Most Enduring Myths in American History
Even idea fake news phenomenon fake news
founded fake news president ish fake news
written Trump amateur People claiming Washington wooden
teeth dentures metal ivory display Mount Vernon
But nope myth wooden teeth continues endure
centuries read closer enduring American myths truths
young George Washington lie According legend George
Washington years chopped dad cherry tree hatchet
When dad confronted George supposedly confessed claiming
lie nice tale true Turns story appeared
1806 autobiography Washington writer admitted beloved president
unparalleled rise elevation Great Virtues Baseball invented
Cooperstown Every fan America pastime born Cooperstown
New York But history cooked 1907 committee
charged figuring origins baseball They credit Abner
Doubleday Civil War hero allegedly invented game
Cooperstown 1839 The truth Doubleday wasn fan
sport creator Variations baseball 18th century children
games rounders cricket Baseball today brainchild New
Yorker Alexander Joy Cartwright volunteer firefighter bank
clerk strike rules diamond shaped infield foul
lines Columbus discovery America How European explorer
credit holiday astonishing Let start basics You
discover occupied That discovering leftover pizza friend
refrigerator But discount Native Americans Columbus years
late European America personal Costco Norse explorer
Leif Erikson beat punch landing shores 10th
century What Columbus didn set foot United
States landed Caribbean islands Central South America
Witches burned stake Salem examples epic Jerkdom
witch trials Salem Massachusetts Between February 1692
May 1693 people accused practicing Devil magic
including elderly homeless year girl grilled stand
Most jailed hanged Gallows Hill year man
crushed heavy stones But burned Nada Not
single person shouted character Monty Python sketch
She witch Burn Sorry Paul Revere midnight
ride Paul Revere shouting The British coming
streets modern day equivalent running Times Square
New York shouting The Americans coming point
colonies technically British cool idea revolution More
Paul Revere dozens assigned word Boston whispered
alarm warning British The regulars coming Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow patriotic poem knowing Paul Revere
Benjamin Franklin thought turkeys national bird Misinterpreting
jokes isn unique century Writing daughter Paris
1784 Benjamin Franklin complained daughter Sarah newly
formed United States bald eagle national symbol
The bald eagle bad moral character Franklin
wrote rank coward living honestly steals food
birds lazy fish proposed drawing looked turkey
joked idea turkey true original native America
bird courage hesitate invade farm yard red
coat remembered include smiley face emoticon confused
Walt Disney drew Mickey Mouse The legendary
animation pioneer guy Disneyland common expression celebration
free didn draw famous creation Sure Mickey
Mouse idea voice But iconic Mickey Mouse
pancake ears red shorts creation Iwerks Disney
favorite animator The time wearing Mickey Mouse
shirt fan Iwerks Cowboys wore cowboy hats
Have photo actual cowboy actors John Wayne
Clint Eastwood real cowboys Butch Cassidy Wyatt
Earp Bill Doolin Billy Kid wearing cowboy
hats Probably Real cowboys American frontier good
guys bad guys big bulky Stetsons associates
The popular headgear 19th century gunslingers bowler
called derby The Declaration Independence signed July
4th You people today complain trust government
Turns true The Continental Congress voted independence
drafted declaration 2nd July revision approved 4th
read aloud time 8th final document wasn
signed August 2nd John Adams president convinced
July 2nd annual holiday solemnized Pomp Parade
shews Games Sports Guns Bells Bonfires Illuminations
End continent Time wrote You sooooo close
Johnny boy The 1929 Wall Street crash
caused suicides Black Tuesday October 1929 considered
shocking stock market crash history Not financial
devastation bodies rained sky New York cities
financially ruined investors jumped skyscrapers Except didn
happen There suicides jumping tall buildings Wall
Street crash elderly female clerk named Hulda
Borowski leap stocks plummeted Richard Nixon environmentalist
The 37th president man affectionately nicknamed Tricky
Dick pass bit legislation administration construed environmentally
friendly His signature EPA Safe Drinking Water
Act But period rivers smog filled air
clogged cities president country overrun zombies Hey
zombies bold stance Also Nixon purportedly told
leaders Ford Motor Company environmentalists wanted live
bunch dang animals They group people dang
bit interested safety clean air What interested
destroying Pocahontas fell love John Smith Never
history Disney movies The essence Pocahontas John
Smith story true young Native American girl
befriend Englishman relationship saved Jamestown colony But
Pocahontas romantic relationship year dude gross 17th
century standards Also real wasn Pocahontas That
