Have you ever heard someone say they were having an “existential crisis?” Have you ever had one yourself?
If so, you know it basically means when you learn something or hear something that makes it seem that the fabric of the universe as you understood it starts to (metaphorically) pull apart, and you’re forced to come to grips with a whole new way of seeing the world.
It might sound dramatic, but it happens to all of us at one time or another – and these 26 historical perspectives caused these people to question everything.
First… here’s the tweet that kicked it all off…
25. This one never seems like it could be right.
And yet, here we are.
https://twitter.com/seefloor/status/1458250435245092868
24. Seven years before Anne Frank and MLK.
May she please live forever.
And Betty White was born seven years earlier.
— Matt (@MatthewIgnatius) November 10, 2021
23. Oh, those Frenchies.
They’re just always so cheeky.
Bonus: France conducted its last state guillotining the year “Star Wars” was released
— Zack Budryk (@BudrykZack) November 10, 2021
22. I bet he had other good stories, too.
I hope someone in his family wrote them down.
For me, it was watching video of a man who remembered seeing Lincoln get shot. He was a small boy at the time, and a very old man on the video clip, which itself was old. Get any of us can go to it on YouTube and find it. Not as long ago as we think.
— Lauren (@OhNolaNola) November 11, 2021
21. So much changed in just a few years.
Pretty wild to think about, right?
I have a smallpox vaccine scar & you don’t. They stopped giving smallpox vaccines in the mid-1970s & it was declared eradicated in May, 1980. One of the deadliest & most ancient human diseases – they’ve found smallpox scars on Egyptian mummies – was eradicated thanks to vaccines.
— Laura Chapin (@LauraChapin) November 11, 2021
20. And she’s never faced any consequences.
That’s the real eye-opener here.
The woman Emmitt Till was accused of “whistling at” is still alive at 87ish and counting… Till would’ve been 80(!) in 2021, and there are several famous Black people living that are older than that
Also he was only 14!
— PJ, Fan of a Team at Crypto dot Com Arena (@PhillyBeach93) November 11, 2021
19. I had no idea you could have faxed Lincoln.
Nevermind the rest of it.
— Bexistential Dread (@grayandrainbows) November 11, 2021
18. Your parents remember it.
Trust me on this, millennials, and ask.
My parents were born before segregation ended but aren’t yet old enough to retire.
— CeeDee Snuts (@HowBoutDemOsHon) November 10, 2021
17. It’s been a college for a really long time.
Like…a really long time. And the Inca thing? WHAT?
The University of Oxford is older than the Inca Empire. So much older that you can fit the entirety of the history of the US from Declaration of Independence to present with room to spare.
— Chad Walters (@ChadWaIters) November 10, 2021
16. To think they all existed together.
I don’t know who seems like the most odd person out.
Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler were born in the same year (1889), which is the same year the Eiffel Tower was inaugurated and Van Gogh painted ‘Starry Night’.
— opaleye (@opaleyedragon) November 10, 2021
15. Older than math.
Can you even imagine?
Speaking of Universities, for the first few years after Harvard was founded, it didn’t teach calculus because calculus hadn’t been invented yet.
— State Song Threader (@sayer_of_stuff) November 11, 2021
14. If only Marilyn were alive today.
I have a feeling she would have done great things.
Salvador Dali died the same year Daniel Radcliffe was born (1989), and Marilyn Monroe shares a birth year with Queen Elizabeth (1926)
— opaleye (@opaleyedragon) November 10, 2021
13. This is not ancient history.
We’ve seriously got to stop treating it like it is.
That Matilda McCrear, the last known survivor of the last known slave ship to traffic African captives to America, died in 1940.
(🔗https://t.co/xyBprjnhcc)And that Peter Mills, the last known surviving American born into legal slavery, died in 1972.
(🔗https://t.co/c2lrb8YioR) pic.twitter.com/Mvyawnm47y— Jonathan Fowler 🇺🇳 (@UN_JWFOWLER) November 11, 2021
12. Sometimes things don’t have to make sense.
You just have to accept that they are.
I’m confused about the planets fitting one
— L3X1 “saftey sconde” (@enL3X1) November 11, 2021
11. This one really weirds me out.
Although obviously vampires are real.
On a similar note, Dracula was written in 1897. Due to the year it takes place, Count Dracula could’ve theoretically worn Levi’s jeans, consumed coca-cola, and owned a Nintendo product.
— dick genital 🇵🇸 (@dick_genital) November 11, 2021
10. What a blessing to know him.
May you all get to listen to your grandparents’ story.
My grandfather was born a few months before the Wright Bros. flew and watched the moon landing with me.
— {…} Ray Mullins—IBM Z Champion 🦃💉💉💉 (@zarchasmpgmr) November 11, 2021
9. What did they eat?
What did they run on? WHAT?
The dinosaurs all died 10 million years before grass even existed pic.twitter.com/jf5A37RNZM
— Tim Doran (@tuggyt) November 11, 2021
8. We all have the same fears.
The world just keeps turning and turning.
My grandpa moved to Oklahoma in a covered wagon, & saw the moon landing, personal computers and cell phones. He commented on that as we watched my kids play in his sprinkler, & he said he feared for what they would see.
I think about that now, watching my grandkids play.
— Jeff Lane (@J_B_Lane) November 11, 2021
7. Why does this make me so angry?
Is that an appropriate reaction?
If Elon Musk didn’t earn another penny and decided to give away $1M a day, it would take him nearly 872 years to go broke.
— John Houck (@Houckadoodledoo) November 11, 2021
6. It’s definitely not history to her.
It’s personal, as it should be.
I’m only 47. My great-grandfather (just one great) was born enslaved, son of his master, on a Mississippi plantation.
— Kadida Kenner (@kadidakenner) November 11, 2021
5. More stuff that’s not really ancient history.
America is such a little baby, really.
The last person to receive the American Civil War pension died in 2020. Born in 1930, she was the daughter of someone born in 1846 who served in the war as a very young man.
— Cate (@CateIsMilesAway) November 11, 2021
4. The Founding Fathers weren’t aware of dinosaurs.
With the possible exception of Thomas Jefferson.
The Federalist Papers were published in 1787-88; Buckland’s discovery of Megalosaurus was in 1824 and Richard Owen’s publication classifying Dinosauria wasn’t until 1842.
— Hailly T.N. Korman (@HaillyKorman) November 11, 2021
3. And he’s still alive.
I can’t really wrap my mind around this.
Jimmy Carter was the first president born in a hospital.
— Tiffany Elliott (she/her) 📚🖊🎻🔥 (@TiffRichElliott) November 11, 2021
2. We’re all just pretending we’re fine.
It’s the state of the world these days.
Millions of Americans, like me, remember life before plastics, and we somehow allowed ourselves to be steered into the disposable society we live in now. Most of us don’t ever give it a second thought, or we pretend that it’s just fine like this.
— C.K. Numbers (@40_Waxx) November 11, 2021
1. I had to look this one up to double check.
It’s totally right, though.
Obama was the first President born under the same American flag he served as President under.
— @teddipasketty (@teddipasketty) November 11, 2021
I mean…I’m kind of having a bunch of existential crises myself now, so whoops.
If any of these really upset your worldview, tell us which one and why down in the comments!
