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Many stories that actually happened are seasoned with interesting facts and tales by the narrators, making the reality embellished.
Passing the tale from mouth to mouth, authenticity and facts were lost, but the story acquired nuances and fixed incredible details in the plot, becoming more interesting for the townsfolk.
In our top, we have collected the 10 most common myths that everyone believes in since school days. It seems that the time has come to destroy them and find out the real truth.
10 Newton’s apple
Everyone thinks that Newton discovered the law of universal gravitation while sitting under a tree in his garden. Thinking about why the moon does not fall to the ground, and what force holds the luminary in space, Newton could not at all predict that the answers to his questions would come from hitting an apple on the head.
The story is partly true: the apple really fell from the tree, but not on Newton’s head, but on the ground – next to the scientist.
Seeing the fallen fruit, Newton became interested in the force of gravity and decided to understand what pulls the apple to the surface of the earth, but what makes the Moon and the Sun stay in place.
9. the Forbidden fruit
In all the paintings, Eve is depicted with a red apple in her palm, just as in the stories it is mentioned that people tasted the apple from the Tree of Knowledge.
Actually, it’s a myth. The Bible never mentions an apple in the course of the story, Adam and Eve ate some fruit from the Tree. What this fruit looks like is not described in the Bible, and therefore it was customary to depict an apple in the pictures because of visual recognition.
In addition, apple trees do not grow in the Middle East, which means that fruit from this tree could not be mentioned in the Bible.
8. Van Gogh’s ear
The fact that Van Gogh cut off his ear was told to us at the first lessons of fine arts at school. But why he did this – no one could explain, but in the minds of the children the image of the artist with a bandaged head was preserved. The bandages hid, of course, the bloodied ear hole, because Van Gogh ruthlessly cut off everything else with a kitchen knife.
Why the artist cut off his ear, no one knows to this day. There are several theories here: someone says that the artist was in crisis after a quarrel with a friend, someone believes that Van Gogh could not come to terms with the news of his brother’s engagement.
Only one fact is known – Van Gogh did not cut off his ear. Only a small part of the lobe, and the ear remained in place in a fully working condition.
7. Napoleon’s rise
Caricatures and literary works often emphasize Napoleon’s short stature. The diminutive conqueror was much joked about, and the emperor’s stature was the most common subject of humor. Like, Bonaparte’s frantic ambitions were explained by his small stature.
But all these are jokes and myths that have come down to our times, because Napoleon had a quite average height – 170 cm. Perhaps, next to other men, he looked lower, but you definitely cannot call this person a dwarf.
The plot of most of Shakespeare’s works is a legend taken from the people. Thanks to Shakespeare, the folk tale was overgrown with plot twists and new characters, but the basis of the story remained invented by other people.
This, of course, does not belittle the merits of Shakespeare. Still, it is not for nothing that the writer is considered a genius of dramaturgy.
5. Jesus’ birthday
In the Bible itself – the main historical source – the date of the birth of Jesus Christ is not indicated throughout the story.
Therefore, December 25 – accepted as the birthday of Jesus by Catholics – and January 7 by Orthodox – are only assumptions and symbolic dates.
4. First President of the United States
One of the biggest misconceptions related to historical facts. After all, many believe that George Washington is the first president of the United States.
Will you be very surprised if we say that Washington did not even enter the top ten of the first presidents? He was only the 15th ruler of the country!
Paignton Randolph is considered the first president, and Washington was the first president elected by the people.
3. Loser Einstein
Why this myth was invented is unknown. Perhaps to support the students and the legend that it is not necessary to have good grades in school to achieve something meaningful in later life.
This statement has the right to exist with a single note: you can study poorly at school and achieve heights, but the statement does not mean that you need to be lazy and not study at all in all subjects.
It is permissible not to waste energy on objects with which a person does not want to connect his life.
And so it happened with Einstein – he studied well at school, Einstein was never a loser! But he had problems with philosophy – he did not pass this subject when entering the university.
And since philosophy was far from a core area for a future scientist, Einstein was allowed to fail this exam.
2. Nationality of Cleopatra
We all know Cleopatra as the greatest queen of Egypt. According to the generally accepted myth, it is believed that she was an Egyptian, but the real nationality of the woman is Greek.
Cleopatra was from the Ptolemaic dynasty. After the capture of Egypt, an ally of Alexander the Great, Ptolemy, came to the throne. It was he who founded the dynasty with purity of blood, the main idea of which was the marriage of brothers to their sisters, so as not to “contaminate” the family with someone else’s gene pool.
The last representative of the Ptolemies – Cleopatra – was of Greek origin.
1. All Vikings are savages
Thinking about the Vikings, the image of an unwashed and huge man, in the old skins of dead animals and in a horned helmet, is unconsciously drawn in my head. The stereotypical image of the Vikings came to us from children’s stories and cartoons, but in fact the Vikings did not look like we used to think.
For example, helmets with horns were worn only for rites and rituals, and the usual form of military Vikings was armor made of durable metals.
There is also something to argue about the untidy appearance of warriors. Yes, a tousled beard, dirty clothes and an unpleasant smell were most likely an integral part of the Viking image. But this was after the battle and before the first trip to the bathhouse. Any warrior first of all went to wash off the dirt, and no one walked in everyday life in a homeless manner.