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Historical Lies We Still Believe 🤯 Prepare to have your entire education system YEETED into the intellectual trash bin! (Brain-melting truth bombs incoming!)
🚨 YOU'VE BEEN LIED TO! 🚨 Welcome back to GO FACT YOURSELF, the podcast that tackles the top 10 with zero apologies and a whole lotta truth serum! This week, we're diving headfirst into the historical hall of shame, exposing the Top 10 Historical Lies We Still Believe – the fibs so deeply ingrained, they're practically vintage! Forget what you learned in class; we’re about to drop some knowledge nukes that will leave you questioning everything from Napoleon's height to the dietary habits of French royalty! Get ready for a rollercoaster of revelation, where we uncover the hilarious, the scandalous, and the downright ridiculous historical whoppers that have somehow survived through the ages. This isn't just history; it's history: unchained! 🏰🔥 Get ready to GO FACT YOURSELF!
Here's the truth they didn't want you to know:
* #10: Napoleon Was Short… He Wasn’t. At All. 📏 The original "short king" slander! Turns out, at 5'7", Napoleon was average height for his time. This myth was British propaganda designed to boost morale during the Napoleonic Wars. Those tiny teapot cartoons? Pure shade! Even Professor Michael Broers from Oxford is calling BS. #AverageHeightDaddy #NapoleonComplexActuallyBritish
* #9: Vikings Wore Horned Helmets… Nope. 🛡️ Your Halloween costume is a historical hate crime! That iconic horned Viking helmet? Totally made up by 19th-century costume designers for Wagner's opera. Real Viking helmets were sleek and horn-free because, you know, practicality in battle. Dr. Jan Bill from Oslo’s Viking Ship Museum agrees – it’s "pure fantasy". #HornedHelmetHoax #WagnerDidIt
* #8: Columbus Discovered America… LOL NO. 🌍 He was literally centuries late to the party! Indigenous peoples were here for millennia, and Leif Erikson and the Norse beat him to Newfoundland around 1000 CE. Columbus mostly hung out in the Caribbean. Archaeologists even found Norse settlement remains in Canada. It’s Leif Erikson Day, y'all! (October 9th, mark it!). #ColumbusWasLate #LeifEriksonFirst #IndigenousPeoplesAlwaysWere
* #7: Marie Antoinette Said “Let Them Eat Cake.” 🍰 The queen of getting framed! There's zero proof she ever said this snobby line. The phrase predates her by at least 50 years, appearing in Rousseau’s Confessions. Anti-royalist revolutionaries just pinned it on her for maximum scandal. Historian Antonia Fraser says, "She never said it. She never would have said it". #FakeNewsOfThe1700s #NoCakeForYou
* #6: Medieval People Believed the Earth Was Flat. 🗺️ Spoiler alert: they had globes! Educated medieval Europeans knew the Earth was round, building on knowledge from ancient Greeks like Pythagoras. The Columbus voyage wasn't about proving the Earth's shape. This flat-Earth myth is basically 19th-century fan fiction. Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell calls it "the most widespread historical error in the teaching of science". #RoundEarthFacts #MedievalSmarties
* #5: The Great Wall of China Is Visible from Space. 🚀 Fake space news since 1938! NASA says it's practically invisible without serious zoom. The myth started in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! before we even went to space. Astronauts say highways are more visible. #SpaceLie #GreatWallOfNotReallyVisible
* #4: Chameleons Change Color to Camouflage. 🦎 Lizard PR spin job of the century! They actually change color to communicate mood, regulate body temperature, and show off. Bright colors mean "I'm angry or sexy," darker tones mean "I'm cold or hiding". Camouflage is just a minor side effect. #MoodRingLizards #ColorCommunication
* #3: Medieval People Never Bathed. 🛁 Dirty Middle Ages? More like deceptively clean! Medieval folks loved a good bath, with public bathhouses being common. Even monks had bathing schedules. The "stinky Middle Ages" myth came later. Soap was a thing!. #MedievalHygiene #BathingIsGood
* #2: Einstein Failed Math. 🧮 The nerd glow-up that was never necessary! Einstein mastered calculus by age 15. The myth came from a mistranslation of his German grades. A "6" was the highest grade!. He literally said, "I never failed in mathematics". #EinsteinWasAMathWhiz #MistranslationMyths
* #1: Goldfish Have a 3-Second Memory. 🐠 This factoid is dead in the water! Goldfish have memory spans of weeks to months and can even be trained. Studies show they can remember how to press a lever for food after a month. They recognize their owners!. That "3-second memory" thing? Probably just an excuse for sad fishbowls. #LongLiveGoldfishMemory #SmarterThanYouThink
Tune in next week for more myth-busting madness on GO FACT YOURSELF! Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and tell your history teacher we said "you're welcome... for the correction!" 😉
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gofactyourself.substack.com
View all episodes
By Top 10 Lists. Zero Apologies!🚨 YOU'VE BEEN LIED TO! 🚨 Welcome back to GO FACT YOURSELF, the podcast that tackles the top 10 with zero apologies and a whole lotta truth serum! This week, we're diving headfirst into the historical hall of shame, exposing the Top 10 Historical Lies We Still Believe – the fibs so deeply ingrained, they're practically vintage! Forget what you learned in class; we’re about to drop some knowledge nukes that will leave you questioning everything from Napoleon's height to the dietary habits of French royalty! Get ready for a rollercoaster of revelation, where we uncover the hilarious, the scandalous, and the downright ridiculous historical whoppers that have somehow survived through the ages. This isn't just history; it's history: unchained! 🏰🔥 Get ready to GO FACT YOURSELF!
