I went onto wikipedia and went through the list. Included post 1900 since there weren't that many.
Ancient
Ancient Greek sculptures were originally painted bright colors.
Vomitorium to a Roman amphitheatre in
Toulouse
Ancient Greek and
Roman sculptures were
originally painted bright colors; they only appear white today because the original pigments have deteriorated. Some well-preserved statues still bear traces of their original coloration. I can't imagine this changes much.
The ancient Greeks did not use the word "
idiot" (
Ancient Greek: ἰδιώτης,
romanized:
ídiṓtēs) to disparage people who did not participate in civic life or who did not vote. An ἰδιώτης was simply a private citizen as opposed to a government official. Later, the word came to mean any sort of non-expert or layman, then someone uneducated or ignorant, and much later to mean stupid or mentally deficient. So for the sake of this being true, we will say the word's connotation changed much earlier in the Ancient Greece time.
Vomiting was not a regular part of
Roman dining customs. In
ancient Rome, the architectural feature called a
vomitorium was the entranceway through which crowds entered and exited a stadium( as if the stadium was "vomiting" them out) not a special room used for purging food during meals. If this was the case than I imagine Rome would smell very putrid in those days and the architecture would be made to include actual rooms for Vomiting.
The death of Greek philosopher
Hypatia of Alexandria at the hands of a mob of Christian monks in 415 was mainly a result of her involvement in a bitter political feud between her close friend and student
Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, and the bishop
Cyril, not her religious views. Her death also had nothing to do with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, which had likely already ceased to exist centuries before Hypatia was born. The Library of Alexandria surviving much longer, possibly saved portions of the knowledge within.
Scipio Africanus did not plow over the city of
Carthage and
sow it with salt after defeating it in the
Third Punic War. Though he now did and the land likely did not grow for sometime as a result.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
It is true that modern
life expectancies are much higher, by any measure, than they were in the Middle Ages and earlier; however, "life expectancy" is commonly, and incorrectly, confused for the average age an adult could expect to live. This confusion may create the expectation that an adult would be unlikely to exceed a given average life expectancy, even though, with all statistical probability, an adult who has already avoided many causes of adolescent mortality should be expected to significantly outlive the average life expectancy calculated from birth.
Age specific forecasts, particularly life expectancy after childhood, can be dramatically different from life expectancy at birth, especially in preindustrial times.
There is no evidence that
Vikings wore
horns on their helmets. In fact, the image of Vikings wearing horned helmets stems from the
scenography of an 1876 production of the
Der Ring des Nibelungen opera cycle by
Richard Wagner. Now however, they did.
Vikings did not
drink out of the skulls of vanquished enemies. This was based on a mistranslation of the
skaldic poetic use of
ór bjúgviðum hausa (branches of skulls) to refer to
drinking horns. Now they did, and likely come off as even more fearsome because of it.
Vikings did not
name Iceland "
Iceland" as a ploy to discourage others from settling it.
Naddodd and
Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerðarson both saw snow and ice on the island when they traveled there, giving the island its name.
Greenland, on the other hand, was named in the hope that it would help attract settlers. History is now changed so that Iceland was green at the time
Naddodd and
Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerðarson visited it and it truly was a ploy.
King Canute did not command the
tide to reverse in a fit of delusional arrogance. His intent that day, if indeed the incident did occur, was most likely to prove a point to members of his privy council that no man is all-powerful, and we all must bend to forces beyond our control, such as the tides. Here, he has a bout of insanity, making him a mad King, which could change a great deal.
There is no evidence that
iron maidens were used for torture, or even yet invented, in the
Middle Ages. Instead they were pieced together in the 18th century from several
artifacts found in museums in order to create spectacular objects intended for (commercial) exhibition. Giving them to the Middles Ages period gives a boost in technology somewhat to the era.
An anti-clockwise spiral staircase at
Hohenzollern Castle in Germany. The choice of anticlockwise or clockwise spiral had more to do with convenience than making it harder for right-handed attackers to storm a castle.
There is a common misconception that spiral staircases in castles rose in a clockwise direction to hinder right-handed attackers. While clockwise spiral staircases are more common in castles than anti-clockwise, they were even more common in medieval structures without a military role such as religious buildings. Studies of spiral stairs in castle have concluded that "the role and position of spirals in castles ... had a much stronger domestic and status role than a military function" and that "there are sufficient examples of anticlockwise stairs in Britain and France in to indicate that the choice must have depended both on physical convenience and architectural practicalities and there was no military ideology that demanded clockwise staircases in the cause of fighting efficiency or advantage". This is now made true.
