From how witches were *really* dealt with to a shocking fact about one of the new wonders
of the world, today we look at 10 Lies Your School Taught You!
Number 10.
“Blue Blood” One of the most commonly perpetuated “facts”
that is actually false is that our veins look blue on the outside because deoxygenated blood
is blue.
Science teachers have been telling this myth for decades now and it has absolutely no basis
in science.
This myth probably was started by an unchecked hypothesis in a bygone time before medicine
and science became as advanced as they are today.
The truth is, when blood is without oxygen it's actually dark red.
So why do our veins appear blue?
Scientists say that is has to do with the way we perceive light.
Our perception of color is due to the varying wavelengths of light.
Red light permeates much deeper into flesh than blue light, because of this, veins closer
to the skin are found to reflect more blue light back into our eyes.
Not all people have veins with bluish hues either as varying skin tones can make the
veins appear anywhere from green and brown to dark purple.
Number 9.
“The Great Emancipator” Abraham Lincoln is glorified as the ultimate
abolitionist and an opponent of slavery from the day he stepped into office, but this simply
isn’t true.
Though he did eventually set in motion and sign into law the 13th Amendment which made
slavery illegal in the United States, it wasn’t very high on his list of priorities.
Lincoln was not a promoter of slavery but he also wasn’t an abolitionist.
In fact, if he were alive today some of his views would be considered racist.
But as all great leaders Lincoln was a very complex thinker and part of what made him
great was his ability to change his mind when he heard a better idea.
From the beginning, Lincoln believed that slavery was morally wrong but knew it was
a dangerous political subject and did not move towards its abolition until it presented
strategic advantages.
He didn’t even think to issue the Emancipation Proclamation until it presented itself as
a way to win the war against the Confederacy.
By freeing the slaves in southern states (that’s right, it excluded slave states that were
a part of the Union) it effectively crippled the South’s economy and enabled the North
to enlist the slaves who fled captivity.
Lincoln was quoted as saying “ If I could save the Union without freeing any slave,
I would do it.”.
In addition to thinking the way to solve the slavery problem was sending the slaves back
to Africa, Lincoln also initially believed that white and black people should not be
equal citizens and was against the idea of black people voting, holding positions in
government and marrying white people.
By the time of his death, Lincoln had become much more open minded and though he may not
have been the infallible emancipator that he is sometimes viewed as today, he did fight
for emancipation against fierce opposition and was more progressive than most of his
contemporaries.
Number 8.
“Taste Buds” If you can picture a map of a tongue that
has all of the types of taste mapped out on it, we are sorry to tell you this but you
have been duped whether intentionally or not.
The modern version of the map was invented in 1942 by a man aptly named Edwin Boring
and is simple in its layout.
The map has your sweet taste buds on the tip then moving back the salt, sour and bitter
taste buds.
So what’s the problem with this picture?
You can taste all of these tastes anywhere on your tongue, in fact, each taste bud can
have up to one-hundred receptors for each type of taste.
The map is also invalid as it ignores the fifth type of taste which is umami, for which
the simple definition is savory.
There is no excuse for this not being included either as umami was discovered in the early
20th century.
So why is the map still being included in anatomy and science text books?
Your guess is as good as ours.
Number 7.
“I Cannot Tell a Lie” This list is bound to make you question everything
from your childhood at some point, so we might as well get right to it.
George Washington did not chop down a cherry tree.
This legend about the United States’ first president was probably started in a biography
by Parson Weems that was written after Washington died.
In the biography called ‘The Life of George Washington’ Weems even has a subtitle that
states it contains ‘curious anecdotes’.
This was in an attempt to highlight Washington’s qualities so that children would honor and
look up to him, but history book writers and biographers after Weems left out that these
were tall-tales and wrote the story down as if it were fact.
However, George Washington was widely considered to be honest for a politician of his time.
On a side-note he also didn’t really have wooden teeth, they were made of ivory, cow
teeth and --teeth bought from slaves.
Number 6.
“Burn the Witch!”
If you are picturing the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 in your head the first image that
is likely to pop-up is that of a witch being burned at the stake.
This image is wrong.
Contrary to what we have been taught in school not a single person who was executed during
the period of religious fanaticism that was the Salem Witch trials was burned at the stake.
In fact, less than two-dozen of the two-hundred people that were accused of witchcraft were
even put to death at all, as the government officials in Massachusetts put a stop to it
within a year of the onset of the trials.
The idea that these alleged “witches” were burned at the stake probably manifested
out of people combining Salem with the European witch hunts of the 14-1700s where the Holy
Roman Empire had laws requiring convicted witches to be burned.
Even then, many of those witches (a.k.a.
innocent victims) were killed via hanging and then their bodies were burned.
