20 Historical ‘Truths’ That Have Been Disproven

The eradication of misinformation is one of education’s main objectives. That entails identifying and dispelling the numerous falsehoods spread via the internet and word of mouth. At some point or another, we have also been led to believe false information.

Despite becoming Egypt’s final monarch, Cleopatra was not Egyptian. Cleopatra belonged to the Ptolemaic dynasty, a Greek-descended family that controlled Egypt after Alexander the Great. The dynasty refused to learn the native Egyptian language even as rulers in Egypt, though Cleopatra was the first to do so.

The alleged fact that Albert Einstein wasn’t good at math is nothing more than a myth that people tell each other to make others feel better about their shortcomings. Einstein was, on the contrary, an exceptional mathematician, and the erroneous rumor was spread by the untrustworthy Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.

Although this myth has been making youngsters laugh for decades, Thomas Crapper did not develop the flush toilet, despite being a plumber and businessman who ran a plumbing equipment company in England in the 19th century.

Napoleon Bonaparte wasn’t as small as we are taught to believe, even though he was often described as having a “little man complex.” Napoleon was five feet two inches tall in pre-metric system French units or about five feet six inches tall in modern measurement units.

Contrary to popular belief, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves during the Civil War. It only pertained to Confederate states, and since the North lacked the authority to implement the proclamation, it failed to achieve what many people assume it did.

In his book Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau said that a “great princess” told the starving people of France, “Let them eat cake.” There is no proof that Marie Antoinette ever said these words, despite popular belief.

One of the most well-known anecdotes about the famed impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh is that he severed his own ear and sent it to a French woman. This resulted in one of Van Gogh’s most renowned paintings, which depicts him wearing a bandage over his ear.

Amihai Mazar of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has said that the Egyptian pyramids were not built by Jews. Mazar alleges that it was former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin who made this claim during a 1977 visit to Egypt.

Something that would probably make Benjamin Franklin roll over in his grave is the widely-accepted “fact” that he wanted the turkey, not the bald eagle, to be the country’s national bird. However, the only time he mentioned both bald eagles and turkeys together was in a letter he wrote to his daughter.

The 1918-1920 flu pandemic is thought to have killed around 50 million people in 1918 alone. It’s believed that the reason why this became known as the “Spanish flu” was that Spain was among the first countries to be severely affected early on. Even Spain’s ruling monarch at the time fell ill.

Christopher Columbus only ever explored the Caribbean, Central America, and South America; he never managed to make it to North America despite there being a US holiday commemorating his arrival. There is also evidence that Vikings, who were from Europe, landed in North America 500 years before Columbus supposedly did.

The Great Chicago Fire, which took place from October 8th to 10th, 1871, destroyed over three square miles of the city and claimed 300 lives. There is a legend that the fire started after a cow owned by a woman named Mrs. O’Leary knocked over a lantern. The journalist who wrote about it later revealed that he had made it up.

The famous story about Paul Revere’s heroic actions at the start of the American revolution is nothing but fiction. He never traveled from town to town yelling at the top of his lungs that the British were coming.

Following the 1929 stock market crash, rumors that Wall Street workers had started jumping off buildings began to spread. Though the head of Rochester Gas and Electric and the president of Country Trust Co. did end their lives, they used guns to do it.

Many people think that when Columbus “discovered” America in the 15th century, most people still thought that the Earth was flat and that his trip would end with him plunging off the edge of the planet.

People have been made to think that the first Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims in 1621. However, it has been stated that they had already enjoyed countless meals of giving thanks prior, as did the Spaniards in Florida as reported in 1565.

Vikings are frequently depicted in popular culture as huge, bearded warriors wearing horned helmets and brandishing large combat axes. There is no evidence, however, that these Norsemen wore them. However, it has been discovered that Viking warriors either wore leather headgear or had no helmets at all.

While Charles Lindbergh became known as the first pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1927, he wasn’t the first to do it. Alcock and Brown, two British pilots, were the first to complete the journey in 1919 using a modified RAF bomber.

Even though botanist George Washington Carver discovered many uses for peanuts (and gave the American South’s economy a boost in the process), he did not invent peanut butter. The popular spread can be traced to the Aztecs, who crushed roasted peanuts to create a paste.

In a 1908 ruling, the Mills Commission determined that baseball was invented by Civil War commander Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York in 1839. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is now located in the city. However, history professor George B. Kirsch has claimed in his book that Doubleday was at West Point, not Cooperstown, in 1839. Doubleday also never left any traces of his involvement with the sport.