These Eye-Opening Photos From History Will Totally Warp Your Understanding Of Time

Any idea what Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth II have in common? Or woolly mammoths and the Great Pyramids of Giza? How about sliced bread and Mickey Mouse? The answer in each case is time. Read on to find out just how many seemingly unconnected people and events are linked by confoundingly contemporaneous dates...

40. Oxford University was around centuries before the Aztec Empire

There’s some evidence that Oxford University had already started taking students early in the 12th century. In any case there’s no doubt that it was a thriving institution by the end of the 1200s. On the other hand the Aztec Empire, based in what is now Mexico, didn’t really make its mark until the 15th century. So those early Oxford students certainly didn’t study that aspect of Central American history – understandable, given that it was still far in the future!

39. Queen Elizabeth II and Marilyn Monroe were born the same year

Think hard. Can you identify any two women so starkly contrasting in character and career? If you can, let us know. Elizabeth II, the Queen of Britain, was born in April 1926 in London, England. Marilyn the movie star was born a few months later in Los Angeles, California. Sadly, we lost Ms. Monroe in 1962. On a much brighter note, as we write the reigning British monarch is still very much with us.

38. Charles Darwin had a tortoise that lived until 2006

During the research which led to his Origin of Species, Charles Darwin made a field trip to the Galapagos Islands in 1835. There he collected a giant tortoise, although it was quite small when he met it. Eventually the animal, by now called Harriet, ended up in the Australia Zoo in Queensland, living on until 2006. The great scientist, by contrast, died in 1882 aged 73. Some doubt that Harriet really was Darwin’s tortoise. But we like the story so we’ll choose to believe it. Other opinions are available.

37. America’s founding fathers knew nothing of the dinosaurs

The Founding Fathers led their people in the ultimately successful fight to break with the British Empire: the American War of Independence ended in 1783. But it would be another 59 years before British scientist Richard Owen made his startling 1842 revelation that dinosaurs had existed. So the Founding Fathers had no idea that giant creatures, now extinct, had roamed the Earth in the distant past.