33 Facts, Figures and Stories From History You’ve Gotten Wrong Your Whole Life

It’s time to set the record straight
33 Facts, Figures and Stories From History You’ve Gotten Wrong Your Whole Life
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We tried to warn them, but those silly gooses down at the ol’ Department of Education put these in your history textbooks anyway! They, like most others, heard that these historical tales were true for so long that they believed they were factual. 

The damage was done. Millions of those books were sent to schools far and wide, but we’re hoping that these little myth-busters will force a massive recall. Here, take a look at this proof package we’re mailing the Department of Education now…

The 1960s

BARELY ANYONE SMOKED POT IN THE 1960s. Ah, the '60s. Flower power, peace and love, everyone was high... Except that by 1969, only 4% of Americans had ever tried marijuana, and a whopping 34% didn't even know what its effects were. CRACKED.COM

Deadliest Wars

SEVEN OF HISTORY'S TEN DEADLIEST WARS WERE FOUGHT IN CHINA. It comes with having a historically high population. A couple of wars in the region had a higher body count than World War I. CRACKED.COM

Normandy

THE NORMANDY LANDINGS WERE AMERICA'S FINEST DAY-EVEN IF AMERICANS WERE IN THE MINORITY. There were over 83,000 men in the British Second Army that stormed the French beaches, compared with 73,000 in the First United States Army. CRACKED.COM

Human History

CRACKED.COM 97% OF HUMAN HISTORY HAS BEEN LOST. Humans appeared 200,000 years ago. Writing is about 6,000 years old. This means that only 3% of our species' history has been recorded.

John Tyler

John Tyler's son Lyon was born when his father was 63. Lyon had two sons, Lyon Jr. and Harrison, when he was in his 70s. Both are still around. A 19TH-CENTURY PRESIDENT HAS LIVING GRANDCHILDREN. CRACKED.COM

The Size of the Roman Empire

THE ROMAN EMPIRE WAS BIG. JUST NOT THAT BIG. Rome, the biggest empire that ever was... Except that, by surface area, it was more like the 25th, with about two million square miles at its height. CRACKED COM

Vietnam War

THE STRONGEST OPPOSITION TO THE VIETNAM WAR CAME FROM OLDER AMERICANS. - STER HT UND 208 INVETNA WORLD NIGENOSTEN 11 . THAMESISCHEN VER - ... - KUM Apry PRESIDENT 12 COMINE WITH VIETIA GET THE HELL COPTERS Yes, visible protestors tended to OUT OF be young. But according to polls of the time, young people were VIETNAM more likely to support the war than older citizens- particularly those over 50. CRACKED.COM

The American Flag

CRACKED.COM THE CURRENT U.S. FLAG WAS DESIGNED BY A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT. 17-year-old Robert G. Heft made a 50-star flag for a school assignment when Alaska and Hawaii were given statehood. Не got a В-, which was changed to an A when the government adopted his flag.

The USSR

DURING WORLD WAR II, THE USSR TOOK THE BRUNT OF THE FIGHTING - AND OF THE DYING. You see very heroic Americans fighting the Reich in movies. And while that is true, you're not told that for every American killed in action, about 21 Soviets died. CRACKED.COM

The Pony Express

CRACKED.COM THE PONY EXPRESS WAS VERY SHORT-LIVED. Despite the huge role it plays PONY EXPRESS in the lore of the Old West, the Pony Express operated for only a year and a half, from DOLLAR, March 1860 to October 1861. WELLSFARCO & CO

Lewis & Clark

CRACKED.COM WE KNOW EXACTLY WHERE LEWIS AND CLARK CRAPPED. The Lewis and Clark expedition carried mercury pills that were used to treat pretty much everything (including, ahem, syphilis). The location of the latrines in their Lolo, Montana campsite is known because of the mercury in the soil.

Warner Bros.

CRACKED.COM WARNER BROS. WAS FOUNDED AS THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE WAS ENDING. The empire existed from the 14th century until the Republic of Turkey was established in October 1923. By then, Warner Bros. had been operating for several months. WARNER BROS. PI

The Roman Empire

THE ROMAN EMPIRE DIDN'T JUST FALL OVERNIGHT. Yes, Rome was taken by Germanic invaders in 479-which had happened other times, SO not much changed that day. The Eastern Roman Empire-which was more important by then- lasted another 1,000 years. CRACKED.COM

Richard Nixon

CRACKED.COM WE DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING IN NIXON'S TAPES. Nixon's White House tapes contain over 3,500 hours of recordings. About 200 make reference to Watergate. By the time of Nixon's death in 1994, only 63 hours had been made public.

