People Break Down Historical Events Some Folks Believe To Be True But Are 100% Fake
When I was seven, I saw a cartoon of Ben Franklin discovering electricity when lightning accidentally struck a kite that he was flying. I didn’t totally understand how that helped him discover electricity, but since I was only seven, I believed that to be what happened.
The truth is, Ben Franklin did not actually discover electricity -- that happened over 1,000 years prior. He just demonstrated the connection between lightning and electricity.
Moreover, his kite was not accidentally struck by lightning. If it was, the lighting would’ve struck him by extension, and he might not have even survived long enough to demonstrate his findings. In fact, the kite was part of an experiment that he conducted on purpose.
I know all this now, but not everyone does. A lot of people still believe lightning accidentally struck Ben Franklin’s kite, and that he discovered electricity through that happy accident. And that is just one of the many historic events that people believe in.
However, most of those events either didn’t happen at all or happened differently than we may think.
Redditors have recognized a lot of other historical events or facts that people believe, but are actually fake or untrue, and have shared this information.
It all started when Redditor FarajEltaira asked:
“What is a part of history that we consider to be a fact is 100% fake?”
The Absence Of Color
"Ninjas dressed in all black to stay stealthy in the night or something like that. Ninjas dressed like normal people to blend in, the all black look stemmed from Japanese theatre to make it more obvious to the audience who the ninjas were."
"If they wore all black it'd be quite obvious and they'd stick out like a sore thumb"
"EDIT: most of you pointed out it also came from stagehands, that makes a lot of sense too"
– Darth_Fata*s
Pull It Tight
"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."
– yikesemu
In The Ring
"The image of Roman gladiators fighting to the death. While there were many exhibition fights in the arenas where the goal was death, these were not gladiator contests. Prisoners, and the condemned, were thrown out to fight to the death, but not real gladiators.Training a gladiator was an expensive, and lengthy, investment and having them die constantly would be bad for business."
– Sorripto
"The Midnight Ride Of Paul Revere
"Paul Revere did not run around Massachusetts shouting "The British are coming" because if he did everyone would look at him like he'd lost his mind. ALMOST EVERYONE IN THE COLONIES WAS BRITISH!"
"He actually said, "The Regulars are coming""
– Kind-Detective1774
"He also only carried that message for a small stretch of the ride. There were about a half dozen messengers passing it along. We remember Paul Revere as the only rider because, no joke, his name fit best in Longfellow’s poem"
– JRBehr
All The Information
"The Lady who sued McDonalds didn't do so frivolously. She received third degree burns from how hot that coffee was, and needed a skin graft. It was quickly found that that location was keeping the coffee well above the temperature you can legally serve a hot drink in a cup at. The fact that most people think this suit was over the temperature of the coffee, and not the debilitating burns that woman recieved, is one of the PR worlds greatest triumphs. You are not immune to propaganda."
– P41nB0i
All You Read Is Not True
"That Einstein said “ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”"
– Tjblacka*s
""Don't believe everything you read on the internet" - Albert Einstein"
– AceBean27
Math Genius
"Einstein never failed math, the rumor started from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and Einstein actually responded to them saying “I never failed in mathematics. Before I was 15 I had mastered differential and integral calculus.” He wasn’t very good at the non-science related classes though and did fail French."
– Think-Huckleberry965
A Quiet Night
"The Boston Tea party didn’t have some grand celebration, a lot of the colonists were confused and it’s recorded as one of Boston’s most quiet nights"
– _britishpeople76
Time Difference
"A stegosaurus fighting a t rex. They lived millions of years apart . Stegosaurus 144 lived million years ago T rex 65 million years ago."
"Insane difference. Still almost most every dinosaur related media places them together."
– NLSecondguess
"Whatever the f*ck is on the History Channel nowadays."
– wiseowl777
"I know the exact moment I gave up on the History Channel. A guy came in to a pawn shop with a uniform and said, "it's from the war with the Philippines.""
"The guy in the shop said, "there's no such thing as the war with the Philippines.""
"My undergrad senior thesis was on the Philippine-American war."
– sadwer
"It ain't even historical anymore they should rename it as the "whatever we feel like it" channel"
– ami-the-gae
"What's Up, Doc?"
"Rabbits CANNOT live on a diet of carrots and fruits. It’s like asking a toddler to live on a diet of candy. They also cannot live on a diet of completely lettuce and leaves (though it’s close)."
"Rabbits need need need hay for a healthy diet, and pellets are heavily recommended as well(though they also have limits, should be in the bag according to the bunny’s weight). Greens are good, not to be the main main diet, and fruits or carrots can be given as treats."
"Bugs Bunny led a lot of people to believe rabbits live off of carrots. They do not. They will die if you expect them to live on a diet of 100% carrots."
– Random_Loaf
The Teeth Of The Matter
"That George Washington had wooden teeth. He had false teeth, yes. But they were made of ivory. He never had wooden teeth."
