Disney's 1940 animated film Fantasia shows the dinosaurs dying off as the result of an intense drought. The theory of mass extinction as the result of an astroid strike wasn't proposed until 1980.

Image from preview.redd.it and submitted by hezzyb
image showing Disney's 1940 animated film Fantasia shows the dinosaurs dying off as the result of an intense drought. The theory of mass extinction as the result of an astroid strike wasn't proposed until 1980.

MrCaul on May 1st, 2020 at 17:20 UTC »

I loved this sequence so much as a kid. There wasn't a ton of cool dinosaur stuff back then like there is today, so seeing this was pretty mind blowing. The pictures from the books I got from the school library are coming alive!

Peter_Mansbrick on May 1st, 2020 at 17:21 UTC »

the theory of mass extinction as the result of an astroid strike wasn't proposed until 1980.

This blows my mind. I thought this had been a much older theory.

ghalta on May 1st, 2020 at 18:56 UTC »

It was just one of many competing theories when I was in elementary and middle school, and the crater from that impact wasn't identified until I was in college (effectively confirming the theory).

It's one of the "big leaps" of understanding to me that I got to live in real time instead of just reading about in history books. The fact that birds are dinosaurs being another one.