We all studied history in school. It’s a subject that we encounter from elementary to college. After all, we must study our past to appreciate the present. But have you ever wondered if everything written in the history books is true?
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Over the years, researchers have been correcting a lot of historical facts that turned out to be wrong. Read on to see which historical facts have been wrong all along. How many of these facts have you believed to be right all this time?
Christopher Columbus discovered North America
Americans have a holiday proclaiming Christopher Columbus discovered North America. But the truth is, he never did. There is proof that the Vikings arrived in North America 500 years before Columbus did.
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In Newfoundland, an island in Canada, eight Viking structures are now recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. It turned out that North America is a winter stopover point for the Vikings. They usually go there to repair their ships or wait out a storm.
Pilgrims hosted the first Thanksgiving
We have learned in school that the first Thanksgiving was held in 1621 and was started by the Pilgrims. But the truth is, some documents prove that feasts for giving thanks have been done before that. In fact, the Spaniards in Florida did the same thing in 1565.
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Thanksgiving was not even a national holiday until Abraham Lincoln made it so in 1863. There was also a time when President Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving to the third Thursday of November but eventually they turned it back to the last Thursday of November.
Albert Einstein failed the math
There has been this story going on that the genius Albert Einstein failed math. It is a common inspirational story. This false rumor was spread worldwide after being released on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. But the truth is, this never really happened.
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In fact, Einstein himself refuted this rumor. He said, “I never failed in mathematics. Before I was 15, I had mastered differential and integral calculus.” He received his matriculation certificate when he was 17. Einstein also had the highest marks in Geometry and Algebra.
Cleopatra is an Egyptian
Turns out the last ruler of Egypt is not Egyptian. Cleopatra comes from the Ptolemaic dynasty, a Greek family that ruled over Egypt after Alexander the Great. This powerful family never bothered to learn the Egyptian language – Cleopatra was the first one to do so.
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The misconception about her nationality may be because she dressed as a representation of the Egyptian goddess Isis every time she showed herself in public. Not a lot of people knew that she was a foreign ruler.
Spanish influenza started in Spain
Spanish influenza was a pandemic that killed more than 50 million people in 1918 alone. The disease was first known as the “three-day flu” but became popularly known as the “Spanish influenza” because Spain was one of the first countries that were affected badly.
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But the truth is, this pandemic did not start in Spain at all. John Barry, the author of The Great Influenza, said that the first case of Spanish Influenza was in Haskell County, Kansas. Spain just happened to have the most casualties.
Napoleon Bonaparte was short
Napoleon Bonaparte has been known in history as a military genius that has a short stature. In fact, he was given the nickname “Le Petit Caporal” which means “The Little Corporal.” The “little man complex” or “Napoleon complex” was based on the French leader.
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History records say that Napoleon stands at 5 feet 2 inches but this is in French Revolution Units. In US measurement though, Napoleon stands at 5 feet 6. So, at that time, Napoleon actually is taller than the average height of French men, which is 5 feet 5.
The pyramids were built by the Jews
It has long been believed that the pyramids in Egypt were built by Jewish slaves. But according to Amihai Mazar, a professor at the University of Hebrew in Jerusalem, this was not possible. Jews were not around when the pyramids were built.
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Dieter Wildung, a former director of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, also said that slaves did not build the pyramids. Archeological evidence suggests that the pyramids were built by the people themselves out of loyalty to their pharaohs.
Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear
When it comes to impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh, everybody has heard the story of how he cut his own ear off and then mailed it to a French woman. In fact, he did a self-portrait with a bandage over his ear and the story made it one of his most famous works.
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But Van Gogh’s close friend and rival Paul Gaugin admitted that he was the one who sliced off van Gogh’s earlobe with a fencing rapier and that he was the one who invented the story about mailing it to a woman so that people would think van Gogh was crazy.
People thought the earth was flat during Columbus’s time
According to history people believed that the Earth was flat during the time of Christopher Columbus. They believed that his expedition would end up with him falling off at the edge of the Earth. But during his time the flat Earth theory was already disproved by the ancient Greeks.
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The truth was that Columbus had the conclusion that if he sailed from the west side of Europe, he would reach East Asia. This is why he thought he had crossed the East Indies and referred to the natives as “Indians” when he reached America.
Marie Antoinette said “Let them eat cake”
There is no evidence supporting the fact that Marie Antoinette did say the phrase “let them eat cake.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in his novel Confessions that a great princess said “let them eat cake” when referring to the starving people of France. People just assumed that it was Marie Antoinette.
