20 Ways History Looked Different From How You Think

Jesus wasn’t white
20 Ways History Looked Different From How You Think

Learning about history in the past must have been weird. Sure, they had the advantage of living in it, but when it came to envisioning history, all they really had was their imaginations. Maybe some illustrations in books, but those were usually just doodles of butts.

By contrast, we’re lucky to have an array of visual media through which to gawk at history — except it’s so often wrong. And you usually don’t know. Like, your image of dinosaurs almost certainly comes from Jurassic Park, but we’ve since learned that dinosaurs don’t look like that at all. How do you know how ninjas dress? We bet it’s not from feudal Japanese scholars.

These are just some of the misconceptions that were raised when user FarajEltaira asked r/AskReddit, “What is a part of history that we consider to be a fact is 100% fake?”

Thomytricky 2y ago Jesus being white
2y ago Vikings wore horned helmets. They didn't, sorry.
Vikivaki 2y ago Almost everything about the medieval times. Our image of it is highly influenced by Hollywood.
Fortyplusfour 2y ago Edited 2y ago General public not being aware that classical Greece and Rome had colored paints all over those statues, much less colored dyes in their clothes. Edit: point being, we tend to believe that there was a lot of white in the Classical period, which isn't actually the case.
DieHardAmerican95 2y ago Napoleon wasn't short, he was actually slightly taller than average for the time period.
randomthoughtsofnaps 2y ago That George Washington had wooden teeth. Не had false teeth, yes. But they were made of ivory. Не never had wooden teeth.
Kind-Detective1774 2y ago 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! Не actually said, The Regulars are coming
2y ago Edited 2y ago 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
Competitive-Cap-5900 2y ago That the Indians and the Pilgrims sat down at a big table at Thanksgiving and shared a big happy meal
Blood-Letting-Goose 2y ago Edited 2y ago I haven't seen this on here yet but.... No one in the town of Salem was actually burnt at the stake during the witch trials. Most of them were hung (muhahah) with one being crushed under rocks.
Dadadabababooo 2y ago There was never a a big moment where all the founding fathers gathered together and signed the Declaration of Independence. John Hancock signed for basically no reason other than to give himself credit for writing it and when the other people found out they returned one at a time or in small groups to sign it themselves.
NLSecondguess 2y ago 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.
nautius_maximus1 2y ago That Hitler was a raging, shouting maniac in person. I think we want to believe that he would be that way because the idea that someone who was polite and low-key could be so evil is really disturbing. According to his personal secretary and many people who knew him, Hitler rarely showed anger and was subdued but friendly in private.
Nenabobena 2y ago That all the people of Pompeii died with the sudden eruption of the Vesuvius. When I visited the archeological site, we saw the body casts and learned that they were servants that were left to look after property while everyone left te city. The volcano had a series of small eruption that made people evacuate days earlier. Some evidence show that some of those left behind were shackled too.
yikesemu 2y ago 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
nothinga3 2y ago A women's place has always been in the home. For thousands of years women did basically whatever her husband did whether that be farming, baking, brewing alcohol, sewing clothes, or selling things in the market, sometimes the man would take the stuff to the market while the woman stayed on the farm to tend to the animals or crops and vise versa. The only professions women did not take part in were, law, politics, and military work, and even this was only kind of true as women influenced their husbands politics, and were expected to help during
GenghisCoen 2y ago So many people completely misunderstond pre-industrial lifespans. The average age of death was 30 not because our bodies wore out faster, but because of how averages are calculated. A lot of people died as children. A much larger chunk of the population died in wars. If you got in an accident, healingb without modern medicine was difficult. But for people who reached adulthood, and then avoided violence, injury, and plague, living to be 60 or 70 was pretty normal.
Darth_Fatass 2y ago Edited 2y ago 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
Sorripto 2y ago 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.
Training-Fact-3887 2y ago That people used swords and axes all the time. Spears. Its spears, most of human history has been spears. Vikings used spears, samurai and knights used spears. Hell, bayonets exist because people felt you always need a spear, even with a rifle in your hand. William Blake said, When the stars threw down their spears, / and watered heaven with their tears... Which is stupid. No one throws down their spear. Spears are great for poking people to death.

Tags:

Scroll down for the next article

Must Read

VIRAL ON CRACKED

A WEEKLY
NEWSLETTER OF
JOKES + TRIVIA

Forgot Password?