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TIL that Jonathan the tortoise was born 29 years before the US Civil War
and is still alive today
(URL) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_(tortoise) (https://en.wikipedia.org)
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|u/kia75 - 1 month
|
|What no mention what side he was on? This makes me think Jonathan was
|on the wrong side!
|u/bobert4343 - 1 month
|
|Jonathan was actually a diehard slave owner
|u/DampBritches - 1 month
|
|Him and his brother, Mitch McConnell
|u/xAsilos - 1 month
|
|You son of a bitch. I wish I came up with that line.
|u/Mielornot - 1 month
|
|I don't get it please explain 
|u/George_W_Kush58 - 1 month
|
|McConnel looks like a turtle. Just a guess, I'm not American.
|He do be looking like a turtle tho
|u/Mielornot - 1 month
|
|Oh thanks!
|u/MildlyGothic - 1 month
|
|Looks like a turtle and is old AF.
|u/Speedhabit - 1 month
|
|Not really a line
|u/Academic_Coconut_244 - 1 month
|
|[Just gonna submit this photo of him in front of a plantation for
|evidence](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Saint-
|Helena-Plantation-House-Jonathan-the-Tortoise-by-kevin-gepford.jpg)
|u/LifeBuilder - 1 month
|
|He was the one who hired JWB to ventilate Abe’s head.
|u/Fun_Intention9846 - 1 month
|
|https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/s/iBzLHyT2Jw
|u/MrIrrelevantsHypeMan - 1 month
|
|I didn't want to mention it because he doesn't want anyone to know
|about his service. He led an advance party for Sherman and his March
|to the Sea. First tortoise to receive a Medal of Honor. He went on
|to serve in the trenches of WW1 as an advisor. Some say his ability to
|lead and how effective he was at running over trenches inspired tanks
|of the era. He was known as the Marauder of the Trenches. His ruthless
|actions were used as examples during the Third Geneva Convention. He
|received two Navy Crosses, Croix de Guerre, and helped liberate
|Belleau Wood. After WWI he retired to a quiet life trying to forget
|about the horrors he committed and witnessed.
|u/blarch - 1 month
|
|To this day, the only documented case of trench-shell.
|u/The_Archmagos - 1 month
|
|And, uniquely from his unit's survivors, no shell shock
|u/FormABruteSquad - 1 month
|
|Has he made it to the sea yet?
|u/johnla - 1 month
|
|He lost some good man that day. They didn’t die. They were also
|turtles and wandered away into the woods. Some say they’re still
|wandering in the woods to this day. 
|u/MrIrrelevantsHypeMan - 1 month
|
|🫡
|u/LaserKittenz - 1 month
|
|But then someone killed his dog ...
|u/pikpikcarrotmon - 1 month
|
|He coordinated with his other velocity-challenged friends to create
|the Underground Snailroad and almost got one slave to the Mason-Dixon
|line by 1982
|u/trev2234 - 1 month
|
|Pretty sure the slave didn’t survive the journey. Obviously wasn’t
|the safest route.
|u/pikpikcarrotmon - 1 month
|
|Perfectly safe - Jonathan lived
|u/Warmstar219 - 1 month
|
|He started it
|u/yeeatty - 1 month
|
|😂
|u/4Ever2Thee - 1 month
|
|Well, he does have *The tortoise confederacy will rise again!* tatted
|on his bottom shell.
|u/KlostToMe - 1 month
|
|He's the only surviving prisoner of war from that era
|u/AncientSith - 1 month
|
|History will not remember Jonathan kindly.
|u/Fun_Ambassador_74 - 1 month
|
|Yeah but you know it’s not his fault . He s just old and kinda set in
|his ways.
|u/ByronsLastStand - 1 month
|
|He's a British citizen (technically), so he would most likely have
|been neutral
|u/the_mid_mid_sister - 1 month
|
|Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin owned the same tortoise.
|u/DigitalGT - 1 month
|
|What a braintimefuck of a sentence. Crazy how long tortoises live
|u/ModernSmithmundt - 1 month
|
|We could be in a tortoise’s dream in outer space
|u/iwrestledarockonce - 1 month
|
|I believe Sturgill Simpson wrote an album about that.
|u/The-JudgeHolden - 1 month
|
|I’ve seen Jesus play with flames in a lake of fire, I was
|standing in
|u/Ancient_Amount3239 - 1 month
|
|It’s turtles all the way down. Love that damn song
|u/NoPossibility - 1 month
|
|That was Harriet, though, just in case anyone gets confused. She died
|in 2006 at 176 years old.
