6 Historical Events That are Lies (Along With One That’s True!)

You might be surprised to discover that a lot of the stuff you were taught about history is complete BS. Oh, you aren’t surprised? In that case, sorry for underestimating you and we hope you don’t take back your “like” on our Facebook page. Let’s face it: truth is less exciting as fiction. To overcome this, we like to exaggerate or flat-out invent stories so that everything becomes much more interesting. Check out these 8 examples of universal historical truths that aren’t true at all.

1. The War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast Didn’t Cause Everybody to Freak Out

What You’ve Been Told: On October 30, 1938, almost all of American was listening to a radio broadcast of War of the Worlds – a story about Martians invading Earth – thinking it was an actual news report. Mass hysteria ensued with people hiding in their cellars or even committing suicide.

The Reality: In fact, only around 2% of the entire radio listening audience was even tuned to the program and virtually all of them understood it was a fictional program. The broadcast even included four disclaimers stating that it was not an actual news broadcast. While there were reports that a few people who tuned in to the broadcast late (and therefore missed the disclaimers) thought America was being attacked by Germany (who had marched into Czechoslovakia earlier that year), there were no reports of anybody actually believing Martians had invaded.

2. Nero Didn’t Play a Fiddle While Rome Burned

What You’ve Been Told: Nero, the callous Emperor of Rome and last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, wanted to expand his palace, so he did whatever any of us would do if we need some extra room to stretch out our legs: he had the entire neighborhood set on fire to clear out the area. He played the fiddle as he watched because anytime a city burns, why shouldn’t it be accompanied by some hoedown music?

The reality: First, fiddles wouldn’t become a thing until around 900 years after Nero’s rule. Secondly, Nero wasn’t in the city during the Great Fire of Rome. It’s believed that the Flavian dynasty – which took over after Nero’s death in 68 AD – cooked up a bit of propaganda to make Nero’s rule appear much worse than it actually was.

3. Christopher Columbus Didn’t “Discover” America

What You’ve Been Told: Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. His ship landed in America, he was like, “Hey, I’ve discovered America! How historic! *Plants an American flag* Now let’s go look for some nightclubs and celebrate this discovery.”

The reality: Let’s put aside the argument that it’s impossible to “discover” a place if other people are already living there. The main thing is that Columbus never actually visited what we call the USA of these days. He originally landed in modern Haiti and spent some time in Central and South America, but that was as close as he got to ‘Merica.