George W. Bush

A MAN TRIED TO BLOW UP GEORGE W. BUSH. Do you think a shoe was the worst thing anyone threw at President Bush? In 2005, Georgian national Vladimir Arutyunian tossed a hand grenade at him. It didn't explode, as you can probably guess. CRACKED.COM

Interracial Marriage

CRACKED.COM THE UNITED STATES BANNED INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE FOR LONGER THAN SOUTH AFRICA. Famously racist South Africa banned people of different races from getting married between 1949 and 1985, or 36 years. The U.S. banned it from 1776 to 1967-a grand total of 191 years.

The T. Rex

TYRANNOSAURUS REX IS CLOSER TO YOU IN TIME THAN TO STEGOSAURUS. T. rex went extinct 65 million years ago. By then, Stegosaurus had been dead for 85 million years. CRACKED.COM

Slaves

THE PYRAMIDS WEREN'T BUILT BY SLAVES. Despite what you've seen in movies, the Egyptian pyramids were the work of paid laborers working on three-month shifts. CRACKED.COM

Pirates

CRACKED.COM Pirates' loot was mostly stuff like food and fabric, which they almost never stashed in buried chests. Burying that loot would ruin it, and anyway, pirates just wanted money for women and booze right away.

Cavemen

Cavemen didn't really live in caves. Rather, there's evidence that prehistoric humans spent most of the year hunting in the wilds, hunkering in caves only during the winter season. Caves just preserve artifacts better. CRACKED.COM

The Wild West

Cowboys of the Wild West typically wore Bowler style hats. Stetson style cowboy hats were only popularized at the end of the 19th century. CRACKED.COM

Samurai

CRACKED COM Samurai used guns and were proud of it. When firearms were introduced to Japan, many samurai and their men started using guns to replace bows as their main weapons. Using guns among samurai was not always considered a dishonorable act; in fact, guns later evolved to become a status symbol among samurai.

Victorian and Edwardian Clothing

GRACKED COM Because of black and white photography, Victorian & Edwardian clothing is most often thought of and depicted as black, white, grey, and brown, but they were actually colorful AF. This autochrome photo (a very early color photography technique) from 1914 shows a group of ladies in playful and vivid hues.

Migrant Mother

The iconic Migrant Mother photo isn't a lucky snapshot: Dorothea Lange carefully composed the image for the greatest impact on the viewer. CRACKED.COM

The Civil War

SURGERY during the CIVIL WAR was not as painful as typically depicted. In fact, 95% of surgical procedures involved anesthesia by the use of chloroform. GRACKED.GOM

Gladiators

Gladiator fights weren't a gory free-for-all, but had strict rules and referees. One gladiator's tombstone inscription complains that a bad referee call killed him. CRACKED.COM

Cowboys

One in four cowboys were African-American. In the aftermath of the Civil War, being a cowboy was one of the most popular professions among former slaves. Although they still faced discrimination, they were well-respected among cowboys. CRACKED COM

Vikings

Vikings did not wear horned helmets. Carl Emil Doepler is the main culprit behind this notion. Не included horned helmets as part of his costume design for the performance of Der Ring des Nibelungen. It then just kinda stuck. CRACKED COM

Raptors

JURASSIC PARK'S VELOCIRAPTORS ARE MISSING THEIR FEATHERS. The real Velociraptor was the size of a turkey, with fully-feathered wings. Crichton's famous creatures are more like a predator named the Deinonychus. GRACKED.COM

Easter Island

If you're picturing Easter Island statues as disembodied heads, you're picturing them wrong. They're full-body sculptures, just mostly buried in the hillside. On purpose. CRACKED.COM

Napoleon

CRACKED COM Napoleon wasn't really that short. Не was about 5'6. That was about 90 100 110 120 - 130 110 150 5 160 170 180 190 9 the average height of men at the time. 3 70 80 OF 09 10 50 - 10 20 30

Victorians

The Victorians saw Christmas as a time to have a laugh. Their Christmas card art included stuff like a child stuck in a teapot, mice riding lobsters, or a clown with a poker attacking a policeman's butt. CRACKED.COM

Tie Dye

CRACKED.COM 1967 1969 1967 If you immediately think of tie-dye when you think of the hippie scene of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in the '60s, think again. The forefathers of the hippie movement were definitely into long hair, but tie-dye wasn't a thing yet. They were more into vaguely South Asian designs.

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