Nintendo was founded before the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman Empire feels like an entity of a time long past, while the name Nintendo conjures up images of modernity — electronics, video games, arcades, and mustachioed plumbers. However, Nintendo was actually founded before the Ottoman Empire ended, and this period of overlap isn’t measured in a matter of months or even a few years. When the Ottoman sultanate was eliminated in 1922 after the widespread geographic shuffle that followed World War I, Nintendo had already been in business for 33 years.
Of course, this wasn’t the Nintendo that many of us know today — Nintendo didn’t make its first electronic video game until 1975. Founded on September 23, 1889, Nintendo’s original mission was a humble one: selling playing cards, specifically Japanese-style cards called Hanafuda. The company did pretty well, but decided to expand further in later decades. Nintendo struck a deal with Disney in 1959 to create playing cards with Disney characters on them, and in the 1960s, Nintendo sold a series of successful children’s toys, including Ultra Hand and Home Bowling, before becoming the official Japanese distributor of the Magnavox Odyssey — the first commercial home video console. Seeing the promise of such a machine, Nintendo threw its weight behind this emerging entertainment category. The rest, as they say, is history.
On February 7, 2021, an American man named Christopher Spell jumped 1.70 meters (roughly 5.5 feet) when standing still, clinching the title of highest standing jump in Guinness World Records. Although an impressive feat, it’s nothing compared to Mario’s jumping prowess. According to physics calculations conducted by the website TechRadar, Nintendo’s overalled mascot could miraculously jump 25 feet into the air if he were a real person — that’s five times his overall height (at 5 feet, 1 inch). However, Mario’s impressive strength isn’t just in his legs. In the original Super Mario Bros., the titular character can rip through a brick block, which is about four bricks high, with ease. It would take an estimated 16,681 newtons of force to achieve such a feat, but when martial artists break through a single brick, they only produce roughly 3,000 newtons of force. These calculations prove that Mario isn’t just a plumber — he’s a superhuman.
