1.
The Aztecs didn’t name themselves Aztecs; they known as themselves Mexica. The time period “Aztec” was later popularized by European scholars within the 18th century, derived from Aztlán, the legendary homeland of the Mexica folks.
2.
Marie Antoinette’s real name was Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna. She was, after all, Austrian, however her identify was Frenchified when she married the then-future King Louis XVI of France.
3.
The Mona Lisa did not develop into a well-known portray till 114 years in the past. In reality, it was comparatively obscure for hundreds of years. Its rise to world fame started in 1911, when it was stolen from the Louvre by an Italian handyman named Vincenzo Peruggia, who believed the portray belonged in Italy. The heist made worldwide headlines and turned the portray right into a sensation. When it was finally recovered two years later, large crowds got here to see it.
4.
Napoleon Bonaparte wasn’t actually short; he was about 5’6″ or 5’7″ (by trendy requirements), which was a median top for a person of that point. The explanation we expect he’s brief is that British caricatures and propaganda portrayed him as comically small to undermine his energy.
5.
The time period “computer” really predates the machine — it initially referred to an individual who carried out repetitive calculations by hand. These human computer systems have been usually employed to do complicated math for science, engineering, and navigation lengthy earlier than digital computer systems existed. The phrase solely shifted to explain laptop machines within the 1950s.
6.
There have been feminine gladiators in Historic Rome — often called gladiatrices. Although far much less frequent than their male counterparts, they did the very same issues. They have been finally banned, possible as a result of their presence challenged conventional Roman gender roles.
7.
Historic Rome and Historic Greece have been really full of color, and never the plain white marble and stone we frequently think about at present. Temples, properties, and public buildings have been usually painted in shiny colours, embellished with murals, mosaics, and complex patterns, whereas white marble statues have been initially coated in vivid paints. After all, over time, the paint wore away. In the course of the Renaissance, when artists and designers rediscovered Roman ruins, they mistook the pale marble for the supposed aesthetic.
8.
The Salem “witches” weren’t burned at the stake. They have been hanged or beheaded, however their our bodies have been burned after the very fact to ensure they did not forged spells after loss of life. Being burned on the stake for being a witch was really one thing they did in Europe from the late 1400s by means of the 1700s, which is a purpose we affiliate that with the Salem Witch Trials.
9.
Ludwig van Beethoven wasn’t completely deaf when he composed a lot of his most well-known works. His listening to declined regularly over time. In his early profession, he might nonetheless hear effectively sufficient to carry out and conduct, and at the same time as his listening to worsened, he continued to compose with the assistance of muscle reminiscence, vibration, and written notation. The frequent fable all of us heard was that he could not hear in any respect by the point he wrote his remaining symphony, Symphony No. 9. Nonetheless, that is not true — he nonetheless might hear faintly.
10.
The Library of Alexandria didn’t burn down in a single catastrophic occasion. The fact is that its destruction was a gradual course of that occurred over centuries. The library suffered from a number of assaults, injury (like throughout Julius Caesar’s siege of Alexandria in 48 BCE), political turmoil, and lengthy intervals of neglect.
11.
Jackie Kennedy’s iconic pink swimsuit is, after all, without end linked to JFK’s assassination. Nonetheless, it wasn’t a swimsuit she had only for that journey; she wore the suit publicly at least six times earlier than that day. Beneath is a photograph of her sporting it to go to her sister, Lee Radziwill, in London in March 1962, and when the then-Maharajah and Maharani of Jaipur visited the White Home in October 1962.
12.
Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets. They possible wore easy helmets made from metallic or leather-based. The concept they wore them got here from costume designer Carl Emil Doepler, who created horned helmets for the Viking characters within the German opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen within the 1870s.
13.
Opposite to standard perception, medieval people did not assume the Earth was flat. In reality, educated folks knew it was spherical. Scholars within the Center Ages, particularly these influenced by historical Greek and Roman texts, broadly accepted the Earth’s spherical form. The parable that everybody thought the world was flat began within the 1830s to color the Center Ages as a “darkish” and ignorant period that was held again by the Catholic Church.
14.
Equally, folks weren’t involved that Christopher Columbus would fall off the Earth as a result of it was flat. They have been involved that he had underestimated the dimensions of the world, and that he would run out of provides in the course of the ocean earlier than he made it to Asia.
15.
Regardless of the favored fable, the Ford Model T did not solely are available in black. When the Mannequin T launched in 1908, consumers might select from colours like pink, blue, inexperienced, and grey. Nonetheless, between 1914 and 1925, Ford standardized manufacturing for effectivity, and black grew to become the usual (and sometimes solely) coloration the Mannequin T got here in. Though black dominated throughout these peak years, coloration choices returned towards the tip of manufacturing, which formally resulted in 1927.
16.
Most pirates didn’t bury their treasure — that is extra legend than actuality. In fact, they spent their loot rapidly on issues like meals, alcohol, weapons, and ladies. Life at sea was harmful and brief, so pirates tended to dwell within the second. Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 novel Treasure Island is essentially chargeable for popularizing the myth of pirates burying treasure.
17.
Colour tv existed within the ’50s — the technology for it had been in growth for the reason that ’40s. However, few folks owned coloration TV units as a result of they have been very expensive. A coloration tv set price about $1,000 in 1954, which is over $11,900 at present if adjusted for inflation.
18.
Earlier than the Eighties, the Roswell UFO crash was mainly an unknown occasion. Whereas it was enormous information in 1947, when it occurred, it rapidly bought forgotten after america Air Power issued an nearly instant retraction that they’d not recovered a crashed UFO in Roswell, New Mexico, and that it had been particles from a downed climate balloon. It wasn’t till a 1980 guide, The Roswell Incident, that the story was revived with claims of a authorities cover-up and alien our bodies.
19.
And lastly, america didn’t have an official national anthem till 1931 — greater than 150 years after gaining independence. It wasn’t till Congress handed a decision and Herbert Hoover signed it into legislation that “The Star-Spangled Banner” grew to become the official anthem. Earlier than that, there was no single tune that represented the nation.