It's not easy being a teacher these days.
Low salaries, long hours, and overcrowded classrooms are just the start of the challenges
faced by educators, who often have to deal with outdated and incorrect textbooks as well.
So it's no wonder that sometimes things slip through the cracks.
Here's a look at some especially persistent false historical facts that are kids are still
being taught in schools.
Einstein failed math
For decades, teachers and parents have tried to inspire kids who don't quite excel in school
with a historical fun fact: "Even Einstein failed math as a kid."
As a message of encouragement to late bloomers, it's great.
As history, though, it gets an "F." In 1984, a Princeton University team led by Dr. John
Stachel discovered that Einstein was actually a kid genius who had conquered college-level
physics by age 11 and was fluent in Latin and Greek.
The reason people thought he had failed math was simply due to people misunderstanding
the grading scale on his report card.
"Way to go, Einstein!"
So was Einstein actually bad at any subjects?
Just French.
French is hard.
Pilgrims dressed in black and white
Learning about the Pilgrims and their role in the European colonization of America is
a major part of any American's elementary school education.
Also a part of school: plays in which kids dress up like Pilgrims and re-enact the first
Thanksgiving.
Invariably, the costumes are ill-fitting black and white garments topped with big, black
hats, which fits with the idea of the Pilgrims as strict, simple people.
But according to Pilgrim expert Caleb Johnson, the Pilgrims actually wore clothes that were
all kinds of styles and colors.
The idea that they dressed in severe black and white outfits comes from paintings done
in the 1800s, when all people actually tended to dress in darker, more drab styles.
The more you know.
The U.S. declared independence on July 4
Fireworks, flag cakes, and barbecues — your Fourth of July activities to celebrate American
independence from Mother England are a lie.
The Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia on July 1, 1776, and the next
day — July 2nd, not July 4th — representatives from the 13 colonies overwhelmingly approved
a motion to declare independence.
It took them two days to agree on the wording of the Declaration of Independence, however,
so it wasn't until the fourth that they ratified it.
Since that date was on the top of the document, it's the one that stuck in everyone's minds.
But the whole process took a long time.
Members of Congress didn't actually begin signing the Declaration until August 2, and
King George the Third didn't get wind of it until October.
These days, of course, you could do the whole thing instantly with a simple Facebook post.
Abner Doubleday invented baseball
In 1903, Baseball Guide editor Henry Chadwick wrote about how baseball had evolved from
the British games of cricket and rounders.
The magazine's publisher, sporting goods kingpin Albert Spalding, responded by forming a commission
to prove baseball actually had American origins.
The commission's report, issued in 1907, was based mainly on a letter from a man named
Abner Graves.
He claimed to have been in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839 when future Civil War general
Abner Doubleday outlined a diamond in the dirt and wrote up rules for a game called
"Base Ball."
Spalding took that assertion for fact.
To do so, he ignored two actual facts: first, commission member A.G. Mills, who was close
friends with Doubleday, couldn't remember Doubleday ever mentioning baseball.
And second, in 1839 Doubleday was a cadet at West Point, not in Cooperstown.
These days, historians think baseball is one of several sports derived from stoolball,
which was played in England as far back as the 15th century.
Sorry, America!
Columbus had to prove the world was round
While few still think Christopher Columbus actually discovered America, many believe
the explorer's voyage was important because it proved the world was round.
But this was not the case.
In fact, people knew the Earth was round as far back as ancient Greece.
In the 19th century, however, writers like Washington Irving used the Columbus story
to take potshots at the Catholic Church, claiming the explorer had to convince superstitious
clergymen that the Earth wasn't flat like they thought.
The idea caught on with the general public, just another testament to the power of fake
news.
'War of the Worlds' caused mass hysteria
The textbook definition of "mass hysteria" is probably the October 1938 chaos that resulted
from Orson Welles' radio adaptation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.
Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air radio program presented the terrifying story
of a New Jersey alien invasion as breaking news, with on-the-scene reports so convincing
that hordes fled their homes in terror.
We know that really happened, because the newspapers of the day said so!
Unfortunately, the creative license hadn't ended with the radio program.
According to History.com, newspaper publishers took what few reports there were of people
panicking and built it up to create a story of far-reaching mania over War of the Worlds
and to make radio look bad.
Gotta watch out for those emerging technologies.
In fact, relatively few people were "fooled" by The War of the Worlds.
Just in case anybody tuned in late, CBS Radio aired multiple disclaimers reassuring listeners
that the broadcast was fictional.
Also, there couldn't have been widespread panic...because not very many people were
even listening in the first place.
Ratings reports from the time found that only 2 percent of respondents tuned in to The War
of the Worlds because it aired opposite NBC's popular Chase and Sanborn Hour, which featured
ventriloquist Edgar Bergen.
So 1930s Americans didn't believe aliens were landing.
But they thought a ventriloquist they couldn't actually see was somehow really entertaining.
You can decide for yourself which is crazier.
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