That the ancient pyramids were built by slaves.The latest evidence points to them being paid labourers.
That the Dark Ages refers to a period of ignorance and superstition in Medieval Europe. It actually refers to a lack of written sources during that time period.
This may be more a prehistoric misconception but the idea that individuals in hunter-gatherer or "caveman" societies were/are stupid. Imagine how difficult that life is and all of the things every individual has to know in order to survive. There is no infrastructure or existing structural supports, everything has to be done by hand. These societies have to know which plants are edible, what animals will be where during which times of year, how to treat injuries without any sort of medical equipment. imagine any aspect of your life and now imagine it without any modern comforts at all. Relationships and hierarchies are maintained without use of record keeping. Food is gathered and prepared without any means of long term storage. Now remember that the entire planet was settled this way. From the African veldt to the Scandinavian fjords, and from the the Atacama desert to the Islands of the pacific, and these people utilized some pretty ingenious discoveries and inventions to do these things.
That people during the middle ages thought the earth was flat, it was known since the ancient Greeks that it was round and people didn't just forget about it.
That Napolean was short (he was of average height for a Western European of that era... cartoonists in London newspapers and pamphlets just like to caricature him as a small figure).
That knights going into battle in a full suit of plate needed to be winched onto their horses, and if they fell off would be basically immobile and helpless. They could actually move quite well, some could even walk on their hands when they wanted to show off. The misconception came from Mark Twain's novel "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", where he references a specific type of jousting plate.
Vikings didn't have horns on their helmet.
Mostly everything in The Bible?
It's my pet peeve that most people still believe that Marie Antoinette said "let them eat cake." Not only did she never say it, but "cake" is a crummy translation for "brioche." Literally.
The pilgrims didn't leave England to escape religious prosecution. They left England because they disagreed with the religious freedom that was offered in England. So they went to a land where there would be no straying from the doctrine of Puritanism. Basically they went to the New World so that they could be the prosecutors. Also they didn't land at Plymouth rock or arrive on the Mayflower.
Joan of Arc was not condemned to death on charges of Witchcraft but for Heresy, a totally different crime.
The one that drives me the craziest is any time you see a medieval fight scene in a movie, and they cut straight through metal armor like it isn't even there.No! You can't cut through a car hood with a sword! It's called "armor" for a reason! You have to find a weak point between the plates, or you can hammer at it literally all day without getting through!
Polish Cavalry charged at German tanks with lances and sabres in 1939. The Polish Cavalry was a very high-prestige part of Polish armed forces, and had a lot of history behind them - Napoleon's lancers, Winged Hussars and so on. By 1939, the Polish cavalry were highly mobile infantry units really, but were used in the same way as NATO planned to use jeep squads in the event of a Soviet invasion - set up an ambush with anti-tank weapons, knock out a couple of tanks, retire to the next position quickly and set up another ambush etc.There were even examples of the Polish cavalry divisions bringing the Panzers to a dead stop, for example the Battle of Mokra.The "charging tanks with cavalry" myth seems to have originated in a specific incident on the first day of the invasion, the Skirmish at Krojanty.Although trained as mobile anti-tank/dragoon units, Polish cavalry retained the sabre, just in case. On 1 September, the 18th Pomeranian Uhlans were covering a retreat when they spotted a unit of German infantry resting in a clearing. Colonel Mastelarz decided to take them by surprise and ordered a sabre charge of about 250 cavalry. The charge was successful and the German infantry - who can't have been expecting cavalry with sabres charging them - dispersed into the trees with heavy casualties.At that point, some German armoured cars appeared and laid into the cavalry, causing some casualties (including Col. Mastelarz) and driving the rest off.In the aftermath, the German casualties were cleared away and the Poles left, and some neutral war correspondents were invited to come and see, and told that the cavalrymen had been killed while charging at tanks with sabres.The story circulated rapidly, not only among the German and sympathetic presses (to whom the moral of the story was supposed to be "Look how stupid and backward the Poles are - we're doing them a favour by bringing German civilisation"), but also in the British and French presses, who swallowed the story whole, but there the moral was "Look how suicidally brave the romantic Poles are - isn't this just the sort of people we should be supporting?"Then, after the war, the Communist Polish government, eager to seize on anything that would make the pre-war government look bad, perpetuated the myth, with the moral now being "Look what the old capitalist government did for you - forcing soldiers to face Panzers with sword and lance!"In other words the same, fake, story has been repeated by f*****t, democratic and communist sources each to serve their own narrative of the invasion if 1939.
The apple never hit Isaac Newton on the head. (He saw it fall and hit the ground.)Galileo never dropped balls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa. (He rolled balls down ramps.).
Blackbeard's pirate ship, Queen Anne's Revenge, wasn't a spectacularly huge Galleon, but actually a light and nimble frigate. The Queen Anne's Revenge was really maneuverable and fast. Just like how Somalian pirates use dinghies against cargo ships.
