16 Facts That Will Make You Feel Really Old

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Feeling old just because you turned 22? “Ermagerd, I don’t have an historic birthday to look forward to anymore. I’m sooooo old.” Or that time you turned 25? “Woah. I’ve been alive for a quarter of a century. I’m so old.” God forbid if you’ve ever turned 30.

It seems like the newest genre of writing that’s all the rage with the kids is “X amount of things that will make you feel old.” The articles are nothing more than “Pop culture moment from 20 years ago was 20 years ago.” A person reads it and says, “20 years ago, I was 3-years-old! This is crazy! Where did my life go; I’m sooooo old.”

Below are 16 moments that will really make you feel old.

1. Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-Two. Whoa! That’s old. And we thought the Earth was flat back then.

2. Benjamin Franklin developed bifocals in 1784. Before that, you couldn’t see up close and at a distance with only one pair of glasses.

3. George Washington became the first President in 1789. Can you believe we used to not have a President? What did we do when we needed laws?

4. The cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney in 1794. Cotton picking was never the same again.

5. The first typewriter was developed in 1829. The first Thought Catalog post was posted shortly thereafter.

6. Milk wasn’t able to be pasteurized until 1856. What would we have done without Louis Pasteur? We wouldn’t be enjoying as much milk, that’s for darn sure.

7. Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Before that, owning another dude was okay.

8. The first flight happened in 1903. And because the Wright Brothers did that, we can now get to where we need to go in a timely manner.

9. Albert Einstein came up with his Theory of Relativity in 1905. And, uh… That did whatever it did…

10. Henry Ford began rolling the Model T off of the assembly line all the way back in 1908.

11. World War I started in 1914. Spoiler alert: the good guys won.

12. The first television was available for public consumption in 1927. Odd coincidence: that’s also the year that society started to die a little on the inside.

13. If you thought the first World War was crazy, you should read about the second one. It began in 1939.

14. John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Some controversy ensued.

15. The Beatles released their “Revolver” album in 1966. It’s ranked number 3 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

16. The first Woodstock music festival was in 1969. Jimi Hendrix was there. And some other people.

Feel old yet? No? Well, these aren’t actually supposed to make you feel old upon closer inspection. These are just moments in time that happened. Just like every single one of those “Facts to make you feel old” lists.

featured image – Flickr / macprohawaii