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From George Washington and his cherry tree to Sir Walter Raleigh’s chivalry towards Queen Elizabeth, we have all heard our share of historical myths that do more to illustrate the person in question’s personality than to shine a light on their actual life story. Here are a few historical myths created by inventive writers that still made their way in to history books and elementary schools everywhere.
We’ve all heard the story about how Christopher Columbus was the first person to realize the Earth was round. But despite the fact that many of us were told this story in elementary school, this is about as far from historical truth as you can get.
The Columbus story was actually started by Washington Irving, who, despite calling himself a historian, was much more of a historical fiction writer. As a matter of fact, you may recall his name from his most famous work, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”
While Irving’s Columbus novel did feature a lot of historical fact and the author spent hours researching the navigator’s life, he also added a lot of his own fictional plot twists to make the story more interesting. Even so, certain fictional aspects from his story did work their way into the public consciousness and eventually, into the history books.
In actuality, the idea of a round Earth dates all the way back to Grecian times in 600 B.C. By the time Columbus was born, it had been proven mathematically and someone who argued the world was flat would be considered just as crazy then as someone who believed the same thing today.
As a matter of fact, Columbus was the one who was completely wrong in his calculations, not the general public. That’s because navigators of the time completely (and correctly) disagreed with how big Columbus thought the world was and thus, how long it would take to get to India.
Columbus was so stubborn that even after he located a new continent, he refused to admit that his calculations were wrong and that he was anywhere except India -hence his insistence on calling the natives “Indios,” Spanish for “Indians.” In fact, because Columbus refused to admit he didn’t sail to the Indies, it wasn’t until a year after he died that America was identified as a new continent by Amerigo Vespucci (the continent was eventually named in his honor).
This is the old story that says that even as a youngster, George Washington was so honest that he could not tell a lie to his father no matter how angry good ol’ dad was that someone would cut down his favorite cherry tree.
For some reason, this seems to be a story that teachers like to tell young children as though it was fact, only to tell children that it isn’t true once they grow older. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like teaching kids history might be a little easier if we don’t treat the first president of the USA like Santa Claus.
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We all know the inspiring story of Charles Lindbergh being the first person to fly across the Atlantic, but as it turns out, he’s only the first person to do it by himself. In fact, eight years before he made the flight, two British men completed the same journey.
And that’s not the only incorrect first you were taught in school. Jackie Robinson wasn’t the first black man to play professional baseball and Copernicus wasn’t the first person to realize the earth revolved around the sun. Cracked has all the details.
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