← All articles HISTORY · 21 October 2026

25 historical myths and what actually happened

Quick answer: 25 popular history myths, from Napoleon’s height to Viking helmets, with what the evidence shows.

Myths 1–9

Use these as true-or-false questions. More in common knowledge questions people get wrong.

#	The myth	What actually happened
1	Napoleon was very short.	He was about 1.68 m, average for his time. The myth comes from French units and British cartoons.
2	Vikings wore horned helmets.	No horned Viking helmet has ever been found; the image comes from 19th-century opera costumes.
3	Marie Antoinette said “Let them eat cake”.	The phrase appears in Rousseau’s Confessions before she arrived in France.
4	Einstein failed maths at school.	He excelled at maths and had mastered calculus by 15.
5	Columbus proved the Earth is round.	Educated Europeans had known it since antiquity; Eratosthenes measured it around 240 BC.
6	The Great Wall of China is visible from space.	It is too narrow to see with the naked eye from orbit.
7	Medieval people thought the Earth was flat.	Most scholars accepted a spherical Earth throughout the Middle Ages.
8	Nero fiddled while Rome burned.	The fiddle did not exist; some sources say he was away and organised relief.
9	Slaves built the pyramids of Giza.	Evidence from workers’ villages shows paid labourers, fed and housed by the state.

#	The myth	What actually happened
10	Witches were burned at Salem.	The accused were hanged, not burned.
11	Van Gogh cut off his whole ear.	He cut off part of his left ear.
12	Cleopatra was Egyptian.	She was of Macedonian Greek descent, from the Ptolemaic dynasty.
13	Lady Godiva rode naked through Coventry.	The story appears centuries after her death and has no contemporary evidence.
14	Isaac Newton was hit on the head by an apple.	He said watching an apple fall prompted his thinking; no bump on the head is recorded.
15	The Library of Alexandria was destroyed in a single fire.	It declined over centuries through cuts, conflict and neglect.
16	Medieval Europeans used spices to hide rotten meat.	Spices were costly; people who could afford them could afford fresh meat.
17	Gladiator fights always ended in death.	Trained gladiators were expensive; most fights did not end in death.

#	The myth	What actually happened
18	The Trojan Horse is confirmed history.	It is known only from Greek poetry; no archaeological evidence confirms it.
19	Ninjas wore black.	They dressed to blend in; the black costume comes from Japanese theatre.
20	Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel and almost accepted.	He was offered it in 1952 and declined at once.
21	Pocahontas and John Smith were a love story.	She was about 10 when they met; she later married John Rolfe.
22	Thomas Edison invented the light bulb alone.	Several inventors made earlier bulbs; Edison made a long-lasting, practical one.
23	The Hundred Years’ War lasted 100 years.	It lasted 116 years, from 1337 to 1453.
24	Chastity belts were common in the Middle Ages.	Most surviving examples are 18th- and 19th-century jokes or fakes.
25	People in the past rarely lived past 40.	Average life expectancy was pulled down by child deaths; many adults lived into their 60s and 70s.

No, he was about average height for his time.

No. The image comes from 19th-century opera costumes.