People assume a lot of things. Always have. And while sometimes we get to feel very perceptive by getting things right, there are many occasions where we shoot right past the target.
Need some examples? Well, you’re in luck, because this Reddit thread comes with a whole list of popular historical myths that a lot of people claim to be true just because someone probably assumed it and spread the word around the town. Scroll down to learn all about them!
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There’s a bunch of fake history facts circulating around us. We might not even know they’re not accurate as we’ve seen and heard them so many times it feels like they must be true.
Fortunately, some historians make it their mission to hunt these false claims down and debunk them for the whole world to see. One of these experts is Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse, who was glad to lend Bored Panda her expertise and answer some questions about this topic.
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Jo told us that she has been interested in history ever since she, as a little girl, first saw old photos of the street she lived on. The realization that there once were other people who lived where she did yet were surrounded by a quite different world ignited a spark of fascination in her.
Since then, she has spent much time learning and thinking about the past, leading her to work as a historical consultant for film, TV, museums, and similar places. But nowadays, Jo hunts for fake history facts and shares them with anyone interested online. She has a dedicated website and has recently released a very successful book featuring some of the most interesting fake history catches and their corrections.
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Among all the funny fake history claims, like Vikings having horns on their helmets, Santa being created by Coca-Cola, and Napoleon shooting off the nose of the Sphinx, Jo finds it hard to pick a favorite one.
“The myths regarding the Middle Ages are the most rewarding for me to deal with because, to me, that era is so interesting, and it irks me that so many people still think it was a backward, ignorant time,” said the Fake History Hunter, adding that films and TV keep reinforcing these negative images.
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When asked where these myths come from, the historian answered that they’re usually born in a few different ways. It may be a case of picking assumptions over research, wrong things being taught at school, and people wanting to believe something and looking for proof, a.k.a. confirmation bias.
Of course, there are also those people who simply spread misinformation on purpose for online popularity. “But usually, at the birth of fake history, you’ll find that ignorance and laziness are the parents of the myth,” said Jo.
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While most of these claims are relatively harmless and only really annoy the historians trying to correct them, sometimes, false history can be as harmful as fake news. As an example, the historian used the case of Covid-19, which is something all of us are painfully familiar with. “Old photos of the 1918–1920 flu pandemic and even incorrect stories about the medieval Black Death were shared to get people to either wear a mask or refuse to wear one.”
The Fake History Hunter added that this type of misinformation can also be used for other unethical purposes, fueling hate against people who look, act, or think differently to make them appear inadequate and inferior.
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Just like with fake news, the best way to avoid falling for fake historical claims is to learn to think critically and fact-check things properly. “Learn how to stop believing articles with no sources or references, ask people more often to prove what they are saying, but also find out how you yourself can use search engines & archives properly to figure out the truth,” said Jo, adding that a good way to start is by checking out her book.
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Most false historical and current-time claims spread online, and they do it fast. With fake news being all around us, it’s essential to know how to protect yourself from it properly. And for that reason, Arizona State University shares a few quick tips on improving ourselves in this field.
First off, pay attention to where your news comes from. Consider its background, who could benefit from this, and what the underlying source material is. If you’re getting your news from social media, it pays to find the original source and ensure its credibility.
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Don’t limit yourself to the headlines for the actual reading, as those may often be misleading. At the same time, examine the sources from which the article takes its information and see how they’re included.
When it comes to news sources, loyalty is not something to care about. Instead, you should seek to get your news from a variety of sources to get the fullest picture and be able to confirm the information. And if you hear your friends and family share misinformation, don’t shy away from correcting them, too.
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In the end, there is a lot of misinformation out there. Whether it’s relatively harmless false historical claims or seriously ill-intended fake news, it’s wise to be vigilant and ensure that whatever information you’re getting is accurate. And this task is up to us because only we can choose what we believe in.
What did you think of this story? What are some historically unproven claims that you’d like to share? Type it all up in the comments below!
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That there was massive fraud in the 2020 election. When you lose 60 times in a row in federal court and fail to produce any evidence, it's time to hang it up.No so much a single historical fact, but people tend to fall for fallacies of nature, and imply that we should go back to the way we did things “naturally”
But often times, this idea is extremely historically inaccurate. Many times, the way we did things “naturally” resulted in a lot of, you know. Death.
For example, “giving birth naturally.” Some people seem to think that before modern obstetrics, that we were all just a bunch of natural goddesses giving birth in the forest. But the reality was a lot more grotesque than that. If everyone gave birth the way we did in 1900, we would be seeing a lot more childbirth related death. We would also see a lot more women dealing with fistulas, and being ostracized
Same with vaccines. Letting “nature” take its course, killed us, sometimes at alarming rates (like with smallpox). Oh sure, they had natural immunity to a lot of things, just like we develop natural immunity to a lot of things - except some immunities are a lot safer to get naturally. You don’t just develop natural immunity to polio, you have to get polio and suffer the permanent *natural* consequences. But people have this idea that everyone used to walk around with better immune systems and they would drink elderberryThat ancient people thought the Earth was flat.
We have records from around 430BC where Greek philosophers spoke of the Earth being a sphere. In 240BC the Greek astronomer Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth and was only about 2% out.Never did Marie Antoinette say, "Let them eat cake" To be honest, history has demonized that poor child. She was married to a moron, she was in a foreign country, and she had no idea what she was doing.I'm sick of curriculum materials teaching my fourth graders that the Spanish discovered Florida when they were looking for the Fountain of Youth. That lie was developed in the 1920s as a tourist gimmick. There's literally nothing in the historical record that supports it.There has never been a viking helmet found that had a horn attached to it.Young Earth Creationism is NOT the historically believed position of the Early Christian Church or the Ancient Church. It's a fairly recent theological position initially proported by 7th Day Adventist, but quickly became popular with Fundamentalists due to backlash over evolution becoming mainstream.
