- [Narrator] The world is
changing faster than ever before thanks to the power of technology. A lot of perfectly normal everyday things used to look way different
than the versions that you and I are familiar with. History has also changed
some iconic things such that if you were to go back in time and see them as they were, you may not even recognize them. (upbeat music) (splattering) - Amazing! - [Narrator] Number 10, chickens. People have been messing
around with chickens in order to make them produce
more of their delicious meat since 2000 BC. According to Penn State
University research, all of our efforts can
be traced back to just four species of fowl from Southeast Asia. In the early 20th century, chicken meat was considered a delicacy, reserved for special
occasions and holidays only. Now, the modern meaty chicken weighs twice as much as the chickens
of just sixty years ago and we eat them regularly. 50 billion chickens are
raised annually today, 74% of which come from factory farms. Big money incentivized us to figure out how to make chickens as big as possible. Along with selective breeding
of certain preferable traits like larger breast muscles, today's chickens live in
controlled, confined environments to reduce their energy expenditure so that they can grow bigger
in a shorter period of time. A chicken from 1925
typically weighed 1.2 kilos before it was slaughtered
at the age of 112 days old. Today, they're slaughtered
at the age of 47 days, at a weight of 2.6 kilograms. Going even further back,
the wild chickens of old more closely resembled pheasants than they do the gigantic birds that give us fried goodness today. Honestly, those old ones don't even look like
they tasted that good. Number nine, pugs. Pugs have not always been the lovable, little squashed-face dogs
that we know them as today. Originally, they had pretty
normal looking dog snouts. They were originally bred for
the royal families of China, where they lived in luxury and were even guarded by soldiers. You can tell by looking
at old paintings of pugs that not only did they have bigger noses, but they had longer legs and
more slender bodies as well. Over time, they were selectively bred to have shorter, squished
faces, and stout little legs for aesthetic purposes. And in a way, you can't really blame them, since pugs are obviously
so much cuter today then they used to be. Unfortunately, pugs and
other similar breeds are susceptible to health problems today as a result of these
centuries of genetic meddling. Number eight, cameras. You probably have a camera in your pocket, or at least nearby, as
you're watching this video right at this very moment. You could even be watching
this video on something that can be used as a camera. George R. Lawrence would likely be shocked to hear about this, since back in his day, in the year 1900, his camera weighed 900 pounds and it took a team of 15
people just to move it around. This massive camera was created just so that it could take one picture that would capture an entire
train for the Alton Railway. It wasn't a really big train or anything. Cameras back then just weren't the best. You could pretty easily
take a picture of this train with your phone. Or, to really rub it into
George Lawrence's face, take it with this wafer-thin,
flexible sheet camera developed by engineers at
Columbia University last year. It captures better images
than that mammoth camera, and best of all doesn't need
a crew of 15 to operate it. Another piece of tech we take for granted that was just as gigantic
are vacuum cleaners. Here is the whimsically
named Siemens Dedusting Pump, which weighed 660 pounds, and ran on a one horsepower petrol motor. In 2017, we have hand-held vacuums, and ones that you can
just turn on, set down, and they'll clean your house for you. Number seven, swimsuits. In 2017, you've got plenty
of swimsuit options. We've even got solar powered bikinis that can charge your phone, which is both amazingly efficient but also seems like an
electrocution waiting to happen. If you were living in the
Victorian era, however, your selection would
be a lot more limited. Swimsuits used to be
full length wool dresses that women would swim around in, which doesn't sound comfortable
or effective at all. What immediately followed this trend was seemingly even worse: women would wear a jacket-like
top and then long trousers. It would be almost a century
until swimsuits evolved into something that actually
made sense for swimming. But if you lived back then, what else were you really
supposed to do for fun? Play hoop and stick? Die of typhoid? Number six, phone towers. Unless your paranoia causes you to believe that the CIA is spying on your every move, you probably don't even really
notice cell phone towers. They're so commonplace that
they've become inconspicuous, and in some areas they're
even disguised as trees so as to be even less noticeable. This was not always the case, however, as you can clearly tell
from this picture of The Old Stockholm Telephone Tower. It had four thousand wires connected to it that ran all over Stockholm, and locals said that it
actually blocked the sun. In the late 1800s, Sweden was the most telephone-dense country in the world, and Stockholm was the city with the most telephone
subscribers, with 4,832. Luckily for those of us who
enjoy not having the sun blocked by giant towers that look like they probably house a
mustache twirling villain, we figured out how to just put phonelines underground in 1913, so phone towers don't