nickname roughly translated Little Playful One Little
Mischief Her formal names included Matoaka Amonute
Thomas Edison invented electric light bulb Edison
record number patents 093 exact vast majority
weren inventions guy smart real inventors steal
ideas credit Edison patent light bulb 1880
true father Warren Rue British astronomer chemist
created light bulb years earlier The War
The Worlds caused mass hysteria Orson Welles
fooled 1938 radio broadcast homage Wells reported
Martian invasion happening real Thousands bought prank
Okay hundreds Fine baker dozen guy farmer
coaxed posing photo Life Magazine angrily brandishing
shotgun The point Orson Welles trick listeners
thinking attack extraterrestrials guy overalls believed mass
hysteria Betsy Ross designed sewed American Flag
The proof Betsy Ross creating American flag
grandson William Canby argued 1870 decade events
question gam gam idea You forgive sounds
fishy Betsy contribution flag suggested pointed star
pointed easier sew The real creator Francis
Hopkinson New Jersey signed Declaration Independence designed
seals government departments When paid coming American
flag denied Board Admiralty grounds consulted Ouch
Thanksgiving Pretty Thanksgiving isn true The story
told time time Pilgrims happy meal Native
Americans realizing Hey Let turkey stuffing celebrate
Nope The real story involves plagues Pilgrims
showing thought Native Americans sick dead easy
steal food closer holiday experience people experience
today screaming tears accusations hurt feelings Just
add lot violence realistic Cars invented America
When car Henry Ford Model introduced 1908
swell automobile stretch imagination horseless carriage That
happened 19th century European engineers Carl Benz
Emile Levassor making automobile innovations light years
Ford Benz patented automobile 1886 Ford wasn
sell cars That Ransom Olds selling Oldsmobiles
1901 price 18Lincoln percent slavery Abraham Lincoln
Emancipation Proclamation 1862 complicated conflicting ideas slavery
1862 letter prominent newspaper editor shared ambiguous
emotions save Union freeing slave save freeing
slaves save freeing leaving What slavery colored
race helps save Union yeah fair Lincoln
freed slaves But fair note totally open
plan The Founding Fathers Christians Not close
Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Franklin deists believed God
holy books commandments written stone George Washington
Episcopalian strong believer summon pastor deathbed John
Adams Unitarian claimed The government United States
sense founded Christian religion Also weird pyramid
single eye dollar Einstein bad math stories
people bad grades love Sure flunked math
test Einstein Yeah burst bubble true Einstein
brilliant early age The story terrible math
invented Ripley Believe Not newspaper column 30s
click baiting click baiting title Greatest living
mathematician failed mathematics When Princeton rabbi shared
story Einstein 1935 laughed failed mathematics Before
mastered differential integral calculus The Battle Alamo
fought America free You constant reminders Remember
Alamo realized remembered wasn noble The Americans
died Alamo weren fighting freedom Just fact
Texas technically Mexico War Independence Spain slavery
banned Mexico 1829 didn Texans happy They
wanted slaves General Santa Anna Nope holed
Alamo San Antonio rest Feminists burn bras
Where idea feminists burn bras started women
liberation protest Atlantic City New Jersey 1968
Miss America pageant bras instruments torture girdles
high heel shoes dumped trash set ablaze
But time bra burned expression female power
America Singlehandedly Beat Hitler The played huge
defeating Nazis World War But credit The
Nazis defeated Soviet Union While lost lives
World War Russians lost staggering The Puritans
New World seeking religious freedom The problem
sentence freedom started 1593 Protestant Separatists emigrated
Holland England chance practice religious preferences interference
The problem Holland allowed religious freedom free
reign Judaism Catholicism atheism pure Puritan hearts
jumped Mayflower Charles Lindbergh solo transatlantic crossing
airplane weird word special When Charles Lindbergh
solo flight New York Paris 1927 historic
And shouldn Does Lindbergh flight mention plane
years earlier 1919 piloted British aviators Alcock
Brown They flown nonstop Newfoundland Ireland Vickers
Vimy biplane The Wild West violent filled
gunfire bank robberies murder Between 1859 1900
estimated bank robberies entirety called Wild West
And grand total gun murders frontier towns
year There gun murders cities today time
read sentence The infamous 1881 shootout Corral
Tombstone Arizona Earp brothers exchanged gunfire Clanton
McLaury gang body count The Star Spangled
Banner American tune composed fair written poet
Francis Scott Key originally Fort McHenry Baltimore
fought British navy 1814 But music notes
heart remember originally 18th century British drinking
song called Anacreon Heav men social club
