History
Historical stories that drifted from the record
Partly true
The 1857 rising was only sepoys angry about grease and nothing larger
Myth
The United States Constitution freed every enslaved person in 1789
Myth
Cowboys were almost all white men from one Virginia county
Myth
The first Thanksgiving menu is what you buy in a November commercial
Myth
The US entered World War II the week Poland was invaded
Myth
The moon landing was filmed in a Hollywood desert as official history
Myth
The Blitz proved the war was only London’s story
Myth
Vikings in Britain wore horned helmets on every raid
Myth
The Magna Carta gave every medieval peasant a modern vote
Myth
Pokhran tests were faked for the evening news
Myth
The Emergency in the 1970s is a rumor invented by later TV
Myth
Partition was a last-minute drawing with no human cost we can name
Myth
Goa was always Portuguese until last Tuesday in schoolbook time
Uncertain
Netaji died in every alternate city at once, so no account can be true
Uncertain
The Indus cities vanished because they were cursed
Myth
All ancient Indians were vegetarian as a single national diet
Partly true
Ashoka suddenly became non-violent and the empire never fought again
Myth
The British built every railway, court, and city from empty jungle
Myth
Zero was unknown until Europe invented it in the Renaissance
Partly true
Sanskrit is the mother of every world language
Myth
The Taj Mahal was originally a Hindu palace named Tejo Mahalaya
Myth
India has never invaded another land in all of history
Myth
Tipu Sultan’s rockets were fireworks with no military use
Myth
Love Canal was a hoax
Myth
The 1973 oil shock proved the world was out of oil forever
Myth
The Pentagon Papers were fake news
Myth
Nixon resigned because he was tired
Myth
Kent State is a rumor
Partly true
The Gulf of Tonkin incident is a simple clear attack with no later doubt
Partly true
The Vietnam War was lost because soldiers were uniquely unwilling, unlike any other war
Myth
The Korean War is the Forgotten War because nothing happened
Myth
McCarthy never ruined anyone; it was only speeches
Myth
The IMF was created last year as a secret club
Myth
The World Bank prints US dollars
Myth
UNESCO decides what your local school can teach tomorrow
Myth
The United Nations has a standing army that occupies Kansas
Myth
Brexit was a binding UN treaty the UK could not leave
Myth
The European Union is the same as NATO
Myth
The euro existed in the Roman Empire
Myth
The ISS was built by one country in a weekend
Myth
The Hubble telescope was launched perfect
Myth
The Challenger exploded because a teacher was on board
Uncertain
Chernobyl's death toll is exactly the number you saw in a miniseries
Myth
The Exxon Valdez spill was a myth for TV
Myth
Three Mile Island killed thousands the same week
Myth
Eli Whitney's cotton gin ended slavery's profitability
Myth
The cotton gin was the only machine in early America
Partly true
Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity by holding a key in a storm as a safe lab method
Partly true
Franklin wanted the turkey as the national bird and lost a close floor vote that we have on film
Uncertain
John Hancock's signature is huge because he was showing off for the king as a recorded taunt
Myth
The Declaration of Independence was signed by everyone on July 4, 1776
Uncertain
Remember the Maine was a proven bomb from Spain the same week
Myth
The Alamo was a victory parade
Myth
The War of 1812 was a US win that burned London
Partly true
Marbury v. Madison invented courts that day from nothing
Partly true
The three-fifths clause meant Black people were three-fifths of a person as a moral statement the framers loved to say aloud
Myth
The Bill of Rights was in the first draft as the opening pages
Myth
The 1929 crash was caused by one margined shoeshine boy as the whole story
Myth
Dust Bowl families were lazy farmers
Partly true
FDR hid his disability from every camera always
Partly true
Pearl Harbor was a complete surprise with no war tension
Myth
Japanese Americans were interned because each was a proven spy
Myth
Rosie the Riveter means women first worked in 1942
Myth
The Constitution banned political parties
Myth
The GI Bill treated every veteran equally
Myth
The US bought Alaska as Seward's Icebox and it was empty of people
Myth
Hawaii joined after a friendly request with no US businessmen involved
Myth
The Panama Canal was dug by one man with a shovel in a cartoon
Partly true
Teddy Roosevelt led the charge up San Juan Hill alone on a horse in a painting that is a photo
Partly true
The Lusitania was an empty cruise ship with no war cargo
Myth
The Zimmerman Telegram was a British fake
Myth
The 1918 flu was just a bad cold that newspapers invented
Myth
Prohibition stopped Americans from drinking
Myth
Thomas Edison invented the light bulb from a blank page
Myth
Alexander Graham Bell was the only person thinking about the telephone
Myth
The Wright brothers were the first humans to leave the ground
Myth
Henry Ford invented the automobile
Partly true
Ford invented the weekend as a gift with no business reason
Myth
Samurai always followed an ancient unchanging bushido from the year 800
Partly true
Switzerland hid in the Alps and had no wartime dealings
Myth
The Cold War never turned hot anywhere
Myth
The Berlin Wall was built by the West to keep people in
Myth
The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted years of daily duck-and-cover
Uncertain
Lee Harvey Oswald's guilt is unknown to all historians equally
Myth
The moon landing was faked in a studio
Myth
Watergate was a third-rate burglary with no bigger story
Partly true
The Soviet Union collapsed because Reagan said a single sentence
Myth
The 1990s internet was invented by Al Gore in the sense that he wrote TCP/IP
Myth
The Y2K bug did nothing, so the work was wasted
Partly true
The 2008 crash was a surprise that nobody in finance could have seen
Myth
Ancient Greeks had no word for blue so they could not see blue
