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Article created by: Ilona Baliūnaitė

History used to be one of my favorite subjects back in school and I still have a soft spot for it to this very day—you can probably see that from the history books I’ve got in my personal library in-between my favorite fantasy novels. So I know just how weird the subject can get if you switch up your perspective even a tiny bit. That’s exactly what reporter and novelist Zack Budryk helped internet users do with his recent viral thread on Twitter.

Zack inspired his followers to share some mindblowing historical overlaps that might just make you see the world in an entirely different light… or give you a small existential crisis. My personal favorite? Hands down, the fact that a samurai could have technically sent a fax to US president Abraham Lincoln. Now that’s the kind of real-life lore that could lead to the creation of a mini-series about Lincoln fighting steampunk fax machines alongside his samurai allies. Netflix, I hope you’re taking notes!

We’ve collected some of the coolest tweets about history for you to enjoy, dear Pandas. Go on, have a read, upvote the posts that you found to be the most interesting, and let us know if you’ve got any unusual historical overlaps in mind as well.

Bored Panda reached out to Joseph M. Pierre, a professor of psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, as well as to the moderator team at the r/AskHistorians subreddit with a few questions about finding reliable information, why some time periods have far more conspiracy theories associated with them than others, as well as how to develop the critical thinking skills needed to sift through (un)trustworthy sources. They were kind enough to answer my queries.

“Unless you have a lot of spare time on your hands it’s not going to be possible to check every historical claim you see on the internet. Even then, a lot of knowledge is locked in academic libraries and behind paywalls, so can be impossible to access anyway. When looking at ‘mindblowing’ facts on the internet a healthy sense of skepticism is essential—as is looking at the source. Is this being claimed by Twitter user @fakefacts420 or a Professor of History at the University of Oxford? Are you reading this on a university website or an email your nan has forwarded you?” one of the moderators told Bored Panda.

They suggested that you start off by checking sites such as AskHistorians or Snopes when doing research about historical topics. “While you might not have time to chase down historical references in the archives, there are many sites who have detailed debunkings of common historical myths and misconceptions. Checking there is always a good start,” the AskHistorians moderator said.