The
plate armor of European soldiers did not stop soldiers from moving around or necessitate a crane to get them into a saddle. They would as a matter of course fight on foot and could mount and dismount without help. In fact, soldiers equipped with plate armor were more mobile than those with
mail armor (chain armor), as mail was heavier and required stiff padding beneath due to its pliable nature It is true that armor used in tournaments in the late Middle Ages was significantly heavier than that used in warfare, which may have contributed to this misconception. This is now made true.
Whether
chastity belts, devices designed to prevent women from having
sexual intercourse, were invented in
medieval times is disputed by modern historians. Most existing chastity belts are now thought to be deliberate fakes or anti-masturbatory devices from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The latter were made due to the
widespread belief that masturbation could lead to insanity, and were mostly bought by parents for their teenage children. These now existed in the Middle Ages.
Medieval depiction of a spherical Earth.
Medieval Europeans did not believe Earth was flat. Scholars have known the
Earth is spherical since at least 500 B.C. This myth was created in the 17th century by Protestants to argue against Catholic teachings. The World is now believed to be flat due the the 500 B.C. discovery not being made.
Christopher Columbus' efforts to obtain support for
his voyages were hampered not by belief in a flat Earth but by valid worries that the East Indies were farther than he realized. In fact, Columbus grossly underestimated the Earth's circumference because of two calculation errors. He and all of his crew would have died of starvation, thirst or scurvy had they not inadvertently reached Caribbean islands off the coast of North America. The myth that Columbus proved the Earth was round was propagated by authors like
Washington Irving in
A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. This has now been changed to be a major point in history.
Christopher Columbus was not the first European to visit the Americas.
Leif Erikson, and possibly other
Vikings before him, explored
Vinland, which was either the island of
Newfoundland, part of modern Canada, or a term for Newfoundland and parts of the North American mainland. Ruins at
L'Anse aux Meadows prove that at least one Norse settlement was built in Newfoundland, confirming a narrative in the
Saga of Erik the Red. Columbus also never reached any land that now forms part of the mainland United States of America; most of the landings Columbus made on
his four voyages, including the initial October 12, 1492 landing (the anniversary of which forms the basis of
Columbus Day), were on Caribbean islands that are now independent countries. Leif Erikson did not establish settlement there in this context.
The
Mexica people of the
Aztec Empire did not mistake
Hernán Cortés and his landing party for gods during Cortés's
conquest of the empire. This myth came from Francisco López de Gómara, who never went to Mexico and conjured the myth while working for the retired Cortés in Spain years after the conquest. The Aztecs actually attacked
Cortés and he returned with bigger forces. Cortes would use their worship of him to be given gold, though given the tendencies of the spanish, he would still kill the Aztecs and take all the gold.
Marco Polo did not import pasta from China, a misconception that originated with the
Macaroni Journal, published by an association of food industries with the goal of promoting the use of pasta in the United States. Marco Polo describes a food similar to "lasagna" in his
Travels, but he uses a term with which he was already familiar.
Durum wheat, and thus pasta as it is known today, was introduced by
Arabs from Libya,
during their conquest of
Sicily in the late 9th century, according to the newsletter of the
National Macaroni Manufacturers Association, thus predating Marco Polo's travels to China by about four centuries. This is now true.
The
Inquisition did not demand belief in
geocentrism instead of
heliocentrism because of the Bible. Already, the
Tychonic system was the primary model at the time, supported by such evidence as
stellar parallax remaining unobserved until the 1800s. Instead, a major contributing factor to delaying support in the Copernican model was the fact that so much of the evidence for heliocentrism was already adequately explained by the Tychonic system. This is now made true.
Early modern
The phrase "
let them eat cake" is commonly attributed to
Marie Antoinette.
Contrary to the popular image of the
Pilgrim Fathers, the early settlers of the
Plymouth Colony in North America usually did not wear all black, and their
capotains (hats) were shorter and rounder than the widely depicted tall hat with a buckle on it. Instead, their fashion was based on that of the late
Elizabethan era:
doublets,
jerkins and
ruffs. Both men and women wore the same style of shoes, stockings, capes, coats and hats in a range of colors including reds, yellows, purples, and greens. According to
Plimoth Plantation historian James W. Baker, the traditional image was formed in the 19th century when buckles were a kind of emblem of
quaintness. (The
Puritans, who also settled in Massachusetts near the same time,
did frequently wear all black.)Fashion is now changed.