The Aztecs did not believe Cortes and his men were gods nor was Cortes the return of the Toltec king Quetzalcoatl.The Maya did not die out or collapse.Syphilis is firmly a New World disease. The question about it is whether or not it existed in the Old World prior to the Columbian Exchange.Bronze was not unknown to the Americas. The Tarascans made use of arsenic bronze for creating a variety of objects including bells, needles, tweezers, and axes.
Paul Revere never said "The British are coming! The British are coming!" as he himself and the defectors were all still considered British. He actually said "The regulars are coming! The regulars are coming!"...not quite the same ring to it.
The Royal Air Force apparently made their incredible strides in destroying German planes at night because of all the carrots they ate...(methinks it was the radar, not the carrots)Most people where I live are convinced this is true because 'it's historically proven to work' and so they eat a lot of carrots. Nothing wrong with eating veggies of course.
The Spartans didn't fight for freedom and equality. they had slaves and they often used them as target practice. Edit: As an aside, Xerxes the 1st, who is depicted as the villain in the movie '300' and his Jewish wife queen Esther, provided sanction and equal rights to jewish minorities in Persia (which was a zoroastrian empire at that time). Hence, you could go argue that he was far more tolerant of cultural diversity and freedom than the spartans.
Invention of perspective in art during the Renaissance when ancient Chinese an Greeks used it way before. All the medieval paintings were done that way due to that particular art style being favored at the time.
That technology shortens work hours. From hunter gatherers to the industrial revolution the amount of time people spent working greatly increased. It is estimated that a hunter gatherer would work six hours a day, while I am not sure of the exact average, if you were working class during the industrial revolution it is very likely you would be working 12-14 hours a day. This has of course decreased in the developed world due to socialism and unionism creating legal and economic pressures to decrease working hours.
There wasn't any "Apocalypse expectation" approaching the year 1000. This was basically made up by 1800s historians which cared for a "Dark Ages" idea of Middle-age.Actually nobody was scared of that particular year and, mostly, people didn't even know what the date was!
Gladiators didn't fight each other to death in the Colosseum.
George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter. The Aztecs were roasting peanuts before the colonists arrived and a Canadian guy was the first man to patent peanut butter.
The weirdest one I've seen absolutely *everywhere* was that the Roman emperor's title is Caesar. It was Augustus; Caesar was the title for the prince, or the junior emperor.
Antonio Meucci likely invented the first telephone, not Alexander Graham Bell.
George Washington's cannot tell a lie story.
There were only 300 Spartans at the Thermopylae, for each Spartan warrior there was about 8 Helots (Slaves) accompanying them, providing maintenance on equipment and acting as axillary. Also with them were several hundred Thespians and Thebans, the former chose to stay voluntarily with the Spartans whilst the latter were forced to stay as they were assumed traitors. So in all there were actually around 4000 Greeks left to fight the Persians in the final stand at Thermopylae, after the main Greek Force retreated.
That the 'Peace of Westphalia' was a period of long term peace and religious tolerance.
Classical music. The term classical was just tacked on because there was a revolution in architecture and visual art that took great influence from the 'classical' time period: Ancient Greece and Rome. We had absolutely no way of recreating what Ancient Greek or Roman music sounded like, and so the 'classical' part of classical music is quite a classic misnomer - classical composers took no influence from the classical period, unlike their architectural and visual art counterparts. Classical music, as distinguished from baroque music, has its own markedly different revolution, having nothing to do with ancient Greece or Rome.
That cinco de mayo is the Mexican independence day.
That the residents of people's temple committed s*****e by drinking poisoned Kool Aid. Whether or not they committed s*****e, it was flavor-aid.
How George Washington was our first president when in fact our first president was John Hanson. Washington was our first under our current constitution. Hanson was the first president of the Continental Congress following the ratification of the Articles of Confederation.
Actually, archers did use quivers, but they would stick the arrow in the ground during battle.
The sinking of the Lusitania garnered immediate US public support for WWI, and the US entered WWI shortly after.In fact, the ship was sunk 7 May 1915, and Wilson didn't request a declaration of war until 2 April 1917 -- nearly two years later.
Rome burned while Nero fiddled. It's technically true so it doesn't fit the OPs question. However, most people seem to think Bero did that because he was crazy because ... Well Nero was cray-to-the-zee crazy. But the reality on this particular occasion is *much* more nuanced. Nero was already playing the fiddle when he heard the news of the fire in the tenements of Rome. This is important for a few reasons *1. The tenements were housing the poor or the plebes as tge Romans referred to them. And like all powerful people in history Nero cared considerably less for the poor than the rich. *2. The fire was in the tenements. Nero had been imploring people NOT to expand the tenements so much because the Romans had such a habit of expansion that it was fairly typical for the tops of buildings to be wider than the base because after all you can only expand so much at ground level before you run into the road. But three or four stories up its a different story and the owners of the tenements would often add more living quarters to the tops of the building to get more people in their buildings. As a result some tenements were sharing walls on the third and fourth floors with neighbors that were separated by N entire road. This led to more than a few collapses. That in turn prompted Nero to start trying to rally support from the other elite senators about town to outlaw such building practices. Right as that was going on the fire breaks out. In Neros mind the fire is yet another reason why the tenements are being built dangerously. And so he didn't react with shock because he'd been arguing for a little while that the tenements were dangerous. Lastly. People say he fiddled while Romee burned implying that he did nothing. But the reality is that professional firefighting brigades didn't really come about until the early 20th century. Prior to that in say roman times fires got put out by volunteers who made ends meet by robbing the homes they were helping deal with fires. So even If Nero thought something needed to be done there was no force he could assign to combat the fire.As a result Nero just kept on with his practice because there wasn't anything he could really do AND even if there was he wouldn't have wanted to because he felt the fire proved his point about the tenements being poorly constructed. NOT because he was crazy...for once.
