People Explain Which Things Are Far Older Than Folks May Think

I always enjoyed history. Though I enjoyed anything that wasn't math.

older than bread...

"Beer is thought to be older than bread. It's much easier to fill a jar with wheat and water, let it ferment, and brew beer than it is to grind grain, mix it, and bake it."

4dseeall

"sparkling water"

"The first carbonated drink to be sold to the public was invented by Swiss watchmaker and amateur scientist J. J. Schweppe in 1783, who sold his delicious 'sparkling water' to thirsty customers in Geneva. In just seven years, he was doing business so fast that he moved the factory to London and introduced a new flavor, sparkling lemon, to stand out from competitors who were trying to imitate his drink."

DarkSyrupp

Finger Recognition

"Touch screens. We think they're one of the main defining features of modern technology since they only really got big in the late 2000s/early 2010s, but they were actually invented 55 years ago in 1965. It's kind of crazy to think about, but while most of our grandparents were getting rid of their black and white TVs, researchers already had touchscreen devices in the labs."

"It wasn't really until the 80s that it really got good, but by 90s it was easily sophisticated technology. In fact, Microsoft even had a Windows XP tablet out by 2001 that had seriously good finger/stylus recognition, but it didn't really pick up until smartphones became a thing a decade later."

"You could also consider the magnetic drawing board to be a touch screen since it more or less has a stylus and surface for you to draw on, but that was actually invented later than the touch screen in 1974!"

Noisetorm_

1888

"National Geographic was founded in 1888."

limgly

"Yes! I looked through the very first national geographic book and compared it to their most recent magazine and it was INSANE. Back then there were little to no pictures and it was so interesting how they conducted their experiments."

kathypop4

"This is the only one that doesn't surprise me. Anyone that has read any sign while hiking pretty much anywhere, or read any history books involving turn of the century exploring around 1900, has read about the early National Geographic society and its role in hiking/exploring."

SMcArthur

Jaws is Elderly

"Sharks. As a species they're older than the rings of Saturn."

scannon

"Just Google it really quick. LOL. Rings of Saturn are 10 to 100 million years old whereas we have found shark scales dating back 450 million years ago. Pretty crazy stuff!"

Calfredie01

Sharks are how old? I mean... really?

Time after Time

"Wristwatches. Queen Elizabeth I got one in 1571."

Aqquila89

"Just going to drop this here. We had alarm clocks that rowed themselves down a table and shot off mini cannons in the 1500s."

ineedanewaccountpls

semi-functioning...

"The electric car. What is likely the first human-carrying electric vehicle with its own power source was tested along a Paris street in April 1881 by French inventor Gustave Trouvé. The first crude electric car was built in the 1830s but it was essentially a semi-functioning model."

"The electric car was a direct competitor to gasoline powered vehicles until the 1920s when roads got better, people started driving further than the range of an electric car, and the world started finding major oil reserves."

Buwaro

The Fix

"Brain Surgery In 1997, archaeologists discovered an ancient tomb in the French village of Ensisheim from 5,000 BC, which contained the decomposing body of a 50-year-old man with holes in his skull. After a thorough examination, it was determined that the holes, located near the frontal lobe, were caused by a type of surgery, not by forced trauma, and the operation appears to have been successful because the wounds healed before the patient's death. To this day, however, researchers cannot say for sure what exactly the surgery was trying to fix."

REDDIT

Cato the Elder

"The sentiment that modern society is degenerate and that the youth are to blame is, iirc, one of the oldest things we have written down. That I can remember off the top of my head, Cato the Elder complained that the younger generations were becoming too greek, and Socrates used to complain that the younger generations were ruining their brains by writing instead of memorising information. There are far more older examples, but those are the oldest I remember (maybe Socrates was onto something)."

CountPeter

Jolly Good

"I was really surprised to discover when Oxford university was founded. They don’t know the year for sure, but they know there was definitely teaching going on there in 1096."

princess_mothership

I feel ready for 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?'"