The accused at the
Salem witch trials in North America were not burned at the stake; about 15 died in prison, 19 were hanged and one(Giles Corey) was
pressed to death. Now, the 19 that were hanged were burned and Gile Corey was still pressed to death(crushed by large rocks when he refused to state his plee in an attempt to "Squeeze" out a confession from him).
Marie Antoinette did not say "
let them eat cake" when she heard that the French peasantry were starving due to a shortage of bread. The phrase was first published in Rousseau's
Confessions when Marie was only nine years old and most scholars believe that
Rousseau coined it himself, or that it was said by
Maria Theresa, the wife of
Louis XIV. Even Rousseau (or Maria Theresa) did not use the exact words but actually
Qu'ils mangent de la brioche, meaning "Let them eat
brioche" (a rich type of bread). Marie Antoinette was a target of attacks from radical
jacobins; therefore, political activists attributed the phrase "let them eat cake" to her, to promulgate an image of her as disconnected from her subjects. Here, she said the phrase when she was nine years old, making it hardly seem like we could blame her given her age.
George Washington did not have wooden teeth. His dentures were made of gold, hippopotamus ivory, lead, animal teeth (including horse and donkey teeth), and probably human teeth purchased from slaves. They are now swapped with wooden teeth.
The signing of the
United States Declaration of Independence did not occur on July 4, 1776. After the
Second Continental Congress voted to declare independence on July 2, the final language of the document was approved on July 4, and it was printed and distributed on July 4–5. However, the actual signing occurred on August 2, 1776. Here it is pushed by two days.
Benjamin Franklin did not propose that the
wild turkey be used as the symbol for the United States instead of the
bald eagle. While he did serve on a commission that tried to design a seal after the
Declaration of Independence, his proposal was an image of
Moses. His objections to the eagle as a national symbol and preference for the turkey were stated in a 1784 letter to his daughter in response to the
Society of the Cincinnati's use of the former; he never expressed that sentiment publicly. Here he did indeed suggest the Turkey.
Benjamin Banneker did not recall from memory or reproduce
Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's
plan for the city of Washington, D.C., did not assist in the planning or surveying of that city, did not put in place or establish the locations of the
boundary markers of the original District of Columbia, did not write one of the first almanacs in the United States, did not invent a clock and was not one of the first people to record observations of the
periodical cicada (see
Mythology of Benjamin Banneker for further information and references). Here he did do all these actions and is more popular in American(and African American) history because of it.
There was never a bill to make
German the
official language of the United States that was defeated by one vote in the
House of Representatives, nor has one been proposed at the state level. In 1794, a petition from a group of German immigrants was put aside on a procedural vote of 42 to 41, that would have had the government publish some laws in German. This was the basis of the
Muhlenberg legend, named after the
Speaker of the House at the time,
Frederick Muhlenberg, a speaker of German descent who abstained from this vote. Presumably for this law to get so close, the US, would have had to have a larger German population, possibly sharing with the British population.
Modern
Napoleon on the Bellerophon, a painting of Napoleon I by
Charles Lock Eastlake. Napoleon was taller than his nickname,
le Petit Caporal, suggests.
See also:
False memory § Commonly held false memories
Napoleon Bonaparte was not short. He was actually slightly taller than the average Frenchman of his time. After his death in 1821, the French emperor's height was recorded as 5 feet 2 inches in
French feet, which in English measurements is 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m).
[214][215] He was actually nicknamed
le Petit Caporal (The Little Corporal) as a term of endearment. Napoleon was often accompanied by his imperial guard, who were selected for their height—this may have contributed to a perception that he was comparatively short. In this context, Napoleon being short was likely something he was ridiculed by and hated.
Cinco de Mayo is not
Mexico's Independence Day, but the celebration of the Mexican Army's victory over the French in the
Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Mexico's Declaration of Independence from Spain in 1810 is celebrated on September 16. For this to work we will say that the Mexican War of Independence occurred earlier by several months, occurring from May, 1810 to September 27 1821.
The
Alaska Purchase was generally popular in the United States, both among the public and the press. The later portrayal of the purchase as a folly was a minority position at the time. A small reversal.
Cowboy hats were not initially popular in the
Western American frontier, with
derby or bowler hats being the typical headgear of choice. Heavy marketing of the
Stetson "
Boss of the Plains" model in the years following the
American Civil War was the primary driving force behind the cowboy hat's popularity, with its characteristic dented top not becoming standard until near the end of the 19th century. This seems to have become true on its own anyway.
