History gets much stranger when you stop dividing it into neat little eras. We tend to imagine ancient civilizations, famous inventions, historical figures, and modern companies as belonging to completely separate chapters, even when their timelines actually overlap. Someone could be living through what feels like one historical age while, somewhere else, something we associate with a totally different century was already happening. That is how you end up with an ancient wonder existing alongside surprisingly recent civilizations, a video game company sharing a birthday with one of Europe’s most famous landmarks, and technologies arriving much earlier than our mental timelines suggest. None of these pairings require time travel. History is just considerably messier than we tend to remember.©UnsplashOxford University and the Aztec EmpireTeaching was already taking place at Oxford by 1096. The Aztec Empire didn’t emerge until centuries later, in the 15th century. That means students were attending classes at Oxford long before the civilization we associate with ancient Mexico reached its imperial period.©UnsplashSamurai and Fax MachinesScottish inventor Alexander Bain patented an early electric printing telegraph in 1843, an important predecessor to the fax machine. Meanwhile, Japan’s samurai class was still very much around and wouldn’t be formally abolished until decades later. Someone could theoretically have been developing fax technology while a samurai was going about his day.©UnsplashWoolly Mammoths and the Great PyramidMost woolly mammoths disappeared near the end of the last Ice Age, but an isolated population survived on Wrangel Island for thousands of additional years. Those final mammoths were still alive after Egyptians had begun building the great pyramids.©UnsplashNintendo and the Eiffel TowerNintendo feels like a product of the video game era, but the company began by making playing cards in Kyoto in 1889. That happens to be the same year the Eiffel Tower was completed for the Paris World’s Fair.©RedditHarvard University and GalileoHarvard was founded in 1636, which feels relatively recent compared with the age of European scientific history. Galileo Galilei was still alive at the time and wouldn’t die until 1642. Harvard students and Galileo therefore existed on the planet simultaneously.©UnsplashBetty White and Sliced BreadBetty White was born in January 1922. Pre-sliced packaged bread didn’t arrive on the American market until 1928. For the first several years of White’s life, the thing everyone now uses as the benchmark for great inventions hadn’t even become commercially available yet.©UnsplashThe Guillotine and Star WarsStar Wars arrived in theaters in 1977, introducing audiences to lightsabers and droids. France carried out its final execution by guillotine that September. For several months, Darth Vader and legal use of the guillotine belonged to the exact same world.©UnsplashAnne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr.Anne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr. feel as though they belong to completely different historical periods, but both were born in 1929. King was actually several months older, born in January, while Frank was born that June.©UnsplashPablo Picasso and EminemPablo Picasso lived until April 1973. Eminem was born in October 1972. For roughly six months, one of the defining artists of the early 20th century and one of the biggest rappers of the following century were both alive.©RedditOrville Wright and the Atomic AgeOrville Wright made the first successful powered airplane flight with his brother Wilbur in 1903. He lived until 1948, meaning the same man who witnessed aviation’s first breakthrough also lived long enough to see airplanes become central to World War II and the beginning of the atomic age.©UnsplashThe Brooklyn Bridge and the Wild WestThe Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, instantly becoming one of the great symbols of modern New York. At the same time, figures we associate with the Wild West were still around. Buffalo Bill’s famous Wild West show even began that very year.©UnsplashCoca-Cola and the Statue of LibertyTwo things that now feel like they’ve simply always been part of American culture arrived in the same year. Coca-Cola was first served in Atlanta in 1886, while the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York that October.©UnsplashHarvard University and the Invention of CalculusHarvard wasn’t merely around before many modern universities. It had already been operating for decades when Isaac Newton began developing his method of fluxions, an early form of calculus, in 1665 and 1666.©UnsplashNintendo and Vincent van GoghNintendo was founded in Kyoto in September 1889. At that exact point, Vincent van Gogh was still alive and producing some of his most famous work in France. He wouldn’t die until July 1890. Nintendo and Van Gogh overlapped for almost a year.©RedditThe Eiffel Tower and Jack the RipperThe Whitechapel murders associated with Jack the Ripper terrorized London in 1888. Meanwhile, across the Channel, workers were already assembling the Eiffel Tower, which had been under construction since 1887 and was completed in March 1889. While London police were hunting one of history’s most notorious unidentified killers, the Eiffel Tower was literally rising over Paris.The post 15 Things That Really Existed at the Same Time, Even if it Feels Impossible appeared first on Den of Geek.