– randomthoughtsofnaps
A Wooden Horse?
"The Trojan Horse wasn't real. Historians are all pretty much unanimous on this."
– the-ender-enby
"My personal theory is that the trojan horse story relates to a traitor within Troy's cavalry"
– TheMissingThink
"William Howard Taft never got stuck in a bathtub!"
– Alexxx_starlet
"I also find it weird/hilarious/sad that that's what he's known for instead of being known for being the only person to have served as both President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court."
– Flashpenny
Is it weird that I’m sad the bathtub thing turned out to be false?
People Break Down Which Actual Historical Events Are Stranger Than Fiction
Ever heard of the Great Emu War of 1932?
Well, if you haven't, now you have. It's a very real event, believe it or not.
It was fought between the Australian Army and emus that were destroying crops. The Australians lost and the emus continued to wreak havoc.
Emus: 1 Humans: 0
If that sounds too weird to be true, then just know that the Great Emu War has some competition. People shared their favorite odd but true historical events after Redditor AquaTax asked the online community,
"What historical events are so absurd that they would be too strange for a fiction story or a movie?"
"She screamed and tried to fight him off..."
"Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, once snuck up on his own wife, Marcia Winslow, as they were getting out of their car after a party and began to strangle her."
"She screamed and tried to fight him off until she realized it was him, at which point he stopped and tried to convince her that it wasn't him strangling her, it must have been someone else."
"She stayed with him for several years after that incident."
Ummm... has anyone checked on Marcia? How's she doing?
"They were displaced from their normal hunting grounds..."
"The Germans and Russians once called a temporary (unofficial) ceasefire in World War I because of wolves invading the battlefield."
"They were displaced from their normal hunting grounds and looking for something to eat, which turned out to be local livestock, corpses, children, and unwary or incapacitated soldiers."
"It got so bad that everyone stopped shooting at each other for a while so they could hunt them down, proving once more that the threat of being eaten is stronger than any political ideal."
The wolves were trying to teach them a lesson, weren't they?
This sounds like a prequel to The Grey.
"In Anne Frank's original diary..."
"In Anne Frank's original diary, she openly talked about her changing body, periods, and her questions about sex but they were edited out of the final print."
The day I learned this blew my mind.
These Actors Were Perfectly Cast In Their Roles | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Sometimes an actor comes along that is able to reach the audience on a deeper level. The actor that immediately comes to mind is Robin Williams. Although it ...Yep! He's in his 90s, and still kicking. John Tyler, you rascal.
"It was just a coincidence..."
"Thomas Crapper actually did invent the first reliable modern toilet. (The kind with a raised cistern.) But the word crap/crapper was already a very old slang term by that point."
"It was just a coincidence. Or maybe he felt like he had no choice. But crap and crapper have nothing to do with Thomas Crapper."
Okay, but this is perfect. We hope Crapper just rolled with it.
"John Adams..."
"John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the same day. The day? The 50th anniversary of the Fourth of July. Adams's last words were, 'Thomas Jefferson still survives.'"
wizardvictor
Oh, the irony.
John, someone's gotta tell you...
"The Fire Department and some clowns..."
"The Toronto Circus Riot of 1855."
"The Fire Department and some clowns get into a disagreement at a whorehouse, and get into a punch-up. The clowns win, but the firemen return to the circus later and start attacking in revenge."
"The firemen win the day but violence is stopped when the militia come in. The police do nothing, so the city fires all the police (and I mean everyone) and starts a new police force."
splitdipless
This paragraph just grew more and more absurd the more I continued reading.
"That time in the 1700s..."
"Battle of Karansebes."
"That time in the 1700s when the Austrian army got confused, waged a huge battle against itself within its own lines, and lost an estimated several hundred to few thousand men (and a lot of equipment and money) in the process. They then retreated."
"The Ottomans, whom they were originally intending to fight, showed up two days later."
HyvalTheEmolga
What?
How?
Huh?
Explain yourselves, Austria
"The last known kill..."
"The last known kill by bow and arrow in combat was actually during the battle of Dunkirk, 1940. Jack Churchill landed a well-placed arrow into a German soldier's chest."
"He also chose to carry bagpipes and a Scottish longsword."
WasteNot2532
This led a crazy life. Just check out his Wikipedia page.
He was known for the motto: "Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed."
"In 1184..."
The latrine disaster of Erfurt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_latrine_disaster
"In 1184, the King of Germany Heinrich VI held court in the Petersberg Citadel in Erfurt. On the morning of 26 July, the weight of the assembled nobles caused the wooden second-story floor of the Peterskirche to collapse."
"Most of them fell through into the latrine cesspit below the ground floor and about 60 of them drowned in liquid excrement."
Supraspinster
Oh, there's a joke here.
It'd be so bad of me to make it....
History is fascinating–and full of odd incidents like these, because life is crazy.
Just think: You'll be the star of your next dinner party as soon as you whip these facts out.
Have some historical facts of your own to share? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!
