If you start to read Latin and Ancient Greek, you'll get a sense that human beings have had most of the same mundane concerns for the past thousands of years. Some of the love poetry of Catullus, for example, sounds like it could have been written by a precocious tween.
What about those of us who speak undead languages? 1000 year old Arabic reads like any other modern formal essay. It's really hard to let go of the past when it's so vividly present. We hold grudges against nations and tribes that no longer exist.
Well, it was written by a moody 22-24-year-old. :)
There was a time I thought the old world was black and white.
PS: And I was happy to see a picture of my country (Sri Lanka) there :).
The first photo, of The Plaza Hotel in NYC is really stark compared to how it looks now. It's not even close to being the tallest building in that area now, but then it looks like it was two or three times as tall almost as anything else.