Here's the truth they didn't want you to know:
* #10: Napoleon Was Short… He Wasn’t. At All. 📏 The original "short king" slander! Turns out, at 5'7", Napoleon was average height for his time. This myth was British propaganda designed to boost morale during the Napoleonic Wars. Those tiny teapot cartoons? Pure shade! Even Professor Michael Broers from Oxford is calling BS. #AverageHeightDaddy #NapoleonComplexActuallyBritish
* #9: Vikings Wore Horned Helmets… Nope. 🛡️ Your Halloween costume is a historical hate crime! That iconic horned Viking helmet? Totally made up by 19th-century costume designers for Wagner's opera. Real Viking helmets were sleek and horn-free because, you know, practicality in battle. Dr. Jan Bill from Oslo’s Viking Ship Museum agrees – it’s "pure fantasy". #HornedHelmetHoax #WagnerDidIt
* #8: Columbus Discovered America… LOL NO. 🌍 He was literally centuries late to the party! Indigenous peoples were here for millennia, and Leif Erikson and the Norse beat him to Newfoundland around 1000 CE. Columbus mostly hung out in the Caribbean. Archaeologists even found Norse settlement remains in Canada. It’s Leif Erikson Day, y'all! (October 9th, mark it!). #ColumbusWasLate #LeifEriksonFirst #IndigenousPeoplesAlwaysWere
* #7: Marie Antoinette Said “Let Them Eat Cake.” 🍰 The queen of getting framed! There's zero proof she ever said this snobby line. The phrase predates her by at least 50 years, appearing in Rousseau’s Confessions. Anti-royalist revolutionaries just pinned it on her for maximum scandal. Historian Antonia Fraser says, "She never said it. She never would have said it". #FakeNewsOfThe1700s #NoCakeForYou
* #6: Medieval People Believed the Earth Was Flat. 🗺️ Spoiler alert: they had globes! Educated medieval Europeans knew the Earth was round, building on knowledge from ancient Greeks like Pythagoras. The Columbus voyage wasn't about proving the Earth's shape. This flat-Earth myth is basically 19th-century fan fiction. Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell calls it "the most widespread historical error in the teaching of science". #RoundEarthFacts #MedievalSmarties
* #5: The Great Wall of China Is Visible from Space. 🚀 Fake space news since 1938! NASA says it's practically invisible without serious zoom. The myth started in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! before we even went to space. Astronauts say highways are more visible. #SpaceLie #GreatWallOfNotReallyVisible
* #4: Chameleons Change Color to Camouflage. 🦎 Lizard PR spin job of the century! They actually change color to communicate mood, regulate body temperature, and show off. Bright colors mean "I'm angry or sexy," darker tones mean "I'm cold or hiding". Camouflage is just a minor side effect. #MoodRingLizards #ColorCommunication
* #3: Medieval People Never Bathed. 🛁 Dirty Middle Ages? More like deceptively clean! Medieval folks loved a good bath, with public bathhouses being common. Even monks had bathing schedules. The "stinky Middle Ages" myth came later. Soap was a thing!. #MedievalHygiene #BathingIsGood
* #2: Einstein Failed Math. 🧮 The nerd glow-up that was never necessary! Einstein mastered calculus by age 15. The myth came from a mistranslation of his German grades. A "6" was the highest grade!. He literally said, "I never failed in mathematics". #EinsteinWasAMathWhiz #MistranslationMyths
* #1: Goldfish Have a 3-Second Memory. 🐠 This factoid is dead in the water! Goldfish have memory spans of weeks to months and can even be trained. Studies show they can remember how to press a lever for food after a month. They recognize their owners!. That "3-second memory" thing? Probably just an excuse for sad fishbowls. #LongLiveGoldfishMemory #SmarterThanYouThink
Tune in next week for more myth-busting madness on GO FACT YOURSELF! Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and tell your history teacher we said "you're welcome... for the correction!" 😉
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gofactyourself.substack.com