look like this anymore. This also makes phonelines
way less susceptible to the elements. Number five, strollers. Strollers have gotten
a lot less interesting as time goes on. In 1733, William Kent, who
was a landscape architect, not a professional baby-thing
designer or something, created the first ever stroller. Before he came around, people just carried babies
in slings, or, you know, just had to carry them around manually. Kent invented the stroller for
the third Duke of Devonshire so that he could amuse his kids. It was not intended to
be pushed by a human, it was actually intended to
be pulled by a goat, a dog, or miniature horse like a
tiny carriage or chariot. I, for one, would love to
see this practice revived so that I could see little babies being pulled around by goats rather than pushed around
by women in jogging gear the next time I go to the park. But nowadays, strollers are pretty lame. You can get this 2017
Aston Martin one for $3,000 and there's not even
anything to attach a goat to. Number four, the blobfish. In 2013, the blobfish was voted the ugliest animal in the world by the Ugly Animal Preservation society. Clearly, these people were not aware that it actually looks totally different. Unlike the other things on this list, the blobfish didn't used to look different a long time ago, it looks different when it's where it's
actually supposed to be, 4,000 feet under water. The blobfish looks so weird
when it's out of water because it doesn't have a swim bladder, which is a special gas filled
organ that a lot of fish have that helps them control
their level of buoyancy. The blobfish also doesn't really
have a skeleton or muscle, so without the pressure of the ocean, it just kind of looks
like a saggy ball of lard. This is the only way it can survive at the incredible depths it lives at. If something with a skeleton and muscle, such as you, for instance,
were to go that deep, you would be crushed instantly. Number three, the Statue of Liberty. There is perhaps nothing
more iconic of America than the Statue of Liberty. And, as it turns out, it
used to look way different than the big greenish thing that watches over New York today. The Statue of Liberty's
exterior is made of copper that's about two pennies' width thick. Originally, it also had a color
similar to that of a penny. The copper oxidized over time, and we eventually ended
up with the green lady we've got today. While it would be cool if the statue still had that shiny new penny look, the coating it's developed over the years actually keeps the
copper from wearing away, so we can thank it for
keeping Lady Liberty in such good condition. The copper, along with
the statue's height, also makes it a big target
for lightning strikes. So if you and your friends
have any wacky plans to climb up there at night and spray paint some
political slogan or whatever, you should avoid doing
that during a storm. Number two, the Pyramids. The Pyramids of Giza, one of the seven ancient
wonders of the world, actually used to be white. When they were finished, the Egyptians covered
them with an outer layer of what's called casing stones to give the giant pyramids smooth slopes. So not only were they originally white, but they didn't used to look
like giant staircases either. They were straight, and would have been the
most fun slide ever. These casing stones were made from polished Tura limestone with
the express purpose in mind of reflecting the rays of the sun. They were five feet long,
five feet high, six feet deep, and weighed 15 metric tons each. So what happened to these giant things? Different leaders would take them to use for other building projects because they were too
lazy to go get their own. It seems rude, but honestly,
who can blame them? Nobody wants to carry a 15-ton
rock through the desert. Before I reveal the most
outrageous example in this list, I'd like to remind you to
subscribe to Be Amazed. We upload amazing
fact-filled videos everyday, so don't miss out on learning
some amazing new information. Also, hit that bell icon for notifications on more amazing, fact-filled videos. Number one, fruit and veg. A lot of the food we eat
used to look way different than the version you can get
at the grocery store today. People have been growing
bananas for 7,000 years, and they used to look
a lot less appetizing than they do now. They used to have big, hard seeds in them. So eating a banana used to
be like eating a watermelon, except worse. People created the modern
banana that we have today by combining Musa acuminata
and Musa balbisiana, which are two wild strands of the fruit. Our combination banana not
only has way smaller seeds, but it has more nutrients
and is easier to peel. Then, there's the carrot. The earliest carrots that
scientists were aware of were grown in the 10th century in Persia. If you saw one today, you probably wouldn't even
recognize it as a carrot. They were purple or white
and had a thin, forked root. I don't even think rabbits would be into eating those things. They really do not look appetizing. If you thought that was interesting, then check out this video about more foods that have changed a great deal. Do you know of any other things that have changed drastically
over time that I missed out? Will the people of the future look back on what we have now in the same way we look back on the things of our past? Let me know what you
think in the comments. Thanks for watching!
