Older Than They Think/Other Media: Difference between revisions

* When Dubreq (makers of the Stylophone) introduced the Super Stylophone circa 1971, it flopped (as could have been predicted, since it lacked both the qualities which made the original such a hit -- cheapness and simplicity). So they withdrew it, only to reintroduce it four years later as a "new hi-fi synthesiser" -- a description almost hilariously wrong on all three counts, since "hi-fi" is not applicable to non-imitative sound ''generation'', and it was a divider organ, not a synth.

* Adam from ''[[Myth Busters]]'' is known for popularizing the line "I reject your reality, and substitute my own", even to the point of wearing a T-Shirt reading that (a custom-made gift from a fan in Romania) on the show. However, the line actually comes from the 1985 Richard Moll sci-fi horror movie ''The Dungeonmaster''. This line is the only good thing to come from it.

** And this one has seem someone claim that "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" originate from [[Marvel Comics]].

*** One compilation of ''[[War Craft]] 3'' [[Stop Poking Me|pissed-off quotes]] ended by mocking two people who had emailed him with those "citations".

*** Curiously, modern evolution is also [[Newer Than They Think]], as it wasn't until the early 20th century that anyone connected Darwin's evolution with Mendel's work on heredity. Before that, the biggest flaw in evolutionary theory was the lack of a mechanism to pass down traits in the manner Darwin specified, and Mendel solved that problem.

* The idea of "glasnost", namely partially opening up a system to protect its ultimate survival, predates Gorbachev by over a century.

* The concept of "X" as an abbreviation for Christ (e.g. "Xmas") is [[Older Than Feudalism]], dating from the Roman persecutions of early Christians who'd use the Greek letter χ (chi), the first letter of Christ written in Greek, as code.

* The traditional concern about Christmas becoming too "commercialized" is literally as old as the modern conception of the holiday itself. For instance, Harriet Beecher Stowe complained about as much in her 1850 book, ''The First Christmas in New England''.

** The fractional point is itself an example of this trope. Although not introduced to the decimal system until the 17th century, the ancient Babylonians (who had a sexagesimal -- base 60 -- system which was positional (like the decimal system, unlike the Roman system) and thus used 60 "digit" symbols valued 0 to 59) had a fractional point following which symbols represented 60ths, 3600ths and so on.

* What is usually called the "Christian" calendar was introduced, in substantially its present form, in 45BC -- some 80 years before the birth of Christianity.

* Similar to the above, while the the seven-day week gets a [[Just So Story]] in [[The Bible]], it actually predates Judaism. It comes from early pagan religions, and each day is devoted to one of the seven celestial objects visible with the naked eye - the sun, moon, and five planets. This is most evident in the English names for the first two - '''Sun'''day and '''Mo(o)n'''day (the others come from the names of pagan gods - Tuesday is "Tyr's Day", Wednesday is "Woden's Day", etc.). Many scholars think that the reason Christians moved their sabbath from Saturday to Sunday is that most Romans were sun-worshipers, and thus worshiped on Sun Day, and Constantine encouraged Christians to worship on the same day as their neighbors to seem less like outsiders.

* Shopping malls were the product of 50s American suburban consumerism, right? Providence, Rhode Island opened an indoor shopping center called the Westminster Arcade in 1828. Cleveland, Ohio opened its own Arcade in 1890 (here's what it looked like [http://www.shorpy.com/node/7402 in 1901]), and even before them indoor markets were built in England and Russia.

* If you ask someone when was color photography invented, a typical answer would be something like "I don't know, maybe in the 50's?" The answer would be correct, except that it refers to the wrong century. Color photography was first developed in the 1850's.

* The word "earthling" was first used in 1595.

* Supercenter stores (discount department store/supermarket combinations). Although Walmart started opening Supercenters in 1990 (after a false start in 1987), the concept actually dates back to Meijer in 1962 (incidentally, the same year that the first Walmart, Kmart, Target and [[Follow the Leader|many competitors thereof]] opened).

* [[Knight in Shining Armor|Cataphracts]] were sporting shiny armor waaay before anyone in Europe had the idea and most certainly [[Follow the Leader|copied it.]]

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[[Category:Older Than They Think]]