Despite being referenced commonly in culture and society at large, the idea that Victorian Era doctors invented the
vibrator to cure female 'hysteria' via triggering orgasm is a product of a single work rejected by most historians. Here it is truth and...wow. Would Vibrator's be less popular if they are tied to an old sexist notion?
The
Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was not caused by
Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern. A newspaper reporter invented the story to make colorful
copy and later admitted it. Here it is true.
The claim that
Frederic Remington, on assignment to Cuba in 1897, telegraphed
William Randolph Hearst, "There will be no
war. I wish to return," and that Hearst responded, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war" is unsubstantiated. This anecdote was originally included in a book by
James Creelman, though there is no evidence that the telegraph exchange ever happened, and substantial evidence that it did not. If the news got out that Hearst said this, likely form Remington, Hearst would face serious backlash and be quite hated. I wonder how the production of Citizen Kane would go if Hearst took such a hit he couldn't attack the picture.
Immigrants' last names were not Americanized (voluntarily, mistakenly, or otherwise) upon arrival at
Ellis Island. Officials there kept no records other than checking ship manifests created at the point of origin, and there was simply no paperwork that would have let them recast surnames, let alone any law. At the time in New York, anyone could change the spelling of their name simply by using that new spelling. These names are often referred to as an "
Ellis Island Special". Now though they are.
The common image of
Santa Claus (Father Christmas) as a jolly old man in red robes was not created by
The Coca-Cola Company as an advertising gimmick. Despite being historically represented with different characteristics in different colors of robes, Santa Claus had already taken his modern form in popular culture and seen extensive use in other companies' advertisements and other mass media at the time Coca-Cola began using his image in the 1930s. Here they did and its likely considered one of the most successful marketing campaigns of all time.
The
paralytic illness of Franklin D. Roosevelt is now thought unlikely to be
polio, which was the diagnosis at the time in 1921, but rather more consistent with
Guillain–Barré syndrome. Here he did have Polio.
Italian dictator
Benito Mussolini did not "make the trains run on time". Much of the repair work had been performed before Mussolini and the
Fascists came to power in 1922. Accounts from the era also suggest that the Italian railways' legendary adherence to timetables was more propaganda than reality. Doesn't change much except give Mussolini a slight positive.
There was no widespread outbreak of panic across the United States in response to
Orson Welles's 1938
radio adaptation of
H.G. Wells's
The War of the Worlds. Only a very small share of the radio audience was even listening to it, and isolated reports of scattered incidents and increased call volume to emergency services were played up the next day by newspapers, eager to discredit radio as a competitor for advertising. Both Welles and CBS, which had initially reacted apologetically, later came to realize that the myth benefited them and actively embraced it in later years. I see no reason why Welles wouldn't do the same if the hysteria was true though the severity would put him in hot water.
There is no evidence of
Polish cavalry mounting a brave but futile charge against German
tanks using lances and sabres during the German
invasion of Poland in 1939. This story may have originated from German propaganda efforts following the
charge at Krojanty, in which a Polish cavalry brigade surprised German infantry in the open, and successfully charged and dispersed them, until driven off by
armoured cars. While Polish cavalry still carried the sabre for such opportunities, they were trained to fight as highly mobile, dismounted cavalry (
dragoons) and issued with light anti-tank weapons. I don't see this changing much though.
During the
occupation of Denmark by the
Nazis during World War II, King
Christian X of Denmark did not thwart Nazi attempts to identify Jews by wearing a
yellow star himself. Jews in Denmark were never forced to wear the Star of David. The
Danish resistance did
help most Jews flee the country before the end of the war. Here Christian X did and may have been killed for it or at least taken captive. King Christian X is remembered fondly by the Danish and this would only boost that.
Albert Einstein, photographed at 14, did not fail mathematics at school.
Albert Einstein did not fail mathematics classes (never "flunked a math exam") in school. Upon seeing a column making this claim, Einstein said "I never failed in mathematics.... Before I was fifteen I had mastered
differential and
integral calculus." Einstein did, however, fail his first entrance exam into the
Swiss Federal Polytechnic School (ETH) in 1895, when he was two years younger than his fellow students, but scored exceedingly well in the mathematics and science sections, then passed on his second attempt. I see it as plausible for Einstein to have worked even harder after flunking, but he may also have not gone into Mathematics and never helped invent the Atomic Bomb as a result.