Some of the ways the accused witches in Salem were killed may be considered worse than being
burned alive.
Though most of them were hanged, there were seven cases of people found guilty of witchcraft
dying in jail, possibly from starvation.
In one case Giles Corey, who refused to take a plea bargain when he was accused of being
a warlock, was pressed to death by stone weights.
He remained strong and defiant until the end, his final words were: More Weight!
More Weight!
Number 5.
“The Kite and Key” Another myth about a founding father is that
Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity while flying a kite in a thunderstorm.
The problem is that electricity had already been studied and tested long before in its
static form.
Franklin started experimenting with it.
Most historians also believe that the “famous” kite experiment never happened.
In fact, scientists have found that if Benjamin Franklin had conducted this experiment he
would have probably been killed by the lightning.
However, Franklin was one of the first to posit that lightning was made up of electricity
and did use the idea of the key and kite as a thought experiment in letters to scientist
Peter Collinson.
Collinson took the idea and made it into a practical experiment using a metal pole to
conduct lightning’s electricity.
Because of this Franklin is given credit for helping to discover this form of electricity.
He also was one of the first to come up with the idea of positive and negative charges
and even created rudimentary batteries.
Number 4.
“13 Colonies” Though the original flag of the United States
had thirteen stars and thirteen stripes there were in fact only twelve colonies at the time
of the country’s rebellion against the British Empire.
It is commonly taught that there were thirteen colonies at this time but the true story is
that Delaware didn’t become it’s own colony until June of 1776 just before the signing
of the declaration of independence.
During the first year of the Revolutionary War and the years leading up to that Delaware
though it had its own assembly was governed by Pennsylvania.
Delaware was very proud when they did become their own colony and was even the first colony
to ratify the Constitution.
Number 3.
“Diamonds and Coal” If you are a comic book fan you may know that
one of the ways Superman’s strength is described is that he is strong enough to crush coal
into diamonds.
You also may have had this idea confirmed by teachers telling you that diamonds are
formed from coal.
This is false.
It has some basis in reality in the fact that diamonds and coal are both made out of carbon
and both are formed in a similar manner underground due to years and years of pressure.
But if diamonds were formed from coal, wouldn’t they be found in the same places?
This is an extremely rare occurrence because when you get down to the nitty gritty of how
each of these are formed the processes are vastly different.
First off, coal though mainly carbon is actually a conglomerate of several elements and organic
matter that have been pressed together.
Diamonds, though they may have rare occurring impurities (even then, only on the atomic
level) are a crystallized form of pure carbon.
Diamonds also have a much more complicated means of formation.
On Earth, diamonds can only naturally form where the pressure is upwards of 100,000 atmospheres
and the temperature is thousands of degrees hot deep in the mantle.
So, sorry superfans, the idea of crushing coal into diamonds is bull-pucky.
Number 2.
“Columbus” It is astounding that Christopher Columbus
is still venerated with a holiday given all that we know of him.
Not only did he not ‘discover’ America, but he was responsible for the enslaving and
demise of hundreds of thousands of people and was even thrown in jail for torture in
a time when it was the thing to do.
So why is praised as a pioneer and hero?
There are a couple factors.
First, during the Revolutionary War, the American colonists had to turn to a new hero as John
Cabot, who was previously admired for discovering the land where the colonies were founded,
was an Englishman.
So they chose Christopher Columbus who represented the Spanish discovery of the Americas.
Second, author Washington Irving (famous for his historical fictions and the Legend of
Sleepy Hollow) decided to jazz up his biography of Columbus by saying that before Columbus,
everyone thought the Earth was flat.
In addition, the navigational tools that were used in the 1400s were dependent on the theory
that the Earth was a sphere, so even Columbus’ dumbest crew member’s dead uncle would have
known this.
Number 1.
“Head in the Sand” If you were to draw a picture of Easter Island
it would most likely include the giant stone heads that the island is famous for.
But would that picture just be of the heads or would you include the less common images
of the bodies attached to those heads?
Scattered across the island there are almost 900 of these imposing figures called Moai,
which were carved by a tribe called the Rapa Nui.
In schools, when many teachers talk about Easter Island they fail to mention that the
statues aren’t just heads.
This has a lot to do with the iconic images of the 150 statues buried in the side of a
volcano that appear in many textbooks and are referenced in pop-culture showing only
the elongated stone craniums.
Archaeologists have known that these heads have sunken bodies since 1914, and if you
look at pictures of the other statues on the island you can plainly see the full figures.
Due to years and years of misinformation and taking the textbook pictures at face value,
the recent pictures of the fully excavated statues went viral shocking millions of people
who mistakenly thought they were just heads.
Some people are so adamant about their prior knowledge being correct that they were quick
to label the excavation a hoax.