Which came first? A timeline quiz
Is the fax older than the telephone? Did the tin can arrive before the can opener? Eight questions about the order of history, with answers that tend to surprise.
Our mental timeline is rarely tidy. Some inventions are far older than we assume, and some eras are far closer to us than they feel. This quiz offers eight comparisons, each asking a single question: which one came first?
All of them are well documented by historians and archaeologists. Even so, intuition gets most of them wrong — which is exactly what makes it fun.
Which was patented first: the working principle of the fax machine, or the telephone?
Which is older: the tin can, or the can opener?
When the Great Pyramid of Giza was built, about 4,500 years ago, were mammoths still alive somewhere on Earth?
Which is older: Göbeklitepe in southeastern Türkiye, or Stonehenge in England?
Which came first: teaching at the University of Oxford, or the founding of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan?
Which was domesticated first, the dog or the cat?
Which gap is longer: the one between Stegosaurus and T. rex, or the one between T. rex and today?
Was Cleopatra closer in time to the building of the Great Pyramid, or to the first human steps on the Moon?
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