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But Lady Antonia Fraser, a biographer, claims that another French princess actually said these words 100 years earlier than the time of Marie Antoinette. According to Fraser, it was the wife of Louis XIV, Marie-Thérèse, who said those words.
Vikings wore horned helmets
When we look at historical pictures, we can easily identify the Vikings because of their horned helmets. Aside from the helmets, they are also portrayed to have long beards, battle axes, and big builds. But there is no evidence that the Norsemen warriors wore horned helmets.
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This false image of the Vikings wearing horned helmets trace back to the 1800s. It was the Swedish artist Gustav Malmströmstems who portrayed them this way. The idea spread further when Wagner’s operas had Viking characters that wore horned helmets.
Paul Revere rode and yelled, “The British are coming!”
The tale of Paul Revere riding from town to town and shouting “The British are coming!” at the top of his lungs is one of the most famous classic stories about the American Revolution. But this happens to be just a tall tale.
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The truth is, this information had to be passed discreetly since there were a large number of British soldiers in the countryside. Also, the colonials considered themselves to be British so he would have to refer to them as “regulars” which was the term used for British soldiers.
George Washington Carver invented peanut butter
Botanist George Washington Carver helped South America’s economy by discovering different uses for peanuts. But he did not invent peanut butter. In fact, the Incas in 950 BC would smash peanuts to create a paste – this is the first recorded creation of peanut butter.
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The first modern patent for peanut butter was also created in 1884. At that time, Carver was just 20 years old so he couldn’t be the owner of that patent. Peanut butter was not even mentioned in Carver’s New York Times obituary back in 1943.
A cow started the Great Chicago Fire
A journalist had written that Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern and this started the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. The great fire burned 3 square miles of the city in two days and killed over 300 people. But what not everyone knows is that the journalist admitted he fabricated the story.
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Although it was true that the fire started in a neighborhood in the southwest part of the city, the truth was that the fire was caused by something else. It was a hot and dry time in the city and the wind caused wood in the city to catch on fire naturally.
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves
History says the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War freed slaves. But this only applied to the Confederate states. The North really had no power to enforce the Proclamation so it did not make such a big impact as we thought it did.
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Basically, the Proclamation did not free slaves in the Northern states, although it was rare after that point. But slavery was still legal – it was only illegal to buy and sell slaves in the North but it was legal to own them.
Wall Street workers jumped off buildings
When the stock market crashed in 1929, it has been reported that men who worked on Wall Street had started to jump off buildings to their deaths. Even though the chief medical examiner of New York released a statement saying this was not true, the rumors continued to spread around to this day.
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The truth is, some men did kill themselves during the 1929 stock market crash. These two men were the head of Rochester Gas and Electric and the president of County Trust Co. But these men did not jump off buildings. They actually shot themselves with their guns.
Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird of America
There is this story going around that Benjamin Franklin said the turkey should be the national bird instead of the bald eagle. But this was not the case. The only time Franklin mentioned the two birds were in a letter to his daughter.
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In the letter, Franklin criticized the eagle seal of the Society of the Cincinnati because the seal looked more like a turkey than an actual eagle. He also mentioned in the letter that he did not want the bald eagle to be the national bird but he never mentions that the turkey should take its place.
Abner Doubleday created baseball
Civil War general Abner Doubleday has been recognized as the inventor of baseball, which he created in 1839 in Cooperstown, New York. But there was no actual evidence that Doubleday created the sport or that he was in Cooperstown in 1839.
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Alexander Cartwright is the true creator of baseball. He was the founding father of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club and he was the one who thought of the diamond-shaped field. In 1938, Congress did recognize Cartwright as the father of baseball.
Thomas Crapper invented the flush toilet
Now, this is one historical fact that had children giggling in school given the name and the topic involved. In the 19th century, Thomas Crapper was a plumber and manufacturer who created “water closets” in England. But he was not the one who invented the flush toilet.
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The flush toilet has been around since the 1840s. At this time, Crapper just started to learn the ropes of plumbing as a child. Crapper also has been associated with waste but the term “crappe” has already been used for waste since the 13th century so he could not be credited for that either.
Charles Lindbergh is the first pilot to fly across the Atlantic
Contrary to what everyone knows, Charles Lindbergh is not the first pilot that crossed over the Atlantic. The first who did it were two British pilots, Brown and Alcock, who did the crossing in 1919 using an RAF bomber.
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The British pilots flew from Newfoundland to St. John’s and landed in Galway, Ireland, in a trip that lasted under 16 hours. This paved the way for transatlantic flights. Lindbergh was the first pilot to fly solo over the Atlantic – and this happened a few years later in 1927.