In search of historical myths? If you know of any historical "facts" that are wrong please list...?

Question

I am trying to gather enough historical facts to cover a poster board for school. If you know of any that I havent already listed please share them. Put that useless knowledge to use now...please!!! Here are some historical myths that I have already found:

George Wahington was not the first president. A man named Peyton Randolph was actually the first. George was actually the 15th president. He was however the first popularly elected president.

Columbus didnt set out to prove that the earth was round...simply because he didnt believe it himself. He actually thought the world was pear shape. The real reason he set sail was to prove that Asia was closer than what people thought.

Edison didnt invent the electric light...he just improved on an earlier version made by a man named Sir Humphrey Davy. Davy's light bulb would only burn for 12 hours before the filament broke. Edison found the right filament to make the light burn for days.

Answer 1

Myth: The people who came across the ocean on the Mayflower were called Pilgrims.

Fact: The Plymoth settlers did not refer to themselves as “Pilgrims.” Pilgrims are people who travel for religious reasons, such as Muslims who make a pilgrimage to Mecca. Most of those who arrived here from England were religious dissidents who had broken away from the Church of England. They called themselves “Saints”; others called them “Separatists.” Some of the settlers were “Puritans,” dissidents but not separatists who wanted to “purify” the Church. It wasn’t until around the time of the American Revolution that the name “Pilgrims” came to be associated with the Plimoth settlers, and the “Pilgrims” became the symbol of American morality and Christian faith, fortitude, and family.

Myth: The colonists came seeking freedom of religion in a new land.

Fact: The colonists were not just innocent refugees from religious persecution. By 1620, hundreds of Native people had already been to England and back, most as captives; so the Plymoth colonists knew full well that the land they were settling on was inhabited. Nevertheless, their belief system taught them that any land that was “unimproved” was “wild” and theirs for the taking; that the people who lived there were roving heathens with no right to the land. Both the Separatists and Puritans were rigid fundamentalists who came here fully intending to take the land away from its Native inhabitants and establish a new nation, their “Holy Kingdom.” The Plymoth colonists were never concerned with “freedom of religion” for anyone but themselves.

Myth: Einstein Flunked Math

As it turns out, Einstein was a mathematical prodigy, and before he was 12, he was already better at arithmetic and calculus than you are now. Einstein was in fact so ******* smart that he believed school was holding him back, and his parents purchased advanced textbooks for him to study from. Not only did he pass math with flying colors, it's entirely possible that he was actually teaching the class by the end of semester.

Myth: Newton and the Apple

Newton never mentioned the thing with the apple, and in fact it was another guy named John Conduitt who first told the story some 60 years after it supposedly happened. Even then, he was decisively vague about whether Newton actually saw an apple, or whether the apple is a metaphor that he used to illustrate the idea of gravity for people less intelligent than he was (read: everybody):

    "Whilst he was musing in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from the tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from the earth but that this power must extend much further."

You'll notice that even then we don't get the thing with the apple actually hitting Newton in the head, it got added somewhere along the line to add the element of cartoonish slapstick to his genius life.

Answer 2

Myth:  Jewish scientist fleeing n**i persecution caused Germany to lose World War 2 and prevented the n***s from having an A-bomb.

Reality the Germans produced the Jet fighter plan, a ballastic missile, and crude infrared night vision glasses, submarines that ran off hydrogen peroxide fueled engines.  All while these scientists were in the USA and eslewhere.  Despite spending huge sums of money and with the "best" scientists the A-bomb was not completed by American scientists until Germany was already defeated.  So the A-bomb played no role in VE-day and the US went to the Moon using n**i technologie and n**i scientists.

Answer 3

George Washington was NOT popularly elected. The Electoral College unanimously elected Washington President....not the American people. He was basically chosen by the delegates....to his surprise.

Squanto, the famous Native American that assisted the "Pilgrims" just didn't walk out of the woods....suddenly speak English....and help the Pilgrim out of the goodness of his heart.