The circumstances under which the Church of England was founded during the English Reformation was much more complicated than and not as related to Henry VIII seeking divorce as people claim.
European Settlers bought Manhattan NY for beads from the Indians.Christopher Columbus Discovered America.There is a good book called "Lies my Teacher told me", though it is USA Centric, It is still a good book.
The first shots of the Civil War were not during the Siege of Fort Sumter, but rather many days before that when a battery along the shore approach to Charleston harbor, manned by Citadel cadets, opened fire on the Union steamer Star of the West, which had been dispatched to provide supplies and reinforcements to Fort Sumter. The cannonfire hit the ship but did no signicant damge, however the steamer turned and retreated. It's possible that if the ship had continued, it would have been fired on further, or if it had completed its mission, the Union soldiers in the Fort might have attempted to hold out for more time, which might have resulted in casualties on both sides. In reality, there were zero casualties during the fight and the fort was turned over to the South with a complete ceremony.
Contrary to popular belief, the US never imposed an oil embargo against Japan prior to Pearl Harbor. FDR was under a lot of pressure to apply an embargo. In a July 1941 cabinet meeting, he worried about how to explain oil rationing in California while still supplying Japan with oil. He insisted on this course of action, because he foresaw that an oil embargo could only lead to war. (The League of Nations had ruled that an oil embargo was a valid *cassus belli* when several nations tried to apply one against Italy for her invasion of Abyssinia/Ethiopia.)What the US did instead was insist that Japan pay for her oil with "new" money, rather than from Imperial accounts which had been frozen. This demand seemed to confuse Japan, but they sent a single ship to test this new arrangement. The *Tatuta Maru* had been promised that it could come to the US without fear of seizure. Once the *Tatuta Maru* docked, private parties filed suit in US courts, claiming ownership of her cargo. They filed a lien against the ship, holding it in harbor. Japan released the cargo, and the ship was allowed to sail. But Japan never attempted to purchase any further oil from the US.
Napoleon was a warmonger (he never started a war, the monarchies of Europe simply didn't like the idea of a Republic), the Sphinx's nose was shot off by Napoleon (it was pried off for not being muslimy enough in the 14th century). There are very few mysteries involving the pyramids of Egypt, and those that do exist surround Sneferu's not the famous pyramids at Giza. Swords weren't heavy, they were about 3 lbs on average (perhaps heavy for urbanite redditors). European martial arts were every bit as refined and advanced as Asian examples.
No ancient source exists that says the Romans, under Scipio Aemilianus Africanus, plowed over and sowed the city of Carthage with salt after sacking it.The salting of the earth at Carthage was invented in later stories strongly suggesting it never happened. Also, given that salt was a precious commodity during the Roman Republic/Empire it seems very unlikely that it would be used in such a way.
Truman didn't specifically approve the bombing of Nagasaki, and when he found out about it, he halted further bombings on Japan to allow the country time to process the damage and offer a surrender. In other words, the second bombing came simply because the bomb was ready to go. It was an automatic decision made by the military.
That DDay was the largest invasion in history.That's actually Operation Barbarossa.
I wouldn't say it's a fact but people believing in a real, long Atlantis, when it was actually part of a story by Platos.
Germany starting World War 1. This was caused by man factors. First being the assassination of the Austrian-Hungary empire. After this happened Austria demanded reparations from Serbia as it was believe it was government sponsored. When Serbia refused Austria declared war. After this point it was a domino effect of rapid militarization.
Moses was not found in the bullrushes.Egyptian Kingship had most of the Pharaohs associated with being found in bullrushes. The significance lies in the Nile association and the bringing of crop prosperity, water, fecundity etc.
JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" does not mean "I am a doughnut" any more than Angela Merkel saying "I am a New Yorker" would mean "I am a magazine".
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Exactly - Lack of written sources === The Dark Ages.
#3 Study of Ur and other cities in modern Iraq point to a very different interpretation, that until they were able to store grains and cereals, civilization could not happen. People were too concerned about scrounging for food to put energy into building a society or government or religion or anything else.
Actually, a lot of what is posted here by whoever this is, is false, misrepresents, or needs further context. No citations other than "Trust me, I'm the internet". Drivel.
Until humans were able to use fire for themselves they used almost all of their energy by looking for and consuming food.
Is also a theory, like a lot of other 'findings'.
All religion keeps people in the "Dark Ages." Especially, Islam.
Congratulations to you!