Humans have been creating stuff for thousands of years. Sometimes that stuff crumbles away into nothingness, but more often than not, it sticks around for future generations to discover. Take a trip back in time with these old-school discoveries.
Old walls.
As someone who lives in a 130-year-old house, I’d love to see what kind of ancient wallpaper patterns are lurking beneath the modern paint.
Multitasking.
This 300-year-old library tool allows researchers to keep a few books open at once. It’s kind of the old-school equivalent of having multiple monitors.
I think it’s all expired.
This seldom-used bathroom shows just how rarely it’s used with this glimpse into its medicine cabinet. All that stuff must be half a century old.
Old time Halloween.
These papier-mâché candy buckets from the 1940s show that Halloween used to have a different aesthetic, even if it was still all about accumulating candy.
Old doodle.
This little drawing was found inside a 17th century bible. No matter how much things change, humans will always love doodling in the margins.
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Old news.
A home reno revealed this 1953 newspaper under the floorboards. It’s pretty wild that, nearly seven decades later, Elizabeth II is still the reigning monarch.
Seems dangerous.
This is a collection of uranium glass from back in the day. Uranium glass is exactly what it sounds like: glass infused with just a bit of glowing radioactive goodness.
Feels like childhood.
This package has a bunch of vintage Sesame Street puffy stickers on the outside. I’d estimate these as being from the 1980s.
Before smartphones.
This handy little palm-sized gadget looks like it would have been pretty helpful for remembering shopping lists in the days before smart devices.
Valentines from another time.
This collection of framed Valentines was collected and put together by a second grader in 1924 or thereabouts.
Reduce, reuse, recycle.
This yogurt container from 1976 has been floating around in the ocean for more than four decades. It hasn’t degraded one bit.
Soviet cola.
Here’s a bottle of Pepsi dating back to Soviet Russia. It’s a nice collector piece, but I sure wouldn’t want to drink it.
Finally unsealed.
This time capsule is more than a hundred years old. It doesn’t look particularly exciting, but at least it finally got dug up.
When science was different.
This old chemistry book from 1897 presents the known elements as a list, because the standard table didn’t exist just yet.
When you forget for two decades.
“My mother found a 4th birthday card she forgot to pass on to me… I’m 26 now,” wrote somebody who just made five dollars.
Half and half.
This old German house has a consistent size from side to side, but if you look close, it’s apparent that each side has a different number of floors.
Well, answer the question!
I love this random little Easter egg. Seriously, what was wrong with the awesome 1995 bathroom reno this couple did?
Six centuries old.
This 600-year-old stained glass at a fortress in India looks quite different from the stained glass commonly found in the west.
Ominous.
This garage, dating back to 1927, has a big pit in the floor. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to investigate that either.
Frozen in time.
There’s nothing that screams “90s!” more than Nickelodeon’s slime. Here’s a perfect freeze frame of one of those iconic slimings.
