I Have A Brain The Size Of A Peanut, So My Mind Was Totally Blown After Seeing These 60 Absolutely Fascinating Pictures For The Very First Time Last Month
1.This is how incredibly small a hummingbird feather is:
We love to see a tiny feather.
2.This is a REAL picture of the moon crossing in front of the Earth:
The image was taken by the DSCOVR spacecraft about a million miles away from Earth.
3.This is what Albert Einstein's desk looked like the day he died:
Specifically on April 18, 1955. Would you expect anything else besides this for Einstein's desk?
4.This is the safety net that was installed under the Golden Gate Bridge during its construction in the 1930s. The net saved 19 people through the duration of the work:
The 19 men who were saved by the net became known as the "Halfway to Hell Club."
5.This isn't Photoshop — that giant thing in the distance is the Sendai Daikannon, the fifth-tallest statue in the world:
Formerly the tallest statue in the world, the 300-foot-tall statue depicts the goddess of mercy.
6.Speaking of big, giant things, this is the Quetzalcoatlus, the largest flying creature to have ever existed:
It had a wingspan of up to 40 feet and is now going to haunt my dreams.
7.And this is how big a blue whale's heart is compared with a human being:
I should add that this is an actual blue whale's heart that has been preserved. The hearts themselves can weigh up to 400 pounds.
8.This was the menu served to the first-class passengers aboard the Titanic on the day the ship sank:
Put another way, that dinner was the last dinner a whole lot of people ever ate.
9.This picture, taken in 1925, shows the passengers on an Imperial Airways flight watching one of the first in-flight movies ever:
They're watching a silent film called The Lost World. What do we think of that plane's cabin? Better or worse than today's economy?
10.These are the astronauts NASA is sending to the moon in 2024, the first time anyone will have been to the moon in over 50 years:
The astronauts will perform a lunar flyby next November. You can read more about the mission and the people involved here.
11.Speaking of which, this is Harrison Schmitt, one of four living men to have set foot on the moon's surface, and the one who did it most recently:
Schmitt was part of the 1972 Apollo 17 mission and an absolute pro at the space selfie.
Here's another picture of Schmitt walking on the moon:
Space, folks. It's vast.
12.Fire hydrants are LOOOOOONG:
13.One of the more creative ways bootleggers would hide alcohol during Prohibition was inside trucks lined with wood, complete with a tiny trapdoor:
Would love to take a spin in the fake-wood truck.
14.This is what the rabies vaccine looks like. It's purple!
Gotta be the most beautiful vaccine out there, right? Let me know in the comments what you think the most aesthetically pleasing vaccine is.
15.This is Rumeysa Gelgi, the tallest woman in the world:
This picture was taken when she was 17 years old.
She stands just over 7' tall and has to travel like this when flying on an airplane:
This is what one of her hands looks like compared to a much smaller person's hand:
Shoutout to Rumeysa.
16.This is what the Eiffel Tower looked like while it was under construction:
Less of a tower and more of a stump.
17.This is what a counterfeit $10 looks like compared to a real one:
Can you tell which is which?
18.This is Emma Morano, the last living person to have been born in the 1800s:
Emma, born in 1899, died at the age of 117 in 2017 after a short reign as the oldest person alive. She's also, obviously, the last person to have lived in three different centuries.
19.This X-ray, taken by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, is the first X-ray ever:
Well, one of the first. It's of his wife's hand.
20.This is allegedly the death mask of William Shakespeare:
The mask itself was made in 1616, the same year Shakespeare died, and was discovered in 1849. There's a whole lot of controversy whether it's Bill or not.
While we're on the subject, this is the death mask of Ludwig van Beethoven:
That we are sure of.
21.This is what a hairless raccoon looks like:
I still love it. Come here, my friend.
22.This is what a baby pigeon looks like:
Ugly as all hell. Ever wonder why you never see a baby pigeon? That's because they don't leave the nest until they're basically full grown.
23.This is a statue of Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead, that was found inside the pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb:
Which makes it over 3,000 years old.
24.On Feb. 7, 1984, Bruce McCandless II performed the first-ever untethered space walk, and folks, it looks absolutely terrifying:
He used a jet-propelled backpack to maneuver around. It was apparently very, very cold.
25.Before you could just put everything into the Notes app on your iPhone, some people used metal grocery lists to do their shopping:
What are you picking up from the store? Gotta be some "catsup" and "vegetable" for me.
26.This behemoth is the world's largest telescope, the FAST telescope located in China:
That, my friends...that's a big satellite. Dave Matthews would be proud.
27.These are the contestants in the 1930 Miss Lovely Eyes beauty pageant, a contest where woman had to wear an absolutely terrifying mask so that only her eyes were visible:
Yet another thing we should just leave in the past.
28.The Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 was the deadliest earthquake in US history, resulting in the deaths of over 3,000 people. In the aftermath of the disaster, you could literally see where the Earth split along the San Andreas Fault:
Awful, awful stuff.
