20 Historical Facts That’ll Mess With Your Perception Of Time And History

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Yeah, but the turtle is pretty cool.

Charles Darwin reportedly collected Harriet the tortoise during the former’s 1835 visit to the Galápagos Islands as part of his around-the-world survey expedition, transported to England, and then brought to her final home, Australia, by a retiring captain of the Beagle.

Nevertheless, some doubt was cast on this story because Darwin had never visited the island where Harriet originally came from.

The tortoise had an estimated age of 175 by the time she died at Steve Irwin’s zoo!

And the tree.

The oldest tree in the world is a Great Basin bristlecone pine situated in the White Mountains, California, and is dated back to 5067 years old.

And this…

Switzerland is usually seen as one of the, if not the, most progressive nations in the world.

It comes as a surprise therefore that women were not granted the right to vote until 1971, 65 years after Finland become the first European country to do so.

By that time, NASA had already landed on the moon, and was driving a moon buggy around!

In the meantime, however, Switzerland has caught up massively concerning women’s rights and the gender gap, ranking at number 11, well ahead of the United States at number 45.

…is the sort of thing that would make a nice film, which it did.

The Divine Order

That 1843 “fax machine” is a bit of a stretch, though.

What 16 other shocking factoids are in the BP article?