Redditor u/KyloWrench recently asked, “What historical ‘fact’ doesn’t actually have much evidence to support it?” As a chronically nosy person, I had to deep-dive on these myself, and…consider my gobs smacked, y’all! Here are 14 historical “facts” you probably learned growing up that — surprise! — aren’t actually true at all:
1.
MYTH: “Betsy Ross designed the American flag.”
REALITY: “I went with some friends to the Betsy Ross house in Philly one time. We already knew she had nothing to with the American flag but checked it out anyway. During the tour, the guide not only admitted that she had nothing to do with the flag, but also that she had never actually lived in that house. We couldn’t help but wonder why we bothered with the tour.”
According to historians, there is no evidence that Betsy Ross designed it.
2.
MYTH: “In the Victorian era, doctors used to treat hysteria with orgasms.”
REALITY: “The source for the widely reported fact comes from a relatively recent book, and the documentation is questionable. Really, anything sex-related in more buttoned-up cultures is going to be questionable historically. Just because if it’s considered something shameful or to be kept secret, there won’t be much evidence in the first place.”
According to experts, we have no solid evidence to back up this myth.
3.
MYTH: “Napoleon asked his wife in a letter not to wash herself.”
REALITY: According to several experts, evidence of such a letter doesn’t exist. The first known book to reference the letter didn’t come out until 1981, which has led experts to doubt its legitimacy.
4.
MYTH: According to the Bible, the forbidden fruit Eve ate was an apple.
REALITY: “The bible never specified what fruit Eve actually ate. Everyone associated it with an apple, but in the original Hebrew text of Genesis, it simply says fruit.”
“The idea that it’s an apple is a Latin pun, where ‘malus’ can mean either ‘apple’ or ‘evil’.”
“There’s also the generality where the word for apple is often used as a generic term for fruit. The French call potatoes dirt apples.”
5.
MYTH: “The people who built the Titanic thought it was unsinkable.”
REALITY: The “unsinkability” of the ship actually came into conversation after the tragedy, giving the story a larger-than-life quality in pop culture. As far as we’ve seen, the Titanic was never marketed as “unsinkable,” nor were its sister ships with comparable safety features.
6.
MYTH: People in the 1700s only lived until around 30 years old.
REALITY: “While approximately true of the average lifespan [of Europe], the average is weighed down by just how many infant and toddler deaths there were. If you made it to later childhood (8–10), you would probably live until 60–80 as well.”
Using England as an example, from about 1580 to 1720, it’s estimated that “almost one-third of young people died before 15 years of age.”
7.
MYTH: “Marco Polo brought pasta back from China to Italy.”
8.
MYTH: “Marie Antoinette said, ‘Let them eat cake.'”
REALITY: “The line that gets misattributed to her is [‘Qu’ils mangent de la brioche,’ or] ‘Let them eat brioche,’ which is a more expensive type of bread.”
Furthermore, regardless of which meaning you’ve been taught, we have no actual evidence that Marie Antoinette said this at all. The quote as we know it dates back to the writings of Rousseau in Confessions, where it was supposedly said by “a great princess.” While Marie Antoinette was a princess, she was only a child at the time it was written. His work did inspire the French Revolution, and it’s possible the quote was picked up from his writing and used as propaganda.
9.
MYTH: All the studies we’ve used to inform modern psychology have consistently and repeatedly held up today, or we’ve stopped using them.
REALITY: “A good chunk of the studies used to inform current-day psychology have been difficult to reproduce. A lot have returned wildly different results than the ones originally published.”
This is also known as the “Replication Crisis.” Per Psychology Today, “In one major project [in the 2010s], fewer than half of the studies that replicators tried to recreate yielded similar results, suggesting that at least some of the original findings were false positives.”
10.
MYTH: “Medieval Europeans universally thought the Earth was flat.”
REALITY: “Basically, all European scholars knew the Earth was round. The Greeks knew the Earth was round, and they measured the circumference with amazing accuracy. Scholars and theologians were very familiar with Ancient Greek literature and knew the Earth was round.”
“The flat earth idea basically grew out of the US in the 1830s.”
It’s believed that educated Europeans during the era did, in fact, know the Earth is round. As for the myth, an 1828 biography of Columbus by Washington Irving is widely believed to have popularized it, and this was furthered by religious writings that used the claim to pit faith against science.
11.
MYTH: “That in the Middle Ages everyone drank beer instead of water, as it was safer.”
REALITY: As we see in several accounts, medieval people did also drink water. Unless it was brewed at home, beer had to be purchased and, thus, was more expensive to rely on solely.
12.
MYTH: “Everyone that lived in Scandinavia in the 9th to 11th centuries was a Viking.”
13.
MYTH: We know definitively that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon — one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World — existed.
REALITY: “It is one of those things that, since we have independent historical and in some instances archaeological evidence for the other six, that it gets the benefit of the doubt.”
There is proof — whether it’s still standing like the Pyramids of Giza, through its ruins like the Lighthouse of Alexandria, or through historical evidence like the Colossus of Rhodes — that six of the Ancient Wonders of the World existed. The seventh, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, we have no such definitive proof of. There are no ruins proving its original location, nor is it referenced in any historical Babylonian literary sources.
REALITY: “Vatican records show St. Palladius was sent to Ireland before Patrick. Even more, records show he was sent to preach to people *already believing* in Christ, which meant it had already been introduced to the island.”
Additionally, trade and refugees likely played a role in spreading the religion in Ireland, as well.
While we’re on the topic, let’s dispel another popular myth here — St. Patrick wasn’t Irish!
Do you know of a common historical myth you were taught growing up that you learned was actually totally false? Tell us in the comments below or via this anonymous form:
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
