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

Elizabeth II, the present Queen of the United Kingdom, was born on 21 April 1926. Just two months later in the same year, June 1, 1926, the iconic American actress and model, Marilyn Monroe was born. (1,2)

14 The moon landing was only sixty-six years after the first manned aircraft flight.

At 10:35 a.m. on December 17, 1903, Wilbur Wright released the restraining wire and his brother Orville Wright left the ground on their aircraft. The flight lasted twelve seconds and covered a distance of 120 feet, becoming the first manned aircraft flight.

Just sixty-six years later on July 20, 1969, Apollo II landed on the surface of the moon at 20:17:40 UTC. Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin became the first person to step on the surface of the moon. It’s wonderful how, within a lifetime, mankind went from not having flight technology to sending men 239,000 miles from the Earth. (1,2)

15 The Republic of Venice existed at the same time as the United States, at least for the first twenty-one years of the formation of the USA.

The U.S.A. was formed on July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. The Republic of Venice witnessed the formation of the U.S.A. and its first twenty-one years. But on April 18, 1797, France and Austria partitioned and dissolved the Republic of Venice ending its 1100 year history as a sovereign nation.(1,2)

16 The Ottoman Empire collapsed two years after the U.S. commissioned its first aircraft carrier.

The USS Langley (CV-1/AV-3) was the United States Navy’s first aircraft carrier. It had been converted in 1920 from the collier USS Jupiter. At that time, the Ottoman Empire still existed but was also gradually declining. The sultanate was abolished on 1 November 1922. The last sultan of the Empire, Mehmed VI, left the country on 17 November 1922. (1,2)

17 The equals sign was first invented in 1557 by Robert Recorde, just seven years before Galileo was born.

The famous Italian astronomer and physicist, Galileo Galilei, was born on 15 February 1564. Surprisingly, the symbol “is equal to” was first used only seven years before his birth. It was invented by a  Welshman named Robert Recorde who was also the man who first introduced algebra to England. While writing his book, The Whetstone of Witte, he was tired of having to write ‘is equal to’ over and over again. So, he settled on parallel lines as a perfect symbol for equality, and thus the “equal to” symbol was born. (1,2)

18 Adolf Hitler, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Tito, Sigmund Freud, and Joseph Stalin all lived in Vienna in January 1913.

More than a century ago, a section of Vienna played host to Adolf Hitler, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Tito, Sigmund Freud, and Joseph Stalin. In 1913 the two revolutionaries, Stalin and Trotsky, were on the run and were residing in Vienna. Sigmund Freud was a well-established psychoanalyst who was living and practising on the city’s Berggasse. At the same time, the young Marshal Tito was working at the Daimler automobile factory in Wiener Neustadt, a town south of Vienna.

Then there was the twenty-four-year-old from the north-west of Austria whose dreams of studying painting at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts had been twice dashed. So, he was lodged in a doss-house in Meldermannstrasse near the Danube and whom later the world came to know as Adolf Hitler. (source)

19. Orville Wright, one of the Wright brothers, died when Neil Armstrong was eighteen years old.

Orville Wright, one of the Wright brothers who piloted the first manned aircraft flight, died on January 30, 1948, due to a heart attack. At the time of his death, Neil Armstrong was eighteen years old. Twenty-one years later he became the first man to step on the surface of moon. (1,2)

20 Oxford University is older than Machu Picchu.

Oxford University located in Oxford, England is one of the oldest universities in the English-speaking world. It has no known date of foundation, but there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096 making it the world’s second-oldest university in continuous operation.

Oxford University is even older than Machu Pichu, a 15th-century Inca citadel situated on a mountain ridge 7,970 feet above sea level. It is located in Peru above the Sacred Valley. (1,2)

21 Irish Neolithic burial sites, such as Newgrange, predate the Egyptian Pyramids by about 500 years.

When we think about ancient structures, Egyptian pyramids automatically come to mind. The earliest known Egyptian pyramids are found at Saqqara, north-west of Memphis. The earliest among these is the Pyramid of Djoser which was constructed between 2630 BC and 2611 BC.

But there are prehistoric monuments which were constructed even before the pyramid. These are the Irish Neolithic burial sites such as Newgrange. Newgrange was built during the Neolithic period, around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. (1,2)

22 The Founding Fathers of America didn’t know about dinosaurs because science didn’t prove the existence of dinosaurs until 1841.

The first person to describe a dinosaur in a scientific journal was the Rev. William Buckland a professor of geology at Oxford. But at that time there was no term coined for these “great fossil lizards”. The term “dinosaur” was coined in 1842 by the English palaeontologist Richard Owen, and hence the world woke up to a new extinct creature.

Abraham Lincon was in his thirties when this term was coined. Before this time, he along with the founding fathers of the United States of America and the rest of the world were oblivious to the existence a creature which roamed the earth millions of years ago. (source)

23 France was still using the guillotine when the first Star Wars came out.

Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise. The franchise began in 1977 with the release of the film Star Wars. On the other side of the Atlantic, France was still using the guillotine as their official method of execution. France stopped using the guillotine on September 11, 1977, the same day Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope celebrated its French premiere. (1,2,3)

24 Alaska was sold to the U.S. the same year Canada became a nation.

On March 30, 1867, Secretary of State William Seward agreed to a proposal from the Russian minister in Washington, Edouard de Stoeckl, to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million. The Senate approved the treaty of purchase on April 9th. President Andrew Johnson signed the treaty on May 28th, and Alaska was formally transferred to the United States on October 18, 1867.

Three months later on July 1, 18, 7 the Constitution Act officially proclaimed the Canadian Confederation. On that day Canada became a nation, initially with four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. (1,2)