Some parts of what you believe in are lies — but not everything. History is strange. There are so many things, people, events, and objects in history that everyone knows about.
But they are not real.
The thing about history is that if you make up a really convincing lie that becomes popular, people will still believe it and repeat it hundreds of years later — and think it’s true.
Here are X historical facts that you may have even learned in school, but they never happened at all.
The Origin and Meaning of ‘Ye’
To give your store a vintage touch, you can name it Ye Olde Shoppe. That’s how people spelled “the” back then, right?
Well, not exactly. They did sometimes write “the” as “ye,” but if you say it like The Artist Formerly Known as Kanye, you’re mistaken.
The sound of “ye” was still “the.” There was a letter in the English alphabet called thorn that looked like this: þ
That’s a bit strange, right? Well, that was the problem with early printing presses too — they didn’t have a letter for thorn.
So, printers came up with different ways to write it, such as “y” and “th” as it sounds. So, yes, you can have Ye Olde Shoppe, but it’s said just like “the old shop.”
The Crimson Call
A direct line of communication was established between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It was called the Red Phone, but it was neither red nor a phone. It was a Teletype machine at first, and then a fax machine in 1986. A phone would have been impractical anyway, since neither Soviet nor U.S. leaders were fluent in each other’s languages.
Slave Labor Constructed the Pyramids
Movies, novels, and even the Bible depict it. The ancient Egyptians were harsh and used slaves to construct their pyramids!
Except that’s false. Slavery was a reality in Egypt and some slaves might have participated in the pyramids, but the main labor force was composed of regular workers.
And they were quite special actually. Recent investigations have revealed that the pyramid builders were well rewarded and respected if they lost their lives on the work site.
So, there might have been some slaves as well, but most of the work was done by your Average Joehotep.
The Misattributed Cake Remark
French Queen Marie Antoinette hears that people have no bread and are starving. The cruel queen replies: “Let them eat cake.”
The famous joke is out of touch, but it probably never occurred. Or at least there’s no evidence of it.
The original remark (“Let them eat brioche”) is from the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who says it was a “nameless princess.” Marie Antoinette was a princess then, but she was pretty much a nobody among royalty. No one would’ve paid attention to what she had to say about bread or cakes.
But the remark was useful for propaganda during the French Revolution and it has remained since.
The Metal Maiden
You would get a blank stare and a question from a medieval peasant if you asked him if he dreaded being put into an iron maiden. That’s because the iron maiden, the most famous medieval torture device, probably never existed.
“But I’ve seen one in a museum!” you argue. Sure, you’ve seen an iron maiden, but it wasn’t medieval.
The iron maiden that we are familiar with today was made in the 18th century. And it was a fictional creation, not based on any historical reality.
The band Iron Maiden has tortured more people than the real device. Mostly because the former number is positive while the latter number is zero.
The Lock of Fidelity
Here’s another terrible device that never existed, since we’re on the subject. No medieval man ever locked his wife in a chastity belt before going on his journeys.
The idea of the chastity belt came from the 16th century — and it began as a joke. The whole device was made to mock overly possessive husbands.
But it must’ve been a funny joke because people kept saying it. And by the Victorian era, they’d lost track of it being a joke (or they thought they could earn good money by showing fake chastity belts).
And of course, there’s also that one couple from centuries ago who got the joke and, for the first time, found it actually quite arousing.
The False Image of Stockbrokers Falling from Windows
The Wall Street stock market collapsed on October 24, 1929. Dozens of stockbrokers saw their money vanish and jumped to their deaths from their office windows rather than live in poverty.
You can guess what we’re going to say. No, they didn’t.
Now, that has a qualification that a lot of people did commit suicide because of the crash. And yes, two of them did it by leaping out the window on Wall Street.
But it wasn’t the kind of outbreak you think. And the reason you think that is because newspapers at the time sensed a juicy story and decided to squeeze it for all it’s worth — and then some.
Based on the news stories from the time, you’d picture Wall Street was covered with twisted bodies. But no — it was only ever two hopeless gentlemen who met such a tragic end.
The Myth of Paul Revere’s Nighttime Journey
We can already sense the anger and outrage at our door. But it’s true — Paul Revere never galloped through Massachusetts shouting, “The British are coming!”
The story of Paul Revere comes from a poem by the esteemed poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. But he took a lot of creative freedom with the story.
Now, there was a man named Paul Revere who did ride out on a horse that night to warn about the British. But he was only one of the riders. There were many others, and they actually did better than Revere.
You see, the man didn’t seem to be in a terrible hurry. During his ride, he stopped by a pub to have a drink — and got caught by the British.
They did release Revere but took his horse. So, he completed his tour on foot, only to have people tell him to be quiet since they were trying to sleep.
Revere did have his role in the story. That role has just been greatly embellished.