|u/rg4rg - 1 month
|
|Wrong. Legends never die.
|u/Minute_Foundation_97 - 1 month
|
|She died just before Steve did! 😢
|u/Sorry_Consideration7 - 1 month
|
|Win/win for the tortoise. Yeah, I said it.
|u/igby1 - 1 month
|
|Wow. Amazing and true.
|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_(tortoise)
|u/tiorzol - 1 month
|
|>  However, doubt is cast on this story by the fact that Darwin had
|never visited Santa Cruz, the island that Harriet originally came
|from. >There is evidence from letters that Charles Darwin was
|aware that Wickham had these tortoises, as he sent a letter to
|Huxley in 1860 informing him that he should speak with Wickham in
|Paris about the last of the tortoises from the 1835 expedition
|because he had them. This makes it at least possible that the three
|tortoises at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens were personally collected
|by Darwin. It could be true. It could also not be. 
|u/tough_napkin - 1 month
|
|i met that turtle! lonesome george
|u/LobcockLittle - 1 month
|
|Same! He was "fighting" another male tortoise, for the attention of
|a female tortoise.
|u/CharlemagneIS - 1 month
|
|[Relevant](https://youtu.be/kq8Xlbb3bOw?si=2yZUX4Vj2pR7m9Ev)
|u/Asha_Brea - 1 month
|
|Imagine all the stories it has to tell.
|u/MisterSanitation - 1 month
|
|Yeah but they are twisted into old turtle language.  “People are
|still upset about slaves but I say they have been around since the
|Romans! What is everyone so upset about!? Also people are caring about
|one another all of a sudden, what is up with that!? I’m a tortoise!” 
|u/Sorry_Consideration7 - 1 month
|
|"Don't even get me started on that goddamn hare!"
|u/Anangrywookiee - 1 month
|
|Oh no, he’s racist.
|u/pikpikcarrotmon - 1 month
|
|Most old reptiles I know are
|u/partyinplatypus - 1 month
|
|sand spark chubby tap groovy fertile governor middle soft
|carpenter *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with
|[Redact](https://redact.dev)*
|u/Final_Version_png - 1 month
|
|And some of the worst in recorded history has been. Look at us,
|stating things on the internet. Who’d have thought? Not me 🙂‍↔️
|u/wadeishere - 1 month
|
|But it would be super slow. "Peeeeeoppppppllllllle arrrrrrrre
|sssssssttttiiiiilllllle uuuuuppppsssseeeeeettttt
|aaaaaabbbbboooooouttttt....
|u/Dub_stebbz - 1 month
|
|“You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say
|anything in Old ~~Entish~~ Tortish. And we never say anything
|unless it is worth taking a long time to say.“
|u/S-WordoftheMorning - 1 month
|
|What does a yellow light mean?
|u/MorgothReturns - 1 month
|
|Slow down!
|u/BieTea - 1 month
|
|"Heresy is not native to the world; it is but a contrivance. All
|things can be conjoined”
|u/cnthelogos - 1 month
|
|It was a bold choice to make the pope a tortoise, but it works.
|u/lkodl - 1 month
|
|Stories complete with a definitely noticeable, but somewhat expected,
|amount of racism.
|u/theknyte - 1 month
|
|*"What? It's just what we called them back then! We didn't know any
|better!" -* My dearly departed Grandfather, more than once.
|u/phobosmarsdeimos - 1 month
|
|Brazil nuts?
|u/thissexypoptart - 1 month
|
|Stories complete with a definitely noticeable, but somewhat
|expected, amount of racism.
|u/MufugginJellyfish - 1 month
|
|Stories complete with a definitely noticeable, but somewhat
|expected, amount of racism.
|u/MufugginJellyfish - 1 month
|
|Bro is so old he votes Whig every election
|u/VetteBuilder - 1 month
|
|I am thinking he is Unreconstructed
|u/DrConnors - 1 month
|
|When Johnathan was asked for comment, all he had to say was, "I like
|turtles." [Source.](https://youtu.be/KWotO76SuXE)
|u/NearbyContract9251 - 1 month
|
|Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me, nor make
|it bear fruit before its time.
|u/fingerpaintswithpoop - 1 month
|
|“I’ve seen things that would scare you shell-less!”
