Lemmings do not commit mass suicide.

1958

The famous scene was staged in 1958 for Disney's White Wilderness: the animals were brought to Alberta and pushed off a cliff by the crew.

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The event

• Disney's White Wilderness1958 · Alberta, Canada. Disney's documentary showed lemmings hurling themselves into the sea, and it won an Oscar in 1959. It later emerged that the animals were filmed in landlocked Alberta, where they do not live, and were pushed off the cliff by the crew.

20th century

More amazing facts

• 1957 1957: the USSR launched the first satellite, and six countries signed the Treaty of Rome, the seed of the future EU.
• 1957 1957: Ghana became one of the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa to throw off colonial rule, and the USSR launched the first satellite.
• 1957 · 1966 The name of the man behind Sputnik and Gagarin's spacecraft was a state secret.
• 1957 · 1958 The first Sputnik beeped for only three weeks, until its batteries died, then circled the Earth silently for over two more months.
• 1957 The Soviets recruited space dogs from the streets, reasoning that Moscow strays were already used to cold and hunger.
• 1957 · 1960 Brazil's capital is younger than the first satellite.

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