20 Historical Myths Everyone Believes But Are False
Some historical “facts” get repeated so often they stop sounding like myths at all. They show up in movies, textbooks, and casual conversation until nobody bothers questioning them. Here are 20 of the most widely believed history myths, and what the record actually shows.
1. Vikings Wore Horned Helmets
There’s no archaeological evidence that Viking warriors ever wore horned helmets into battle. The image mostly comes from 19th-century opera costumes, particularly Wagner productions, which artists and illustrators later borrowed and applied backward onto actual Viking history.
2. Medieval People Thought the Earth Was Flat
Educated Europeans had understood the earth was round since at least the time of the ancient Greeks, and that knowledge never disappeared during the medieval period. The “flat earth” myth about medieval belief was largely popularized much later, in the 19th century, by writers exaggerating the ignorance of the era for dramatic effect.
3. Napoleon Was Unusually Short
Napoleon stood around 5’6″ to 5’7″, which was close to average height for a Frenchman of his time. The “short” reputation is largely blamed on British wartime propaganda cartoons, along with a possible mix-up between French and English measurement units.
4. Einstein Failed Math in School
Albert Einstein was actually an excellent math student from a young age, reportedly mastering calculus in his early teens. The myth likely spread from a misunderstood grading scale change in his home country, combined with people wanting to believe that even a genius once struggled the way they did.
5. Marie Antoinette Said “Let Them Eat Cake”
There’s no solid historical evidence that Marie Antoinette ever said this. The phrase appears in writing that predates her arrival in France, and many historians believe it was falsely attributed to her later as anti-monarchy propaganda took hold.
6. Columbus Discovered America
Christopher Columbus never set foot on the North American mainland, and Indigenous peoples had already been living across the Americas for thousands of years before his arrival. Norse explorers, led by Leif Erikson, are also generally credited with reaching parts of North America roughly 500 years before Columbus’s voyages.
7. Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned
The fiddle didn’t exist as an instrument until many centuries after Nero’s reign, making the popular image physically impossible. Some ancient sources claim Nero played a lyre-like instrument during the fire, but other accounts suggest he wasn’t even in Rome when it started, and rushed back to help organize relief efforts.
8. Salem “Witches” Were Burned at the Stake
None of the accused in the Salem witch trials were burned. Nineteen were hanged, and one man was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to enter a plea. Burning at the stake was more commonly associated with witch trials in parts of continental Europe, not colonial Massachusetts.
9. The Middle Ages Were a “Dark Age” of Total Stagnation
While parts of Europe did see disruption after the fall of Rome, the label “Dark Ages” oversimplifies a period that included real advances in agriculture, architecture, philosophy, and trade, along with major developments in the Islamic world, China, and other regions largely ignored by the traditional Eurocentric framing of the term.
10. Ben Franklin Discovered Electricity With a Kite
Electricity was already a known and studied phenomenon well before Franklin’s famous 1752 kite experiment. What Franklin actually demonstrated was that lightning itself was a form of electrical discharge, connecting something already understood in a lab to a force people had only feared and mythologized in the sky.
11. Edison Invented the Light Bulb
Thomas Edison didn’t invent the concept of the electric light bulb. Several inventors had built earlier versions before him. What Edison and his team actually achieved was developing a longer-lasting, commercially practical filament and building the infrastructure to make electric lighting viable at scale.
12. Napoleon’s Troops Shot the Nose Off the Sphinx
The Sphinx’s nose was already missing well before Napoleon’s military campaign in Egypt. Sketches made by other travelers decades earlier already show the damage, and some historians attribute it to a 14th-century figure who reportedly vandalized the statue for religious reasons, long before Napoleon was even born.
13. Van Gogh Only Ever Sold One Painting
Vincent van Gogh’s paintings weren’t widely successful during his lifetime, but he sold and traded more than the single painting often cited in the popular myth, and some of his work was also displayed and reviewed in exhibitions before his death. He simply never lived to see the fame and prices his work would eventually command.
14. Frankenstein Is the Monster
In Mary Shelley’s original novel, Frankenstein is the name of the scientist who creates the creature, not the creature itself. The monster is never actually given a name in the book, and the mix-up has become so widespread over time that it’s arguably reshaped how the character is understood in pop culture.
15. Roman Vomitoriums Were Rooms for Vomiting Between Courses
Despite the popular image of Romans stepping away from feasts to purge so they could keep eating, “vomitorium” actually referred to the passageways beneath Roman amphitheaters that allowed large crowds to exit quickly, taking their name from the Latin word for “spew” only in the sense of a crowd rapidly emptying out of a venue.
16. George Washington Had Wooden Teeth
Washington did wear dentures, but none of the sets that survive today are made of wood. Historical records show his dentures were crafted from materials including ivory, gold, lead, and both human and animal teeth, likely including teeth purchased from enslaved people, a far darker reality than the wooden teeth myth usually implies.
17. Cleopatra Was Ethnically Egyptian
Cleopatra descended from the Ptolemaic dynasty, a Greek Macedonian line that ruled Egypt following Alexander the Great’s conquests. While she governed Egypt and, according to some ancient accounts, made a point of learning the Egyptian language unlike many of her predecessors, her ancestry traced back to Macedonian Greek rulers rather than the indigenous Egyptian population.
18. The First Thanksgiving Was a Simple, Friendly Feast
The popular image of Pilgrims and the Wampanoag sharing one peaceful harvest meal simplifies a far more complicated relationship, one that involved tense diplomacy, land disputes, and, in the decades that followed, devastating conflict and violence against Native communities. The romanticized version of the story took shape largely in the 19th century, well after the actual events.
19. Witch Hunts Were Mostly a Medieval Phenomenon
Most large-scale witch trials, including Salem, actually took place during the early modern period, roughly the 1400s through the 1700s, not the medieval era most people associate them with. The panic often peaked well after the Middle Ages had already ended.
20. Vikings Called Themselves “Vikings”
“Viking” originally referred to an activity, specifically raiding or an overseas expedition, rather than a fixed identity or ethnicity. Most of the Scandinavian people history now broadly labels “Vikings” were farmers, traders, and craftspeople, and only a portion of the population ever actually went on the raids the term is based on.
Final Thought
A surprising amount of “common knowledge” about history turns out to be later invention, exaggeration, or a simplified story that was just easier to teach than the messy, complicated truth. The real versions are usually more interesting anyway.