As adults, a lot of what we learned in history class has disappeared into the ether, or has become blurry, muddled by our very own hectic timeline. To make things more complicated, we learn about the past in a way that is very much centered on the places we’ve grown up in and call home. This type of tunnel vision can make the overlapping of eras seem pretty damn unbelievable. For example, unless you’ve seen or read The Last Samurai, it may seem surprising that samurai were around during the Civil War. Or that Betty White is older than Anne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr. would be today. If these mindboggling truths interest you, then this thread from Zach Budryk is a goldmine of quick history lessons. We’ve put together some of the facts that we found most interesting, but if you want more the thread is absolutely brimming with entertaining information.