25 Facts That Get In Accepted History's Face
![25 Facts That Get In Accepted History's Face](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/6/8/9/708689.jpg?v=2)
We've all got brain-pictures about what the past was like, inserted by school, history books, and pop culture through the years. So much stuff rattling around in there, and wouldn't you know it: some isn't correct. ‘Education’ is a relative deal - learn the right thing, and you're knowledgeable about the 60's, learn the wrong thing and you think Columbus discovered North America. So yeah, the wrong path is a tough one to get off once you've been put on it, partly because most of the time you don't even know you're on it. Sometimes, it's nobody's fault: history sometimes takes time to uncover and unravel before it's fully understood.
But what's fun about that? No, we must be worse than that.
So in our ongoing effort to be as insufferable as possible, we've compiled some killer facts that will fly straight in the face of the stuff you think you know about history.
![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 ree-month sh](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/5/7/707557.jpg?v=2)
![25 Facts That Get In Accepted History's Face](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/7/5/707575.gif?v=2)
![NAPOLEON WASN'T SHORT. At 5 feet 6.5 inches, he'd be barely an inch shorter than the average Frenchman today.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/7/2/707572.jpg?v=2)
![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 mi](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/7/4/707574.jpg?v=2)
![THE UNITED STATES BANNED INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE FOR LONGER THAN SOUTH AFRICA. Famously racist South Africa banned people of different races from getting](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/7/3/707573.jpg?v=2)
![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 Aru](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/7/1/707571.jpg?v=2)
![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](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/7/0/707570.jpg?v=2)
![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 tha](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/6/7/707567.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKED WARNER BROS. WAS FOUNDED AS THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE WAS ENDING. The empire existed from the 14th century until the Republic of Turkey was establish](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/6/6/707566.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDCO WE KNOW EXACTLY WHERE LEWIS AND CLARK CRAPPED. The Lewis and Clark expedition carried mercury pills that were used to treat pretty much ever](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/6/9/707569.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDcO COM THE PONy EXPRESS WAS VERY SHORT-LIVED. Despite the huge role it plays EXPRESS in the lore of the Old West, the PONY Pony Express operate](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/6/4/707564.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDcO COM THE GOVERNMENT IS STILL PAYING CIVIL WAR PENSIONS. A veteran's daughter, born in 1930 when her father was in his 8Os, still gets her pay](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/6/2/707562.jpg?v=2)
![DURING WORLD WAR Il, THE USSR TOOK THE BRUNT OF THE FIGHTING AND OF THE DYING. You see very heroic Americans fighting the Reich in movies. And while t](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/6/8/707568.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKED CON 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 A](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/6/3/707563.jpg?v=2)
![THE WITCHES OF SALEM WEREN'T BURNED. While burning alleged witches was common in Europe, those found guilty of witchcraft during the Salem trials we](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/6/5/707565.jpg?v=2)
![THE STRONGEST OPPOSITION TO THE VIETNAM WAR CAME FROM OLDER AMERICANS. CET THE HELL Yes, visible protestors tended to OUT OFTES be young. But accordin](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/6/1/707561.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKED cO COM BRITISH TANKS HAVE LONG INCLUDED TEA MAKING FACILITIES. 590 Before 1945, Brits had to stop and climb out of their tanks for their tea b](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/6/0/707560.jpg?v=2)
![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 a](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/5/9/707559.jpg?v=2)
![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](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/5/8/707558.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKED CON 97% OF HUMAN HISTORY HAS BEEN LOST. Humans appeared 200,000 years ago. Writing is about 000 years old. This means that only 3%0 of our spe](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/5/6/707556.jpg?v=2)
![AN AMERICAN PATROTIC SONG TOPPED THE CHARTS AT THE HEIGHT OF THE BRITISH INVASION. Do you think the '60s were all about The Beatles? Nope! The Ballad](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/5/5/707555.jpg?v=2)
![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 sto](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/5/4/707554.jpg?v=2)
![SEVEN OF HISTORY'S TEN DEADLIEST WARS WERE FOUGHT IN CHINA. It comes with havinga a historically high population. A couple of wars in the region had a](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/5/3/707553.jpg?v=2)
![THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS RIDDLED WITH MISTAKES. People vnde vnen e eing 1 2riic! We're not talking here about stuff such as not giving everyone the ri](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/5/2/707552.jpg?v=2)
![BARELY ANYONE SMOKED POT IN THE 1960s. Ah, the '60s. Flower power, peace and love, everyone was high... Except that by 1969, only 4o/ of Americans had](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/5/5/9/709559.jpg?v=1)