He had traveled the world quite a bit after being captured and enslaved, he spoke several languages, including Dutch and English.

And the place where the "Pilgrims" landed was actually HIS village, where everyone had died from disease caught from other Europeans.

Columbus didn't think the earth was flat. He really was an experienced mariner and mariners KNEW the world was round. The ancient Greek Eratosthenes almost accurately measured the Earth's circumference ...the earth's ROUND circumference...in 194 BC. Mariners, explorers, scientists, etc all knew the earth was round. The Flat Earth Theory was a lie. The Pythagoreans of ancient Greece discovered the earth was round.

Jesus was not just some poor carpenter's son. Jesus was in the Direct Royal Line of King David on BOTH sides of his family, the true Royalty of Israel, literally supposed to sit on the throne of Israel. His first cousin, John the Baptist, had blood of the Royal Line of David thru his mother AND his father was the High Priest. Jesus and John were literally extremely important Jews of their time, religiously AND politically.

President Woodrow Wilson was almost a card carrying member of the KKK and the biggest bigot that ever stepped foot into the White House and set race relations in the US back 100 yrs.

Jane Mansfield. the famous actress, and mother of Law & Order SVU star, Mariska Hargitay, was NOT decapitated in the car accident that killed her. AND Mariska was IN the car as child when it happened.

The term, "Immaculate Conception" means that MARY was born free of sin. HER immaculate conception in the womb of her mother, by normal sexual intercourse, should not be confused with the doctrine of the virginal conception of her son Jesus.

Camels are NOT native animals of the desert and horses were not introduced to America by the Spanish.

Both species originated in NORTH AMERICA.

Nero did NOT fiddle while Rome burned, there was no such thing AS fiddles... or violins.

Columbus did NOT discover America, he suceeded in finding a small part of Central America and a small part of South America, but he never knew North America even existed.

St Patrick was not Irish... he was a British Roman.

Famous western cowby and outlaw Billy the Kid, was born and raised in Manhatten New York.

Cleopatra was NOT Egyptian. She was Greek.

The swastika was not a n**i symbol OR word, it was an symbol and word coming from the Sanskrit word svastikah and the symbol was used by ancient Greeks and Native Americans.

The Declaration of Independance was NOT signed on July 4th, 1776. Some signed it on August 2, other on August 6, and one guy didn't sign it until 1781!

And Capt Howdy above is correct, Washington did not have wooden teeth. The Smithsonian Institution has four known sets of Washington's dentures.  The dentures are made from gold, ivory, lead, human and animal teeth (horse and donkey teeth were common components).

Answer 4

There is actually a ton of stuff that isn't true, because a lot of stuff gets changed around and mis-heard throughout history. If you have the time, try and get your hands on a copy of the book "That's Not in My American History Book!" by Thomas Ayres. That book has a ton of stuff in it that is really helpful for that subject.

Answer 5

barney is not a dinosaur......cuz he talks!

Answer 6

Lincoln didn't free anyone, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves in union states and the confederate states did not recognize Lincoln as their president and therefore did not free any slaves.  Lincoln did not even have the authority to free slaves, that came about after the war as a result of the 13th amendment.

Also Washington did not have wooden teeth.

Answer 7

Bill Clinton balanced the budget.  It was a numbers game based on a projected surplus of Social Security revenues that was grossly overstated.  There was no surplus nor was there a balanced budget.

Answer 8

Jesus has never existed.

The only historical proof is a forgery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on...

Answer 9

Catherine the Great did not die while in a compromising position with a horse.  

Witches were not burned in Salem.

Marie Antoinette never said "Let them eat cake."

America did not achieve independence on July 4, 1776.  It was not gained until September 3, 1783.  

Answer 10

The United States declared independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776.

In fact, Congress declared independence on July 2.  On July 4 it voted to accept the Declaration of Independence document.  John Adams wrote that Americans would look back at July 2, 1776 as the birth of their country.