You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

[Lee Stewart]

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. They discovered that the parasites that carried the disease were much more likely to have come from humans than rats. The model showing the disease spread by human fleas and lice matched the death rates of the actual Black Death much more closely than the model involving parasite-carrying rats.

[Lee Stewart]

The Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria weren't the names of Christopher Columbus's ships

When it comes to Columbus, the only fact that the history books really have right is that he sailed in 1492. First of all, he didn't "discover" America—people had already been living on the continent for thousands of years, after all. And he wasn't even the first European explorer to reach North America; a crew of Vikings actually sailed to Canada around 1000 AD. Even the oft-repeated names of his three ships aren't historically accurate. In the 15th century, most sailing ships were named after saints, so while the Santa Maria is probably the real name, the Niña and the Pinta were probably just casual sailor nicknames for more piously named vessels. According to history.com, the Niña's real name was most likely "the Santa Clara," while the Pinta's real name is unknown.

[Lee Stewart]

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. The account says, "the notion of gravitation came into his mind…. occasion’d by the fall of an apple, as he sat in a contemplative mood." Historians believe that he may well have seen an apple fall and begun pondering why it did so; but nowhere in any records of Newton's life does it say it hit him on the head.

[Lee Stewart]

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.

[Lee Stewart]

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. What Franklin sought to discover was whether lightning was a form of electricity, and he was the first to propose that hypothesis. But, complicating matters, it may not even have been Franklin himself who sent the famous kite into the air. In 1752, Franklin wrote in the Pennsylvania Gazette about the success of the experiment and described how it worked—but he never actually said that he performed it himself. It wasn't until 15 years later that scientist Joseph Priestly wrote an account attributing the experiment to Franklin.

[Lee Stewart]

[Lee Stewart]

[Lee Stewart]

[Lee Stewart]

[Lee Stewart]