During our lives we collectively learn the important history of our cultures and our pasts that we carry with us as truth. However, not every common tidbit that is accepted as fact is actually true. Consider these three commonly held beliefs that are actually false.
Some Historical Lies Most People Believe Are True
Napoleon Was Short:
So famous is the reputation of the former French Emperor’s lack of height that even today those who are smaller in stature and act out aggressively are said to have a “Napoleon Complex.” While he was also known to be outspoken and authoritative, he wasn’t short.
Ruling as the French emperor between 1804–1815, Napoleon Bonaparte developed a reputation for widely expanding his country’s territories through warfare, of which he was a frequent and successful leader. Although history typically remembers him now for his height instead of anything else. Measurements in death put him at 5’2″, but that was in French units. Converting that to modern inches actually made him between 5’5″ and 5’6.” He may have even been a bit taller than that given how the human body tends to recede in advanced age (He was almost 52 when he died in 1821) and death. Of course, people from the past were smaller on average than they are today, so in his lifetime he was right around the average adult male height of 5’6″ if not just a smidge under.
While Napoleon may be dwarfed in today’s society, back in his time he was completely average. People from his lifetime would probably be amused to see what a big deal his height has become because during his life it was likely never a subject of conversation.
Thomas Edison Invented The Lightbulb:
Few revolutionary inventions are synonymous with one person as the lightbulb is with Edison. During his prolific career, he registered an amazing 1,093 patents as the sole inventor or partner. The bulb that has illuminated the world for well over a century remains his most famous work. However, while he was certainly a pioneer of the lightbulb, he didn’t actually invent it.
The first electric light was developed by Humphry Davy in 1802. The device, which came to be known as the Electric Arc lamp didn’t light well or for any great period of time. In the following years, a number of inventors dabbled in creating better versions. This included Canadians Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans, who built lamps of different sizes with carbon rods held between electrodes in glass cases that contained nitrogen. They filed a patent in 1874 but their attempts at selling their lamp on a commercial level failed.
Edison was certainly the most advanced, using existing knowledge of the time along with his own work and research to develop a practical and useful incandescent lamp. He began in earnest in 1878 and soon applied for patents and even purchased some that were existing, including that of Woodward and Evans in 1879. The resulting filament bulb has continued to be developed since then, but his model has been the gold standard and truly ushered the world into bright manufactured light.
It’s fair to call Edison the father of the lightbulb since his extensive work on it is what helped it become a commercial success and necessity of everyday life. While his vital role is indisputable, he absolutely did not invent the light bulb, which many people with contrary beliefs may find illuminating.
Albert Einstein Once Failed A Math Class:
Few things embody the epitome of something as strongly as Einstein does with intelligence. The German-American physicist is considered to be one of the greatest minds in human history, originating the theory of relativity and also being a significant contributor to the realm of quantum mechanics and a number of other areas that go way over the average person’s head. So renowned was his intellect that even now anyone who displays any sort of braininess is apt to be labelled an “Einstein.” Despite his brain power, a common story told about his youth is that even he once failed a math class. The only problem is that didn’t happen.
The legend of Einstein failing at math; a field in which he later became so accomplished in made the rounds at the height of his fame in the 1930s. According to Time Magazine, the scientist and mathematician was shown a clipping from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not in 1935 that indicated he had failed a math class as a fourth grade student. Einstein laughed off the blatant falsehood, explaining:
“I never failed in mathematics. Before I was fifteen, I had mastered differential and integral calculus.”
Not only did Einstein assert himself at the top of his class, particularly math, he was so into numbers and formulas that he studied them independently for fun as a child. His sister once recalled how he spent school vacations reading geometry and algebra textbooks his parents had bought him.
In high school at the Federal Polytechnic School in Switzerland, Einstein, who was two years younger than his classmates, did initially fail some non-math and science classes (most notably French) but got his grades together in short order after giving other subjects more attention than he was giving his favourites.
It has been speculated that the reason why there have been persistent rumours that he failed a math class is that during his last year of high school, his institution changed the way they graded (in the past a 1 was failing and a 6 was outstanding, but that was flipped around so a 1 became outstanding and a 6 failing). People not understanding this shift in evaluation made assumptions that his math grades were suffering when in fact they were not.