Actor
Ronald Reagan was never seriously considered for the role of Rick Blaine in the 1942 film classic
Casablanca, eventually played by
Humphrey Bogart. This belief came from an early studio press release announcing the film's production that used his name to generate interest in the film. But by the time it had come out,
Warner Bros. knew that Reagan was unavailable for any roles in the foreseeable future since he was no longer able to defer his entry into military service. Studio records show that producer
Hal B. Wallis had always wanted Bogart for the part. Doesn't change too much since the myth is he was considered.
U.S. Senator
George Smathers never gave a speech to a rural audience describing his opponent,
Claude Pepper, as an "
extrovert" whose sister was a "
thespian", in the apparent hope they would confuse them with similar-sounding words like "pervert" and "lesbian".
Time, which is sometimes cited as the source, described the story of the purported speech as a "yarn" at the time, and no Florida newspaper reported such a speech during the campaign. The leading reporter who covered Smathers said he always gave the same boilerplate speech. Smathers had offered
US$10,000 to anyone who could prove he had made the speech; it was never claimed. It's unlikely he made that bet if he did say it but given he didn't actually say the words it likely wouldn't amount to much.
US President
John F. Kennedy's words "
Ich bin ein Berliner" are standard German for "I am a Berliner." There is a widespread belief that by not leaving out the
indefinite article "ein," he changed the meaning of the sentence from the intended "I am a citizen of Berlin" to "I am a
Berliner" (a Berliner being a type of German pastry, similar to a jelly doughnut), amusing Germans throughout the city. Although the word "Berliner" is used for a jelly doughnut in the north, west and southwest of Germany, it is not used in Berlin itself or the surrounding region, where the usual word is "Pfannkuchen" (literally "pancake"). I don't see this extending beyond a funny goof.
African-American intellectual and activist
W.E.B. Du Bois did not renounce his U.S. citizenship while living in
Ghana shortly before
his death, as is often claimed. In early 1963, his membership in the
Communist Party and support for the Soviet Union incited the
U.S. State Department not to renew his
passport while he was already in Ghana overseeing the creation of the
Encyclopedia Africana. After leaving the embassy, he stated his intention to renounce his citizenship in protest. But while he took Ghanaian citizenship, he never went through the process of renouncing his American citizenship, and may not even have intended to. Her ehe did.
When bartender
Kitty Genovese was murdered outside her
Queens apartment in 1964, there were not 37 neighbors standing idly by and watching who failed to call the police until after she was dead, as
The New York Times initially reported to widespread public outrage that persisted for years. Later reporting established that the police report the
Times had initially relied on was inaccurate, that Genovese had been attacked twice in different locations, and that, while the many witnesses heard the attack, they only heard brief portions and did not realize what was occurring, with only six or seven actually reporting seeing anything. Some called police; one said "I didn't want to get involved",[
failed verification] an attitude later attributed to all the residents who saw or heard part of the attack. This does paint a bad picture if made true.
The
Rolling Stones were not performing "
Sympathy for the Devil" at the 1969
Altamont Free Concert when
Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by a member of the local
Hells Angels chapter that was serving as security. While the incident that culminated in Hunter's death began while the band was performing the song, prompting a brief interruption before the Stones finished it, it concluded several songs later as the band was performing "
Under My Thumb". The misconception arose from mistaken reporting in
Rolling Stone. Here the death it did indeed occur during the song and concluded during it.
While it was praised by one architectural magazine before it was built as "the best high apartment of the year", the
Pruitt–Igoe housing project in
St. Louis, Missouri, considered to epitomize the failures of
urban renewal in American cities after it was demolished in the early 1970s, never won any awards for its design. The architectural firm that designed the buildings did win an award for an earlier St. Louis project, which may have been confused with Pruitt–Igoe. Now they did.
Although popularly known as the "red telephone", the
Moscow–Washington hotline was never a telephone line, nor were red phones used. The first implementation of the hotline used
teletype equipment, which was replaced by
facsimile (fax) machines in 1988. Since 2008, the hotline has been a secure computer link over which the two countries exchange
emails. Moreover, the hotline links the
Kremlin to the
Pentagon, not the
White House. It now does.
There were no verified instances of US Vietnam War veterans being
spat upon by anti-war protesters upon return to the United States. I consider this a minor one.
Illinois was not the first state to
recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day on September 17, 1973, as in actuality Connecticut had already done so earlier that year, on June 14. Illinois now is the first.
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