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Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
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People Divulge Which Historical Events Seem Altered By Time Travelers
Ever wonder about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand?
Somebody throws a grenade at his car.
It blows up behind him.
That's the first incident of time travel, stopping the assassination.
Later, as he goes back, the driver realizes he's on the same route where the grenade was thrown, and they try to turn around.
The whole procession of cars stalls and a guy who just happened to be sitting there goes over and shoots the Archduke setting off the events that lead to the first world war.
Did a time traveler meddle then?
Wouldn't surprise us.
People shared their own observations after Redditor HeteroZygoats asked the online community:
"What historical event 100% reads as if a time traveler went back in time to alter history?"
"When they draw straws..."
"Edgar Allen Poe writes about an event 40+ years in the future.:
Basically, Poe writes about four people who are starving at sea, draw straws, and kill and eat the loser, cabin boy Richard Parker. 40 odd years later four people are adrift at sea in a lifeboat, one drinks seawater and goes into a coma."
"When they draw straws for who will be eaten, the coma guy gets the short straw in a development that surprises no one. And so the three other men kill and eat the cabin boy. Richard Parker. Seriously."
This sounds like the perfect treatment for an episode of The Twilight Zone.
"There was a shipwreck..."
"There was a shipwreck in 1664, a shipwreck in 1785, and a shipwreck in 1820. Each had 1 survivor. Each survivor was named Hugh Wiliams."
What did the original Hugh Williams do to deserve any of this?!
"When Andrew Jackson's assassin..."
"When Andrew Jackson's assassin attempted to shoot him, both of his flintlock pistols misfired. Andrew Jackson had to be restrained after almost beating the assassin to death with his cane. The two flintlocks were examined after the incident and found to be in good condition."
Jackson was a pretty horrid human being—and it doesn't surprise me that this happened.
"20,000 people..."
"Cyanide Gas Attack Thwarted in Tokyo Subway."
"20,000 people could have died but a worker found a burning gasbag in a toilet just before it mixed with another poisonous gas bag - just in time - and put them out. That was in Shinjuku station. I was in that station that day, and that person might have saved my life."
I remember learning about this and it's so eerie!
Thankfully this did not happen.
"It was so much happenstance..."
"Franz Ferdinand's assassination. It was so much happenstance, shenanigans, and tomfoolery that it's like a special achievement in a hitman game."
"Survived both the bombings..."
"Tsutomu Yamaguchi."
"Survived both the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reads like a satirical time-traveler story where the protagonist screws up his dates."
"The number of times we DIDN'T go to nuclear war because of a false positive of a launch. Honestly, Stanislav Petrov should have statues in every country."
The Most Unexplained Events In History | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
History is littered with unsolved mysteries. Whether those answers are buried somewhere or lost forever, it doesn't stop people from wondering or hypothesizi..."Jack Ruby..."
"Jack Ruby clearly was sent to kill Lee Harvey Oswald so no one would ever discover it wasn't him who killed Kennedy."
I mean... when you put it that way... can we argue?
Fidel Castro's assassination attempts..."
"Fidel Castro's assassination attempts being dodged is so unrealistic (really, he dodged about 600) that it feels like a time traveler went back and foiled every single one of them."
"If the time traveler can control the weather, the 'divine wind' that stopped the Mongol invasion of Japan."
Poor Genghis Khan.
We weep for him.
"If you're reading..."
"If you read up on his life, you'll find there are so many times Adolf Hitler almost died, but somehow survived, that makes me think there was/is a time traveler war going on."
"A faction trying to kill Hitler, because it's Hitler, and a faction preventing his death because the guy who would replace him was even worse than Hitler."
Maybe Hitler had a guardian angel... which is a scary thought as it is.
Sheesh.
"The Germans spent a lot of time..."
"The Germans spent a lot of time and money developing a magnetic sea mine that probably would have significantly reduced England's ability to stay in the war, except they dropped a single one of the mines accidentally on an English beach, and also failed to arm it so none of the booby traps were active and the British basically found out straight away how it worked and we're able to cheaply build magnetic minesweepers."
"It wouldn't be surprising..."
"It wouldn't be surprising if Nancy Wake was a time traveler. She was just too damn good at special ops against the Nazis."
History is wild, friends. And it's even wilder that so many people out there don't realize how weird and exciting it can be.
Have some observations of your own? Teach us some history! Tell us more in the comments below!
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Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.
Life is a constant cycle of repeats. History will always find a way to circle back and try again. It's the purest definition of insanity; trying the same thing over and expecting different results. Or many times without trying history will repeat in eerie ways. Coincidence is a strange thing. Is it divine intervention? Possibly. There are unexplainable events that happen that mimic prior moments. Those are the times we have to believe life has a plan. Right?
Redditor u/SealingBat wanted us to be aware of some history by asking... What has been the most incredible coincidence in history?
History is so interesting. No? Do you believe in coincidence? What is your life experiences with a hint of the deja vú?