Dinosaur, I Hardly Knew Ya

Every once and a while, I stumble upon a fact that blows my mind.

The other night at bedtime, the television was on the History Channel, and I heard some version of the following quotation, courtesy of Dinohunters.com:

In 1822 Gideon Mantell, a doctor from Lewes, East Sussex, described a fossil tooth which his wife had found by the side of the road in Cuckfield, West Sussex. This tooth was the first dinosaur fossil in the world ever to be identified. For the very first time people began to realise that creatures as large as dinosaurs had once existed.

What? Seriously? That's like 186 years ago.

We've only known about dinosaurs for 186 years?

Now a lot of other things seriously start to make sense. Still, I am amazed.