Which came first? 10 pairs that trip almost everyone up
Nokia or the telephone? Nintendo or the airplane? Ten history pairs where your gut says one thing and the dates say another.
You don't need to know exact years to be good at history. Mostly you need a feel for what came before what. And that feel is surprisingly easy to fool, because things that seem modern can be very old, and things that seem ancient can be surprisingly recent.
These ten pairs come from the card deck of our timeline game Anno, which has 1,509 real moments with checked dates. For each pair, decide which came first, then open the answer.
Each card has a specific kind of date: when something was invented, founded, opened, released and so on. That matters for a couple of these.
1. The telephone or Nokia?
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Nokia, founded in 1865. The telephone was invented in 1876, eleven years later. Nokia started out as a paper mill in Finland, long before it made phones.
2. Email or Star Wars?
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Email, invented in 1971. Star Wars came out in 1977. People were sending email six years before Luke Skywalker first appeared on screen.
3. Neuschwanstein Castle or the light bulb?
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The light bulb, invented in 1879. Neuschwanstein, the fairy-tale castle in the Bavarian Alps, opened in 1886. It looks medieval, but it's younger than electric light.
4. The airplane or Nintendo?
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Nintendo, founded in 1889. The first powered flight was in 1903. Nintendo began by making playing cards, more than a decade before anyone flew.
5. SpaceX or Facebook?
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SpaceX, founded in 2002. Facebook followed in 2004. The rocket company is two years older than the social network.
6. The Moon landing or pickleball?
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Pickleball, invented in 1965. Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in 1969. The sport that feels like a recent craze is older than the Moon landing.
7. The piano or Newton's Principia?
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Newton's Principia, published in 1687. The piano was invented around 1700. Newton set out the laws of motion and gravity before anyone had played a piano.
8. IKEA or the microwave oven?
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IKEA, founded in 1943. The microwave oven was invented in 1945, discovered by accident when a chocolate bar melted in an engineer's pocket.
9. Apple or the discovery of the Terracotta Army?
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The Terracotta Army, discovered in 1974 by farmers digging a well in China. Apple was founded in 1976. The army itself is over 2,000 years old, but nobody knew it was there until two years before Apple existed.
10. Roblox or Avatar?
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Roblox, released in 2006. James Cameron's Avatar came out in 2009. The game many think of as new is older than the film.
How did you do?
- 9-10: You have an unusually good internal timeline.
- 6-8: Good going. The castle and the pickleball are the sneaky ones.
- 3-5: Normal. Your gut is fooled by how old things look.
- 0-2: Congratulations, you're exactly who these were written for.
Play the full version
Anno is this, as a game. Every card is a real moment with a hidden year, and you place it before or after the cards already on your timeline. Get it right and it stays, and the longer your line gets, the tighter the gaps. Play with a TV and phones for up to 12 people, solo with three lives, or try the daily timeline: eight cards, the same for everyone today.