|u/cesarmac - 1 month
|
|Jonathan: "I've seen some shit"
|u/lkodl - 1 month
|
|Stories complete with a definitely noticeable, but somewhat expected,
|amount of racism.
|u/Asha_Brea - 1 month
|
|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C6mcNQ6z1M
|u/No_Construction_4518 - 1 month
|
|Animal communicator Nancy Mello talked to Jonathan and his vet on her
|Creature Preacher podcast! You can listen to it
|here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/creature-
|preacher/id1728903586?i=1000649683119 
|u/altcastle - 1 month
|
|I’m afraid the turtle is very racist, and he will not be invited back
|to the library children’s story time.
|u/femmestem - 1 month
|
|He'd be like the Ents of the Tolkien books.
|u/PotatoSad4615 - 1 month
|
|Yeah, but he speaks so slowly!
|u/djmanning711 - 1 month
|
|“Let me tell you about the great watermelon of 1874.”
|u/beefstewforyou - 1 month
|
|I imagine the majority of it is just eating random things.
|u/Objective-Aioli-1185 - 1 month
|
|I've seen some things maaan and some stuff.
|u/Cold-Curve-1291 - 1 month
|
|First thought of mine. He has seen some shit.
|u/thissexypoptart - 1 month
|
|Stories complete with a definitely noticeable, but somewhat expected,
|amount of racism.
|u/thissexypoptart - 1 month
|
|Stories complete with a definitely noticeable, but somewhat
|expected, amount of racism.
|u/thissexypoptart - 1 month
|
|Stories complete with a definitely noticeable, but somewhat expected,
|amount of racism.
|u/MrScotchyScotch - 1 month
|
|People: "Things are worse than they've ever been!" Jonathan: *munch
|munch*
|u/heardtherewascake - 1 month
|
|It's also amazing that we even know that, we would have to have been
|there when it hatched, and kept records all this time.
|u/IAMHideoKojimaAMA - 1 month
|
|Well, we really didn't. We just know he's at least the age he is
|u/Enchelion - 1 month
|
|Not when he hatched, but they have photos of him fully grown in 1886,
|and diary entries form a few years before that, which means he would
|have been at least 50 years old by that time.
|u/Overtronic - 1 month
|
|Reading the Wikipedia page, he was only named Jonathan in the 1930s so
|for the 100 years before, who knows what he went by.
|u/icanhascheeseberder - 1 month
|
|Johhanathan
|u/HDI-X13 - 1 month
|
|I wonder what he thinks about minorities.
|u/kgb17 - 1 month
|
|Turtles use such archaic slurs you don’t even know what they are
|talking about.
|u/p_s_i - 1 month
|
|That and I don't speak turtle.
|u/FormABruteSquad - 1 month
|
|Ahoy hoy, quatroon!
|u/kgb17 - 1 month
|
|Jesus Christ I can’t believe that’s not censored by the mods
|u/papito_m - 1 month
|
|“No brown shells back in my day”
|u/Phalex - 1 month
|
|I like turtles.
|u/TinchoX89 - 1 month
|
|That's a tortoise though...
|u/MrIrrelevantsHypeMan - 1 month
|
|All tortoises are turtles
|u/MaximaFuryRigor - 1 month
|
|Technically correct. The best kind of correct!
|u/SatelliteJedi - 1 month
|
|I heard he started the civil war.
|u/RubYourEagle - 1 month
|
|yeah right, in the animal kingdom?
|u/SatelliteJedi - 1 month
|
|Nah, my boy Johnathan led the charge at Fredericksburg.
|u/teddycorps - 1 month
|
|Jonathan, hatched c. 1832,
|u/thisisdefinitelyaway - 1 month
|
|Another example of something that lasted longer than the Confederacy.
|Good job losers.
|u/FIRST_DATE_ANAL - 1 month
|
|Waaaay longer
|u/syntactyx - 1 month
|
|And Jonathan is gay! His partner Frederik (originally named Frederika)
|was thought to be female due to a physical deformity that made sex
|determination difficult; however modern biologists have since identified
|Frederik to be a male, meaning Jonathan and Frederik are officially the
|cutest gay couple in the animal kingdom.
|u/jgiffin - 1 month
|
|Unless Jonathan is being fooled by the deformity too…
|u/Ein_Fachidiot - 1 month
|
|How long have they been together?
|u/Willing-University81 - 1 month
|
|1991
|u/SeveralTable3097 - 1 month
|
|It’s wonderful to see folks find their soul mate in their golden
|years!
