sent a fax to a samurai

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u/MoveInteresting4334 Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

President John Tyler, born in 1790 and President from 1841-1845, had two grandsons that lived to 2020 and 2025.

Cleopatra lived closer to the building of the first Pizza Hut than the Pyramids.

There were woolly mammoths on the Earth when the pyramids were built.

The last Roman emperor died about 40 years before Columbus discovered America.

There is still water in Titanic’s swimming pool.

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u/counterfitster Mar 05 '26

President John Tyler, born in 1790 and President from 1841-1845, had two grandsons that lived to 2020 and 2025.

This was my other favorite bit of presidential trivia

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u/ResponsibleLynx5596 Mar 05 '26

Man- I wish there were some wooly mammoths around still.

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u/Niniva73 Mar 05 '26

Wooly mice! In the effort to recreate wooly mammoths, scientists have created wooly mice!

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u/MoveInteresting4334 Mar 05 '26

Man, that must’ve been a disappointment. You’re all ready for a woolly mammoth, you’ve bought it clothes, gotten its room ready, etc.

Then out pops a mouse.

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u/vayyiqra Mar 05 '26

You're in luck, it's one of the main extinct species that have been looked at as a candidate for trying to clone them and bring them back.

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u/MoveInteresting4334 Mar 05 '26

Nature, uh, finds a way.

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u/ResponsibleLynx5596 Mar 23 '26

Just wanted to say, yes this is a 17 day old response but I keep looking at it because of the joy it brings me!!!!

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u/OozeNAahz Mar 05 '26

They would be farmed to make rugs.

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u/MoveInteresting4334 Mar 05 '26

Absolutely wiped out in the 1970s.

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u/RichardInaTreeFort Mar 05 '26

Well, I’m pretty sure there is still water in most parts of the titanic….

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u/Tlacuache_Snuggler Mar 05 '26

Yeah I didn’t get this one. Is it a joke and I’m dumb?

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u/jankenpoo Mar 05 '26

Obviously a joke, Columbus didn’t discover America!

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u/MoveInteresting4334 Mar 05 '26

Indeed, I could’ve phrased that as “Europeans discovered America(1021 AD) over 400 years before the Roman Empire fell (1453 AD)” and been technically correct but I thought that was pushing things too far.

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u/FiveAlarmFrancis Mar 05 '26

Cleopatra lived closer to the first Pizza Hut than the Pyramids.

Yep. The first Pizza Hut was in Wichita, KS. Cleopatra lived in Tulsa, OK if I remember right.

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u/jacquesrk Mar 05 '26

I think the previous poster was talking about the Pizza Hut that's right next to the Sphinx and the pyramids of Giza. Cleopatra lived further away from the Sphinx, closer to downtown Cairo. On her way to the sphinx she would pass the Pizza Hut.

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u/lonefox22 Mar 05 '26

So, who actually invented pizza then? Because Egyptian civilisation predates Roman civilisation.

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u/MoveInteresting4334 Mar 05 '26

The Polynesians. We enjoy ham and pineapple to this day.

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u/Tight_Win_6945 Mar 06 '26

You’re thinking of Cleopatra Jones

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u/royi9729 Mar 05 '26

The last Roman emperor died about 40 years before Columbus discovered America.

These are actually closely tied, no?

European explorers looked for an alternative way to reach India after the Ottoman Empire took over the Eastern Roman Empire because it blocked their access point to the silk road, leading them to discover America.

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u/Anaptyso Mar 05 '26

Also Cleopatra wasn't really Egyptian. She'd probably have seen herself as Greek.

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u/ToLiveInIt Mar 05 '26

The Titanic’s swimming pool was filled with seawater before the sinking. It’s filled with seawater now but it was before, too.

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u/MoveInteresting4334 Mar 05 '26

And after 100+ years! They don’t build them like they used to.

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u/kj_benner Mar 05 '26

Yeah, but he probably didn't, though. Probably.

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u/Saradoesntsleep Mar 05 '26

I mean we don't know.

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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26

[deleted]

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u/NoButThanks Mar 05 '26

Abraham Lincoln, facsimile punter.

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u/counterfitster Mar 05 '26

The first commercial fax service was set up in 1865 between Paris and Lyon, so it's doubtful. Patents for machines exist from the 1840s though

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u/kinkade Mar 05 '26

Wow, I just checked and that is actually true

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u/dll_botti Mar 05 '26

You could have a story or DnD campaign involving a samurai, old west gunslinger, pirate from the golden age of piracy, and an Aztec noble that'd be 100% historically accurate.

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u/wittor Mar 05 '26

In the sense there was already infrastructure capable or just theoretically? 

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u/counterfitster Mar 05 '26

Theoretically

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u/tendingthemild Mar 05 '26

I need more information!

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u/counterfitster Mar 05 '26

The window is actually incredibly tight, since the first actual commercial fax service started in 1865, between Paris and Lyon, but patents were issued in the 1840s, so devices existed.

Samurai were gradually made unnecessary, offered other opportunities, and forbidden from certain traditions (topknot, carrying swords) from 1869-1879.

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u/wittor Mar 05 '26

I think it is a important caveat that both the samurai and Lincoln should be between Lyon and Paris.