The five occurrences that you may have unthinkingly accepted as historical facts are, in reality completely untrue or, at the very least, greatly embellished. It is important to reconsider these events as they have been widely accepted despite lacking a basis in reality or containing exaggerated elements.
(1)Nero didn’t fiddle while Rome burned
Ah, Nero, the original unconcerned bystander. This first-century Roman
emperor certainly isn’t blameless in the story of Rome’s fiery fall, he definitely wasn’t playing the fiddle during it. For one thing, Nero wasn’t even in the city when the fire began; he was in Antium, about thirty miles outside of the city. For another…there was no such thing as a fiddle in ancient Rome.
(2)Rats didn’t actually spread the Black Death
Recent studies have discovered that rats may not actually be to blame for this
devastating plague that wiped out a third of 14th century Europe. So it’s time to rat out the real culprit. Scientists at the University of Oslo conducted an experiment that assessed the potential transmission routes for the deadly pandemic.
(3)An apple never fell on Isaac Newton’s head
The story that the famous mathematician had an epiphany about gravity after
being bonked on the head by a piece of fruit is most likely an embellishment of what really happened. The first time the apple story appeared was in a biography of Newton written by his friend William Stukeley in 1792.
(4)Ben Franklin didn’t discover electricity
Ben Franklin’s famed experiment involving a key tied to a kite wasn’t quite the
revolutionary scientific venture you might think it was. He certainly didn’t “discover” electricity; scientists already were well aware of its existence in 1752, the year of Franklin’s experiment.
(5)Vincent van Gogh didn’t cut off his ear
Not all of it, anyway. The artist only severed the bottom part of his left ear, and
no one knows for sure the reason he did it. He was certainly suffering from severe depression at the time. Some historians claim that he was agitated after a spat with his artist frenemy Paul Gaugin. Others claim that it was an act of rage committed after he learned that his brother, who was a major source of financial and emotional support for him, was engaged. One thing is for sure, though: it definitely wasn’t his entire ear.