|u/Jeff-Lebowski-Dude - 1 month
|
|Jonathan is definitely not gay, I met him in person on St. Helena and
|he got put in time out for lifting the ladies dresses up with his long
|neck to get a peek. Good times.
|u/syntactyx - 1 month
|
|I thought we were talking about a tortoise, not a dog! damn!
|u/Geminii27 - 1 month
|
|Another couple of years and he'll be ready to run for Congress.
|u/mack178 - 1 month
|
|Yes but to be fair he did not fight in the civil war.
|u/JoeyZasaa - 1 month
|
|You were there?
|u/mack178 - 1 month
|
|perchance
|u/Pepperoni_Tony7 - 1 month
|
|so what side were you on there mack?
|u/ByronsLastStand - 1 month
|
|He's technically a British citizen, so he probably just tutted and
|drank lettuce tea
|u/Enchelion - 1 month
|
|Not unless a soldier got in his way to dinner. Wouldn't have stood a
|chance.
|u/LaserGadgets - 1 month
|
|I hope he won't see another!
|u/nsvxheIeuc3h2uddh3h1 - 1 month
|
|He could probably remember everything from way back then like it was
|only yesterday. Because he has *turtle recall.*
|u/wilsonhammer - 1 month
|
|Mitch McConnell's brother is looking good
|u/silversurfer63 - 1 month
|
|Younger brother
|u/wilsonhammer - 1 month
|
|Lolololol
|u/lat204 - 1 month
|
|Why not just give a year instead of referencing an event?
|u/InspectorPipes - 1 month
|
|How about ‘ Johnathon the turtle approaching his 200th birthday’ . The
|most egregious is when ‘they‘ use strange units of measure in their
|articles. Frank the whale is the size of 3 1984 Chevy citation
|sedans. Johnathan the turtle weighs more than 11 Le’crusette French
|enameled 6 quart stock pots.
|u/lat204 - 1 month
|
|"TIL that Jonathan the tortoise was born in 1833 (191 years old) and
|is still alive today"
|u/JKnumber1hater - 1 month
|
|Americans will use literally any measurement system to avoid using
|metric.
|u/rosstedfordkendall - 1 month
|
|My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes
|it.
|u/PicklesAndCapers - 1 month
|
|I measure road trip length in number of episodes of Scrubs. For
|example, going from Portland to Los Angeles is about 60-64
|episodes of Scrubs if you hit bad traffic while going through the
|Bay Area.
|u/22Josko - 1 month
|
|Because it would be boring
|u/lat204 - 1 month
|
|Turtles are never boring. How dare you.
|u/Books_and_Cleverness - 1 month
|
|It’s more interesting this way IMHO. Also gives a moment to reflect
|on how the stuff we learn about in US History wasn’t really *that*
|long ago.
|u/JoeyZasaa - 1 month
|
|Oh, latty. It's to emphasize how old he is.
|u/lat204 - 1 month
|
|For Americans, sure.
|u/lat204 - 1 month
|
|Not everyone on Reddit is from USA and knows off the top of their
|head when the civil war occurred. It is much easier to use a number
|everyone can understand and put into context.
|u/TheGhastlyFisherman - 1 month
|
|> 30 years before the civil war So 1612? That's 30 years before the
|civil war. More people know when 1832 is than know when the
|American Civil War began.
|u/elwood2711 - 1 month
|
|Who cares. Everybody knows when the civil war happened and if they
|don't, they should go back to school.
|u/oldtrack - 1 month
|
|very american-centric answer lol we didn’t learn about any of
|american history at school
|u/axw3555 - 1 month
|
|Uh… if you’re American, sure. As a Brit, I know roughly when it was
|(and not from school, to us, your history isn’t even worth a couple
|of lessons, we literally spent more time on the Aztecs than you) and
|honestly, by the standards of European history, it’s not even that
|long ago. My tiny hometown in England is a thousand years old, and
|we’re not even the oldest town within 10 miles. The next town over
|dates to Roman colonisation.
|u/TinchoX89 - 1 month
|
|That's a very long lived animal, damn!
|u/theJOJeht - 1 month
|
|Behold, Dog!
|u/Mickeyjj27 - 1 month
|
|Can I get some tortoise dna spliced into me or something that or the
|Greenland shark
|u/n3rdopolis - 1 month
|
|And now he just won't leave the dang Senate.