Partly true
Medieval maps put Jerusalem in the center so they failed at geography
Partly true
The Church banned zero and Arabic numerals everywhere for centuries
Myth
Galileo was executed for saying Earth moves
Myth
Darwin recanted evolution on his deathbed
Myth
Einstein failed math in school
Partly true
Newton got the whole of gravity from one apple hitting his head
Uncertain
Archimedes ran naked shouting Eureka through town as a sure biography
Partly true
Van Gogh sold only one painting
Uncertain
Mozart was poisoned by Salieri
Partly true
Beethoven was fully deaf overnight as a young man
Partly true
The Titanic was advertised as unsinkable in those exact words by the builders as a guarantee
Myth
The band on the Titanic never played
Partly true
Third-class passengers were locked below the whole time as a simple complete story
Partly true
The Hindenburg exploded because it was filled with hydrogen and nothing else mattered
Myth
The Chernobyl accident made the whole planet uninhabitable
Myth
The Spanish flu started in Spain
Partly true
World War I ended at the eleventh hour and fighting stopped everywhere at once
Myth
The US Constitution originally included women as voters
Partly true
The 19th Amendment let all women vote immediately in practice
Myth
Stonewall was the first time gay people ever resisted
Myth
The Civil Rights Act ended racism
Myth
Nelson Mandela was president of South Africa in the 1960s
Myth
The Berlin Wall fell because one DJ played a song
Myth
Ancient Rome had no apartments or traffic
Myth
Ninjas dressed in black pajamas as everyday wear
Myth
The samurai sword can cut a gun barrel in half as a normal feat
Myth
Genghis Khan only destroyed and never administered
Myth
The Mongols were only a small raiding club
Myth
China was always isolated from the rest of the world
Myth
India was a single kingdom for all of antiquity
Myth
Africa had no cities before Europeans arrived
Myth
The Americas had no agriculture before 1492
Myth
Aboriginal Australians arrived a few centuries ago
Myth
The Olympic Games of ancient Greece included women athletes in all events
Partly true
The marathon commemorates a runner who died in Athens after a 26.2 mile exact course
Myth
The first modern Olympics were a perfect copy of ancient ones
Myth
The United Nations was founded after World War I
Myth
The League of Nations stopped World War II
Myth
Vikings wore horned helmets into battle
Myth
The French only surrendered and never resisted
Myth
D-Day was the day Germany surrendered
Myth
The US entered World War II the day Poland was invaded
Uncertain
Japan surrendered only because of the Soviet invasion, so the bombs did nothing
Myth
The Holocaust is exaggerated or did not happen
Partly true
Hitler was democratically unstoppable from the first election
Partly true
The Treaty of Versailles is the only reason World War II happened
Myth
World War I was caused by one sandwich in Sarajevo and nothing else
Partly true
The New Deal ended the Great Depression by itself on a known afternoon
Myth
The 1920s were only flappers and jazz for everyone
Partly true
The first people in the Americas walked over last Tuesday in one simple path
Myth
Settlers found an empty unused continent
Myth
The Wild West was nonstop daily gunfights in every town
Myth
Cowboys were almost all white men from Virginia
Partly true
The Gettysburg Address was a flop that nobody liked
Partly true
Abraham Lincoln started the Civil War to abolish slavery on day one
Myth
The Civil War was only about states' rights in a way that leaves slavery out
Partly true
Paul Revere finished a solo midnight ride yelling the British are coming
Uncertain
Betsy Ross sewed the first Stars and Stripes as a settled fact
Myth
Washington chopped down a cherry tree and confessed
Myth
George Washington had wooden teeth
Myth
The United States Constitution freed the slaves
Partly true
Blackbeard was a giant cartoon with lit fuses in his beard every Tuesday
Myth
Pirates said 'arrr' as a historical dialect fact
Myth
Pirates buried treasure on every island and drew an X
Myth
The Spanish Inquisition killed tens of millions
Partly true
Shakespeare invented hundreds of everyday words from nothing
Uncertain
Shakespeare did not write his plays because he lacked a university degree
Myth
The Renaissance started because people suddenly became smart
Myth
People in 1348 understood germs the way we do
Myth
The Black Death was caused by bad smells alone
Uncertain
Robin Hood was a single well-documented gentleman thief
Uncertain
King Arthur definitely ruled a shining medieval England as in the films
Uncertain
The Trojan Horse is an established archaeological fact
Partly true
Christians were constantly thrown to lions as everyday sport for centuries
Myth
Gladiators always fought to the death
Myth
All Romans spoke classical textbook Latin in the street
Myth
Spartans were emotionless super-soldiers with no culture
Myth
Greek statues were always plain white marble
Partly true
The library of Alexandria's loss erased almost all ancient knowledge in one night
Myth
Aliens built the Egyptian pyramids
Partly true
The pyramids were built by disposable slave masses with no skill
Partly true
Cleopatra was Egyptian by ancestry in the simple schoolbook sense
Uncertain
Caesar's last words were 'Et tu, Brute?' in English-play form as a sure quote
Myth
Nero fiddled while Rome burned
Myth
The Iron Maiden was a standard medieval torture tool
Myth
Chastity belts were common medieval devices
Partly true
People in the Middle Ages did not bathe
Myth
Medieval people thought the Earth was flat
Myth
Witches were burned in Salem
Myth
The first Thanksgiving looked like a modern grocery-ad feast
Partly true
The Emancipation Proclamation freed every enslaved person in the United States the day it was signed
Myth
Columbus landed in what is now the United States
Myth
Columbus discovered that Earth is round
Myth
The Great Wall is a single ancient wall built in one dynasty
Myth
Napoleon was extremely short