29.Some chickens lay eggs with white yolks:
It all depends on what you feed a chicken.
30.This is what a $1,000 bill looks like:
It was first put into circulation in 1928. That's Grover Cleveland's big mug on the front.
31.In 1731, King Frederick I of Sweden was gifted with a lion that, after its death, he sent to be stuffed and preserved. The only issue was that the people doing the taxidermy had never actually seen a lion. This, the Lion of Gripsholm Castle, is the finished product:
Juuuuuust a bit off.
32.Speaking of terrible taxidermy and fossil reconstruction, this is the Magdeburg Unicorn, quite possibly the worst fossil reconstruction ever:
It was probably done by Otto von Guericke, who thought he had found the remains of a unicorn. Turns out he'd just mixed and matched the bones of a rhinoceros, a mammoth, and a narwhal.
33.This is the pistol Gavrilo Princip used to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand and set off World War I:
This pistol led to the deaths of over 16 million people.
34.This colorized picture of Ramses II's Great Temple at Abu Simbel in Egypt, taken circa 1865, shows just how enormous the colossal statues in front of the entrance are:
From Wonders of the Past, Volume II, 1933–34.
Here's another angle:
They're big!
35.While we're on the subject of incredible Egyptian art, this is a 3,000-year-old ancient Egyptian painter's palette, complete with six different colors:
It's from the reign of Amenhotep III, circa 1390 BCE. Let's get some love for Queen Tiye in the comments.
36.This is Steven Spielberg on top of Bruce, the animatronic shark that, well, played Jaws in Jaws:
And now I'm realizing why the shark in Finding Nemo was named what it was.
37.Cars in Canada's Northwest Territories have polar bear license plates:
Wow. Just...wow. The world is an incredible place.
38.On May 14, 1999, crowds gathered in New York's Times Square to watch the final episode of Seinfeld:
All of human history led to this magical moment.
39.This picture, taken in 1946, is one of the first images of Earth ever taken from space:
It was captured from a 35-millimeter camera attached to a V-2 rocket.
40.You're, of course, familiar with Mahatma Gandhi...
But have you ever seen a picture of him as a young man? Here's Gandhi some time in the late 1800s:
Looking sharp, Mahatma.
41.Black tomatoes exist:
It's a strain called "black beauty" and is apparently "rich, smooth, and savory with earthy tones." Neat!
42.In 1925, Hugo Gernsback invented "The Isolator," a helmet designed to completely block out any and all distractions:
As you can see, it also provided oxygen to the wearer. I wonder why this didn't take off?
43.This is how much meat one single cow produces:
Lots and lots of ground beef.
44.Do not adjust your mobile phone. Avocados can actually be this huge:
This type of avo is a Yucatan butter avocado. Apparently, it tastes "weirdly watery and green." Not great, folks.
45.This is the Dynasphere, a giant wheel vehicle invented by Dr. J. A. Purves that could go as a fast as 30 MPH:
Bring back the Dynasphere, I say. I wanna ride the wheel.
46.Cough medicine in the late 1800s was absolutely wild:
Gotta get some of this going at my next Super Bowl party.
47.This is what a rip current looks like:
Terrifying stuff.
48.This is how big a Ford F-650 truck is compared to a typical sized person:
I don't say this lightly, but that, my friends...that's a big truck.
49.Emu eggs are absolutely beautiful:
Like something Brendan Fraser would need to protect from thieves in 1998.
50.And this is a pamphlet of marriage advice given to young couples from 1891:
What's your favorite piece of advice? I feel like more people need to be told not to marry a clown.
51.This is how big the scoreboard at the Denver Broncos' football stadium is:
So you can finally see what Russell Wilson looks like as a 90-foot giant.
And this is how huge the jumbotron at AT&T Stadium is:
So you can get your heart torn out by the Cowboys in giganto-vision.
52.This is what a peeled coconut looks like:
I wish to eat it.
53.Babies used to travel up with the luggage on planes:
Looks totally fine to me:
Yup, nothin' to see here. Out of sight, out of mind.
54.There are globes that also show elevation:
Ain't that neat.
55.That little black dot is Mercury passing in front of the sun:
Sun big, Mercury small.
56.White cucumbers exist:
There will be no joking about this picture in the comments.
57.Both seals and sea lions have nails:
They use them for grooming and, yes, they need to be cut if they get too long.
58.Someone had to hand-carve all of the presidents' eyes on Mount Rushmore:
My palms are sweaty just looking at this picture.
59.This is the View Phone, a video phone developed by Toshiba in 1964 that allowed for real-time proto-FaceTiming:
Imagine FaceTiming Lyndon Baines Johnson...the mind reels.
60.And finally, on a lighter note, this is what the Taco Bell menu looked like in the early 1980s:
What are we ordering, folks? Anyone for the burger?
