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Napoleon's soldiers did not shoot off the Sphinx's nose. It was gone before they arrived.

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The face of the Great Sphinx of Giza, missing its nose
History

1737

Napoleon's soldiers did not shoot off the Sphinx's nose. It was gone before they arrived.

No. The Sphinx's nose was missing long before Napoleon's 1798 expedition. Drawings by Frederic Louis Norden from 1737 show it already gone, and a fifteenth century historian described deliberate damage to the face.

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Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid.

Cleopatra lived closer to the 1969 Moon landing than to the construction of the Great Pyramid. The pyramid was already about 2,500 years old when she was born.

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Woolly mammoths were still alive when the Great Pyramid was built.

A surviving population of woolly mammoths lived on Wrangel Island while Egyptians were building the Great Pyramid. These Arctic animals persisted until about 4,000 years ago, long after most mainland populations disappeared.

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