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image of a man's mind being blown with a background of a spiral twisting clock
Everyone loves a good historical fact that sounds made up but is 100% true. There are many of them floating around about the dinosaurs and ancient Egyptians.
We call these History Overlaps where two timelines cross that we tend to think of as completely distinct from one another and when we discover they occurred at the same time it breaks our brains. Here we take a look at many such examples of these history overlaps and if your brain has trouble processing them rest assured that you are not alone.
The Wildest Overlaps In History: These Things Happened At The Same Time But Our Brains Refuse To Believe It
These come in no particular order. I started using an ‘AskReddit’ thread as inspiration for this but the idea to compile these history overlaps struck me earlier this week when I learned that the release of the Nintendo Wii was closer to the fall of the Soviet Union than it is to today. I fact checked that one in disbelief.
The Nintendo Wii was released on November 19, 2006 while the fall of the Soviet Union is listed as December 26, 1991. That is a span of 5,442 days from the fall of the Soviet Union to the release of the Nintendo Wii. Flash forward to today and it has been 7,297 days since November 19, 2006 which is a full 1,855 days longer than the span of time between the Fall of the Soviet Union and the release of the Nintendo Wii. Now with that said, let’s get to it…
MTV debuted closer to Japan attacking Pearl Harbor than we are to the debut of MTV today. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 which ultimately led the U.S. into WWII and changed the course of world history forever. MTV launched on August 1, 1981. The span of time between the dates is 14,482 days. Flash forward to today, November 11, 2026, and it has been 16,538 days since the MTV was launched, or 45 years, 3 months, and 10 days.
Ancient Egypt
iStockphoto / Abrill_
Beautiful bas-reliefs and ancient hieroglyphs from the Dendera Temple Complex, Qena, Egypt.
A very popular historical overlap that breaks people’s brains is how Cleopatra lived closer in time to the moon landing than she did to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Cleopatra is believed to have lived somewhere between 70/69 BC to August in 30 BC.
The Great Pyramid of Giza was built somewhere between 2589 and 2504 BCE, a passage of 2,474 years between when Cleopatra passed away and the building of the pyramid. Flash forward to the moon landing in 1969 (+30 more years) and she died 1,999 years before the moon landing, a full 475 years closer to the moon landing than the building of the Great Pyramid.
Two more tangentially related history overlaps are that the Tyrannosaurus Rex lived closer to the moon landing than it did to the Stegosaurus. In fact, the T-Rex existed approximately 14 MILLION years closer to the moon landing than the Stegosaurus.
Digging further, ancient Egypt is so old that archaeologists have found evidence of ancient Egyptians deciphering the works of even more ancient Egyptians. The empire was so long they had their own ancients.
Everything And Everyone Is Old
iStockphoto / KISAMORI
Japanese samurai walking around a village
Even here in the United States, a relatively young country compared to most European nations, there are some history overlaps that will blow your mind. I have devoted an entire section below just to the Appalachian Mountains so we’ll get to that in a bit, but first…
President Joe Biden was born closer in time to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln than Biden was to his own presidency. What does that mean? Well, Lincoln was shot on April 15, 1865 and Joe Biden was born on November 20, 1942. That is a span of 28,342 days. Biden’s presidency began on January 20, 2021 a span of 28,552 days.
So the period of time from when Biden was born to when he became President was longer than the time from when Biden was born to when Abraham Lincoln was President. Unreal.
The last samurai in Japan is believed to have been Saigō Takamori who died in battle on September 24, 1877. Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865… Do you know what was invented in 1843 by Scottish inventor Alexander Bain? The world’s first fax machine. So we live in a world where Abraham Lincoln and a Samurai could have communicated via fax machine. Somewhat related to that one, American cowboys (1500s–1600s in America via Spain), Japanese Samurai, and pirates all overlapped and existed at the same time.
The University of Oxford, or Oxford University, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. It was founded in 1096 AD. The Aztec Empire, one of North America’s most infamous civilizations, reigned from 1428 to 1521 AD. That makes the University of Oxford a full 336 years older than the Aztec Empire.
Random Historical Overlap Facts: Rapid Fire Section
iStockphoto / slowmotiongli
close up view of a duckbilled platypus
Duck-billed platypuses existed as a species before ducks. If we are being honest with ourselves, then ducks are platypus-billed and not the other way around.
Canning food began in 1810 and the can opener was not invented for another 45 years until 1855. People were just fighting for their food in a metal tin for 45 long years.
Iconic Civil Rights figure Emmett Till was born in the same year as Bernie Sanders. Till was born on July 25, 1941 and Bernie Sanders was born less than two months later on September 8, 1941.
The Chicago Cubs as an organization have won 3 World Series titles in history, in 1907, 1908, and 2016. In the 108 year time span between the Cubs’ 1908 and 2016 World Series titles… A LOT happened. Sliced bread was created, the Titanic was built and sank, radio was invented, 4 new U.S. states came to exist, chocolate chip cookies were invented, we landed on the moon, and women got the right to vote. Shout out to ‘davesoverhere’ on Reddit for pointing out those Cubs facts because they blew my mind.
Actor Christopher Lee, famous for portraying Count Dooku in Star Wars and Saruman in Lord of the Rings as well as Dracula, was present on June 17, 1939 the last time the guillotine was used for a public execution in France. In fact, he was 17-years-old at the time. He witnessed French authorities use the guillotine to behead a German serial killer outside the Saint-Pierre Prison in Versailles, the last public use of the guillotine.
Sharks Are Ancient
We could have done an entire collection of wild shark facts but let’s throw out a few that will blow your mind… Sharks existed before trees. They are older than the rings around Saturn. Sharks predate Pangaea.
They existed before fire! Seriously. Sharks lived on the planet at a time when oxygen content in our atmosphere was too low to sustain fire, and they were around 30 million years before plants began to flourish and elevate oxygen levels to a point where fire could exist.
Appalachian Mountain Historical Facts That Blow Our Minds
I saved the best for last. The Appalachian Mountain Range is so old it is hard to really comprehend… But let’s throw out a few history overlaps about the Appalachian Mountains to try and conceive of just how ancient they are.
The Appalachian Mountains are more than twice as old as the Atlantic Ocean which began being formed around 200 million years ago after Pangaea began to break up. The mountains are older than trees. And dinosaurs. With an estimated age of about 480 million years, the mountains are around 130 million years OLDER THAN TREES.
At one point, the Appalachian Mountains were as tall as the Alps and Himalayas but have shrank over time as the continents shifted and time passed… And despite being located on America’s East Coast, the Appalachian Mountain Range is actually the same mountain range as the Scottish Highlands and the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. When Pangaea broke up the range split, but the mountains in North Carolina are part of the range in the Scottish Highlands. Unreal.
Final Fun Facts
William Shakespeare (1564 to 1616) was alive at the same time as Pocahontas (1596 – March 1617). U.S. President John Tyler, our nation’s 10th president who was born in 1790 (236 years ago), had a grandson who just passed away in 2026.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, there was still an American receiving a Civil War pension. Irene Triplett received $73.13/month from the Department of Veterans Affairs until she passed away on May 31, 2020.
Last but not least, there is a giant Galapagos tortoise named Jonathan who is 193 years old. He lived through the invention of the light bulb, the U.S. Civil War, and the moon landing. The city of Chicago was founded in 1833, the year Jonathan was born.