Random Historical Events You Won't Believe Happened at the Same Time (16 items)

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  (#9) Star Wars Came Out The Same Year As The Last Guillotine Execution In France (1977)

  Hamida "Pimp Killer" Djandoubi was beheaded via guillotine in France on September 10, 1977, for the torture and murder of a 21-year-old woman. It was the last time France executed anybody using any method – François Mitterrand abolished the practice in 1981. This means that, as Redditor LastKill highlights, in the same year a man in a First World country was getting his head chopped off by the state, kids across the globe were lining up to see Star Wars, which debuted in the U.S. on May 25, 1977, and in the UK on December 27, 1977.
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  (#3) Woolly Mammoths Were Still Alive While Egyptians Were Building The Pyramids (2660 BCE)

  Ice Age might get a few more sequels: a small population of woolly mammoths lived on Wrangel Island – a Delaware-sized island about 90 miles off the coast of far eastern Siberia – until about 1650 BCE. The oldest of the so-called “Great Pyramids” in Egypt was constructed between 2667 and 2648 BCE, meaning that yes, as Redditor LastKill stated, there were actually woolly mammoths alive and well when the Great Pyramids were being built. 
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  (#6) The Ottoman Empire Existed The Second To Last Time The Chicago Cubs Won The World Series (1908)

  Yep: the penultimate time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series was in 1908. That’s 10 years before the Ottomans were defeated in World War I and 14 years before the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. This means the Cubs’ second-to-last big win is older than Turkey. 
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  (#16) Buffalo Bill Cody Was Alive At The Same Time The Germans Were Bombing With Zeppelins (1916)

  Although nearing his death, the epitome of the Wild West, showman William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody (1846-1917), was still alive during the majority of WWI. This means that the famous cowboy, soldier, and Pony Express rider likely heard about newfangled German Zeppelins bombing Paris in January of 1916, a year before his death.

  This is strange to imagine given Cody is thought of alongside gunslingin' duels and Native Americans, while WWI is associated with its technological advances and initiation of weapons of mass destruction on the battlefield.
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  (#2) NASA Was Exploring Space By The Time Scientists Could Agree On Plate Tectonics (1965)

  To his credit, Alfred Wegener first proposed his theory of continental drift in 1912. However, the scientific community basically laughed him off the map, and it wasn't until the publication of two papers, one in 1965 and one in 1967, that the theory of plate tectonics was refined and fully accepted in the scientific community. At the same time, NASA was winding down its Gemini Program, which not only launched crafts into space but also helped set the stage for the Apollo missions that would result in manned lunar landings.

  That Program concluded in 1966, meaning scientists were exploring space before we had agreed upon what was going on in the earth beneath their feet.
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  (#1) The Fax Machine Was Invented The Same Year The First Wagon Crossed the Oregon Trail (1843)

  It sounds crazy, but it's true: RedditFed points out that Scottish inventor Alexander Bain received the patent for the “Electric Printing Telegraph” – the granddaddy of the modern fax machine – on May 27, 1843. That same year, in what’s now known as the “Great Migration of 1843,” about 1,000 emigrants headed to Oregon via wagon train on the Oregon Trail.

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