called Anacreontic Society lot booze fiddle playing
Some sample lyrics Voice fiddle flute longer
mute lend inspire boot And instruct intwine
The myrtle Venus Bacchus vine Not lot
flag patriotism garbled song baseball game spirit
The Martini invented gold miner During twilight
Gold Rush story miner walked bar Occidental
Hotel Martinez California asked strongest drink conceivable
dull ache coming handed The bartender whipped
gin vermouth splashed olive juice classic libation
invented Only corroborate tall tale fact popular
origin stories martini credited Randolph Martine judge
New York nope drank Champagne Alessandro Martini
founder Martini vermouth nope drank stuff straight
19th century mixologist Jerry Thomas nope version
red vermouth The truth credibly identify history
stands martini result collective centuries honed consciousness
American spirit innovation Funny drink steadfast champion
Atlantic Johnny Appleseed myth turns myth myth
myth Johnny Appleseed folkloric hero early days
country real dude His birth John Chapman
And head hometown Leominster Massachusetts dedicated granite
marker birthplace The street renamed city planners
stuck mythical moniker Johnny Appleseed Lane Houston
problem good incorrect The actual utterance Houston
problem The revolution kicked bang aware shot
heard phrase coined Ralph Waldo Emerson gunshot
Battle Lexington Concord spark Revolutionary War legend
musket shot marked armed violent conflict Colonies
British Not According Ray Raphael seminal Founding
Myths farmers staged violent uprisings Red Coats
1774 entire year prior Battle Walt Disney
cryogenically frozen There long perpetuated myth Walt
Disney 1966 death body cryogenically frozen intent
revived technology permits This rumor demonstrably false
Disney cremated ashes thrown wind Forest Lawn
Memorial Lake The person posthumously frozen James
Bedford 1967 Bedford body lock key folks
Alcor Life Extension Foundation time independence pirates
stopped Hollywood Treasure Island knockoffs 18th century
pirates wrapped steal stuff kill people shtick
But pirates operated 19th century fact high
profile case pirate Charles Gibbs née James
Jeffers didn 1832 convicted mutiny murder hanged
death Ellis Island Yes Ellis Island note
prosecuting attorney happened son Alexander Hamilton There
original colonies taught United States America spawned
thirteen original colonies turns colonies Delaware wasn
officially colony 1776 revolution kicked Before majority
18th century colony Great Britain And incorporation
Delaware Pennsylvania colony There America original set
dozen The Supreme Court members When Supreme
Court founded 1789 justices sat bench 1807
swelled Thirty years jumped And throes Civil
War 1863 bench increased dropping decade circuit
court justice bench familiar blood constitutional mandate
Under political circumstances political party fully controlling
house senate White House supreme court grow
theoretically members unified congressional fact 1930s Franklin
Roosevelt attempted boost bench whopping plan shot
senate 36The Liberty Bell crack happened July
1776 Even writers Game Thrones couldn pull
plot point convenient perpetuated myth enthusiastic patriots
cracked Liberty Bell ringing hard day declared
independence Historians trace crack 1750s large today
result regular wear tear William Taft stuck
bathtub William Howard Taft 27th POTUS accounts
massive man height width clocked pounds popular
legend Taft stuck White House bathtub The
truth matter fun Taft staff special ordered
bathtub large comfortably sit grown men large
fact pound behemoth couldn stuck The bathtub
myth stemmed post presidency leisure visit hotel
New Jersey reported 1913 article Philadelphia Inquirer
Purportedly Taft caused tub room overflow leading
leakage floor dining room illegal burn flag
fair illegal burn flag majority American history
But Supreme Court ruled 1989 Texas Johnson
preventing burning flag amendment violation The Court
upheld decision 1990 Eichman That times places
military funeral practice considered illegal Washington capital
Our official capital city 1774 Philadelphia But
short order countries leaders bounced convened large
cities Baltimore New York City esteemed locales
Trenton New Jersey Annapolis Maryland Lancaster Pennsylvania
holds unique claim capital day Second Continental
Congress convened single day September 1777 The
District Columbia didn capital set stone decree
sheer statues landmarks 1819 George Washington President
Let began president kind president naturally assume
George number During American Revolution presidents elected
Continental Congress Peyton Randolph created Continental Army
Thomas Mifflin president 1783 1784 oversaw ratification
Treaty Paris John Hancock famous signing Declaration
Independence president 1785 1786 George Washington president
elected people technically speaking 15th president bit
examine wilder history books Present Day Facts
One Could Have Predicted Five Years Ago
surely trip Most Enduring Myths American History