|u/eureka__77 - 1 month
|
|And he just watched everything happen, no effort to stop anything. Wow
|u/bolanrox - 1 month
|
|The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about
|their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and beg
|him to save them. And he will look down, and whisper… ‘No’.”
|u/TheRazorBoyComes - 1 month
|
|Good clean livin!
|u/ZillaGodX2 - 1 month
|
|I heard he single-handedly stopped Sherman’s march in Savannah.
|otherwise he would have conquered Puerto Rico!
|u/GuruTheMadMonk - 1 month
|
|I like turtles.
|u/Looney_forner - 1 month
|
|Wtf man, dude just sat there and let it happen?
|u/Geminii27 - 1 month
|
|Jonathan: "All y'all have too many wars. Seriously."
|u/Revolutionary-You449 - 1 month
|
|I bet if Jonathan could speak he would have a very old-timey voice and
|every 5th sentence would be “I’ve seen some shit in my day!”
|u/Your_Kindly_Despot - 1 month
|
|Tortoises are notoriously the most racist members of the Testudinidae
|family. No doubt he was on the wrong side of the Civil War.
|u/jimbobdonut - 1 month
|
|He said Cowabunga way before the ninja turtles!
|u/TCGHexenwahn - 1 month
|
|Visions of dog
|u/Play_To_Nguyen - 1 month
|
|I wonder what he thinks of how the world has changed
|u/isomanatee - 1 month
|
|What an absolute champion..
|u/ihatespaminacan - 1 month
|
|And he didn't do shit to help out? Fake ass mfer
|u/raddrobb67 - 1 month
|
|Turtle power.
|u/Macktheattack - 1 month
|
|Wasn’t he also on St. Helena during Napoleon’s exile?
|u/strings___ - 1 month
|
|Johnathan: I've seen some shit
|u/Zetanite - 1 month
|
|I can only imagine the kinds of bizarre adventures he's had over the
|years.
|u/xanderholland - 1 month
|
|I wonder what his thoughts are on the results of said war...
|u/Deerah - 1 month
|
|Jonathan has Seen Some Shit.
|u/Supaspex - 1 month
|
|The turtle has seen some shit
|u/Historical_Dentonian - 1 month
|
|Has produced 10 tons for shit!
|u/dillimunda - 1 month
|
|Scientista should research on the reasons for the longevity of tortoise.
|Can apply that findings of the research to prolong human lives.
|u/dillimunda - 1 month
|
|What is the plural of tortoise ?
|u/outoftheshowerahri - 1 month
|
|Imagine all the lettuce he’s tasted. He’s probably tasted lettuce more
|nutritionally dense than we ever will.
|u/brokenB42morrow - 1 month
|
|191.
|u/Xijit - 1 month
|
|So there is a good chance is racist?
|u/PranaSC2 - 1 month
|
|He’s probably having lots of flashbacks right now..
|u/RuffTuff - 1 month
|
|I wonder what he was thinking during the cold war.
|u/lespaulstrat2 - 1 month
|
|IIRC when Johnathan was born, Keith Richards had him as a pet.
|u/JustHereForMiatas - 1 month
|
|Johnathan the tortoise was alive while the Spanish inquisition was still
|a thing.
|u/JoeyZasaa - 1 month
|
|Not a coincidence that it ended shortly after he was born.
|u/PG-DaMan - 1 month
|
|And he still owes my grandfather 29 cents.
|u/SmittyComic - 1 month
|
|fun fact: will still say "oriental" when talking about a person
|from south-east Asia, which is an improvement from before 1970 when he
|called everyone "chinamen"
|u/draxlaugh - 1 month
|
|How do I go about owning one of these majestic creatures?
|u/Enchelion - 1 month
|
|They're wildly endangered, and formerly extirpated. There's a few in
|captivity, and less than 40 released into the wild from a captive
|breeding and reintroduction program.
|u/GeekShogun - 1 month
|
|He still says turtle with the hard R
|u/MrFrode - 1 month
|
|Plus he was almost the Democrat nominee for President.
|u/Far_Sandwich_6553 - 1 month
|
|Time goes by when you’re not dealing with Human horse shit!
|u/FirstManufacturer648 - 1 month
|
|That tortoise has a face that shows he has some seen some shit.
|u/arousedpirate - 1 month
|
|The south will rise again
|u/unfit_spartan_baby - 1 month
|
|He’s also gay. Fun fact.
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