Before that, most people saw the Creation narrative in Genesis as a narrative myth and was not meant to be read as scientific fact.Calling the American Civil War "the war of Northern Aggression"
B***h you literally shot first.
Edit: "I'm from the south and I've never heard this" the f**k you haven't!Corsets were not typically tight laced. They were only tight laced by the highly fashionable women, and usually only for particular events or portraits. Corsets were designed to be comfortable. Women wore a cotton layer underneath the corset, so it didn't rub against the skin. The corset was more like a bra, bit instead of using the shoulders to support it used the whole torso. Some people claim they are much more comfortable than modern bras. The intense proportions of the past were achieved with Corsets AND padding. Tight lacing was uncommon, but layers of petticoats or hoops or bum rolls or whatever else at the time was very common to give women the trendy body shape at the time.That the Pyramids were built by Jewish slaves. The Egyptians were good at record keeping and none of their records say anything about slaves being used for the construction of the Pyramids.Marilyn Monroe never said "...if you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best"
There is literally no documented proof she ever said that.Einstein being a low-level student (his grades were average to top tier of the class, and he was pretty damn good academically)The claim Mormons make that the Book of Mormon is a historical record of a group of ancient white Hebrew people who lived on the pre-Colombian American continent and were cursed with brown skin for disobeying God and those are the people who became the Native Americans. Yeah right…That the American Civil War wasn't about slavery and was started by the Union.
Both of these are wildly wrong, but various groups hold to them like an emotional support blanket so they can rationalize their chosen side lost.The idea that medieval/early modern people (especially peasants) were filthy/had poor hygiene and never left their villages. Medieval people cleaned themselves and their clothes fairly regularly. They even cleaned their teeth by chewing split twigs. Also, it was fairly common even for peasants to travel to pilgrimage sites on holy days/periods.That ancient humans were dumbCatherine the Great did not do that with a horse.Well, for starters, the claim that Napoleon was short is just not backed by historical facts. The guy was average height for his time. It's like saying your 5'8" friend is a giant because he hangs out with a bunch of kindergartners.Vomitoria were passages designed to accommodate large crowds, not rooms for actual vomiting (“vomit” comes from Latin for “spew forth”).Claim: Republican administrations in the USA reduce government spending while Democrat administrations increase government spending.China does not own the South China Sea, no matter how badly it wants to believe it with its nine dash line.[Note, I am a Christian, however] The Nativity Story: there was no census, and even ancient texts don't mention it until it gets a nod in two of the gospels written decades after His death. Also a census of that scale back then would take *years and years* if there was one, due to the distances and logistics. The reason cited in the oldest texts was that Jesus needed to be born in David's City to be really the King of Kings, so a story was refined over centuries to get him to Bethlehem. Virgin Mary wasn't even "virgin" until about the 6th Century CE (Constantinople). Obviously the bible has a *slew* of historical issues, but it's Christmas time. Merry Christmas y'all! That every women in the Middle ages married at 12 or 13 and started having babies immediately. And they did not love and mourn their children as much as we do.
That people in the Middle ages thought the earth was flatThat binary numbers were first used by Leibniz. Most computer histories make this claim. But there's an existing by the English mathematician Thomas Harriot that includes binary numbers and binary multiplication that was written around 1605, forty years before Leibniz was born.That knowledge and science in Western Europe were wiped out during the Dark Ages because of the Church. In fact, the Medieval church was one of the only places in Europe keeping knowledge alive, as monks transcribed and copied ancient sources. For example, everything the ancient Greeks knew about the science of sound and acoustics was transmitted down via church sources.
Not saying the Church hasn't done awful things. But the usual narrative about its function in the Middle Ages is completely opposite from reality.
Heck, while we're at it, the so-called Dark Ages didn't really exist at all.Executioners/hangman didn't wear hoods. People knew who they were. There are even several instances where the job gets passed from father to son like a family business.
They were paid okay but also made side money from selling stuff used for the execution like bits of rope and fabric and stuff.
Edit: There's a book called Lord High Executioner by Howard Engel that goes into the history of it and it's fascinating.The earth has only exists for a few thousand years.I heard recently that the reason Columbus had trouble finding funding for his voyages had nothing to do with the powers that be believing the earth was flat. In fact, it was pretty well accepted by that point that it was spherical. However, they believed it was much bigger than Columbus believed it was and that there would be nothing but ocean for thousands of miles. They thought the journey would cost much more than he was trying to say. He was wrong, and the fact that he ran into the Americas was just luck for him.The pyramids being built by aliensThe White Star Line saying the Titanic was unsinkable. It was actually a shipping magazine that first called the Olympic class unsinkable.
In a similar note the RMS Britannic being called Gigantic. The name only Gigantic only appears once on an order for an anchor. Every other piece of documentation refers to the Britannic as the Britannic.Witch burning were daily occurances in the middle age, I blame da Vinci codeBlackbeard's privateer transport, Sovereign Anne's Vengeance, was certainly not a tremendously immense Vessel, however really a light and deft frigate.
The Sovereign Anne's Vengeance was truly flexibility and quick. Very much like the way in which Somalian privateers use dinghies against freight shipsAbner Doubleday inventing baseball in Cooperstown, NY.The people in Medieval times would empty pots of s**t and p**s right out their window. If you stop and think about it for like two seconds this idea is so f*****g bizarre that it is surprising it became such a popular myth. I remember clearly being told this as fact by my 4th grade history teacher.
