Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Myths and Misconceptions: Uncovering the Truth about Napoleon's Height, Lemmings, the Space Pen, the Salem Witch Trials, and Other Things You Thought You Knew
    Myths and Misconceptions: Uncovering the Truth about Napoleon's Height, Lemmings, the Space Pen, the Salem Witch Trials, and Other Things You Thought You Knew
    Myths and Misconceptions: Uncovering the Truth about Napoleon's Height, Lemmings, the Space Pen, the Salem Witch Trials, and Other Things You Thought You Knew
    Ebook134 pages1 hour

    Myths and Misconceptions: Uncovering the Truth about Napoleon's Height, Lemmings, the Space Pen, the Salem Witch Trials, and Other Things You Thought You Knew

    By Richard Benson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    • Have you always thought that a goldfish has a 3-second memory span?
    • Do you think your morning coffee comes from a bean?
    • Do you believe that those accused at the Salem Witch Trials were burned at the stake?

      If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you’ve been lied to. But don’t worry, this book will set the record straight on all the common myths that most people take for fact, making you the most well-informed smart-alec in town.

      So next time someone proclaims that Napoleon Bonaparte was short, or that shaving causes hair to grow back thicker, you can correct them, and tell them smugly that everything they think they know is wrong.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRacehorse
    Release dateMay 21, 2019
    ISBN9781631584169
    Myths and Misconceptions: Uncovering the Truth about Napoleon's Height, Lemmings, the Space Pen, the Salem Witch Trials, and Other Things You Thought You Knew
    Author

    Richard Benson

    Richard Benson is the author of the F in Exams series and several other humor books. He lives in London.

    Read more from Richard Benson

    Related to Myths and Misconceptions

    Related ebooks

    History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      It's Jack-o'-lantern Time!

      Sep 1, 2023

      It's Jack-o'-lantern Time!
      6 min read

    • Article

      Leaving Society

      Jul 27, 2020

      Leaving Society
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Muddy Refuge

      Oct 8, 2020

      Lost and Found on the River Thames Lara Maiklem Bloomsbury 2020 Pb, 317pp, £9.99, ISBN 9781408889237 As children, nearly all of us have an instinct for curiosity and collecting. I still have a stone with a hole in it I found on Chesil beach as a thre

      9 min read

    • Article

      Miscellany

      Nov 23, 2023

      Miscellany
      9 min read

    • Article

      My Cpuntry Childhood

      Mar 30, 2022

      My Cpuntry Childhood
      7 min read

    • Article

      As Everybody Knows…

      Nov 4, 2021

      From Mozart’s Murder to Cleopatra’s Asp Graeme Donald Michael O’Mara 2021 Pb, 256pp, £7.99, ISBN 9781789293623 Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped the World Otto English Wellbeck 2021 Hb, 320pp, £16.99, ISBN 9781787396395 You wait all day for a scepti

      4 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Nov 26, 2020

      Q&A
      6 min read

    • Article

      Fishermen’s Tails

      Nov 26, 2020

      IN 1638, THE ENGLISH travel writer and explorer John Josselyn heard that a merman had been sighted off New England. “There are many stranger things in the world,” he declared, “than there are to be seen between London and the Stanes [Staines].” Josse

      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Mar 24, 2022

      CONTACT US BY POST: PO BOX 1200, WHITSTABLE CT1 9RH, OR E-MAIL SIEVEKING@FORTEANTIMES.COM PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS The very interesting report on ‘Man Of Russia’ and his outlandish claims about giant trees [FT415:9] got me thinking

      14 min read

    • Article

      The Moon Is Full of Money

      Sep 7, 2017

      I was slung in my favorite deck chair, drink in hand, having a gawk at the night sky. Andromeda, Pisces ... I trawled the constellations, mind abandoned, still aware in some curve at the back of my brain that the world is coming apart at the seams an

      14 min read

    • Article

      The Moon Is Full of Money

      Jul 18, 2019

      I was slung in my favorite deck chair, drink in hand, having a gawk at the night sky. Andromeda, Pisces ... I trawled the constellations, mind abandoned, still aware in some curve at the back of my brain that the world is coming apart at the seams an

      14 min read

    • Article

      Second Life For Coffee Grounds

      Mar 1, 2023

      Second Life For Coffee Grounds
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Library

      Jul 7, 2022

      The Library
      4 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Mar 16, 2023

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Curse of the Unlucky Mummy: When science and fear collide, a supernatural story thrives.

      Apr 10, 2014

      Sometime in the 1860s, five recent Oxford graduates took a trip to Egypt. Together they sailed down the Nile, a tourist attraction even then. To remember their trip, they bought a souvenir in the mummy pits of Deir el-Bahri—the coffin lid of a priest

      10 min read

    • Article

      History Of Superstitions

      May 19, 2022

      History Of Superstitions
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Gratitude Resolution

      Jan 1, 2024

      The Gratitude Resolution
      11 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Mar 17, 2022

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      Lazy Days

      Mar 10, 2022

      Lazy Days
      6 min read

    • Article

      Call Our Bluff HALLOWEEN EDITION

      Aug 11, 2022

      Call Our Bluff HALLOWEEN EDITION
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Library

      Nov 25, 2021

      The Library
      4 min read

    • Article

      'How To Invent Everything' Lays Out The Basics Of Human Knowledge

      Sep 28, 2018

      Stranded in a past century? Not to worry! Here's the hilarious book that will tell you everything you need to know.

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Myths and Misconceptions

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Myths and Misconceptions - Richard Benson

      THE MYTH

      NASA spent millions developing a space pen.

      THE TRUTH

      During the space race in the 1960s, astronauts needed a different way to write things down, since regular pens don’t work without gravity. The story goes that NASA spent years working on a special gravity-defying pen, at great expense to the American taxpayer, while the more shrewd Russian cosmonauts simply used a pencil. However, there are multiple elements of this story that aren’t true: both astronauts and cosmonauts originally used pencils (though their flammable qualities and the fact that broken bits of graphite could float into delicate machinery made them less than ideal), and it was the work and money of a separate company (the Fisher Pen Company) that finally came up with the space pen that replaced pencils.

      Queen Victoria never said, We are not amused. There is no evidence that this was said by Queen Victoria, although it is frequently quoted. Perhaps she would now not be amused by the lack of evidence that she did or did not say it.

      Illustration

      Panama hats don’t come from Panama. The Panama hat, woven with the plaited leaves of a palm-like plant, originated in Ecuador, where it is still made. The name arose when Ecuadorian hat makers took their trade to Panama to benefit from the thriving tourist market there, and when people referred to the hats they had bought in Panama the name stuck.

      IllustrationIllustration

      There is more caffeine in a regular coffee than in a single shot of espresso. While espresso does have a higher concentration of caffeine, the overall amount is offset by its tiny size in comparison to a standard cup of brewed coffee.

      You can’t detox your body. The idea that you can flush or cleanse your body of toxins through juices, teas, diets, and special pills is a scam with absolutely no basis in science. If your body wasn’t capable of getting rid of those toxins on its own (hey, that’s your kidneys, liver, and lungs’ job!), you would probably be dead. So put down that weird herbal detox tea and rest safe in the knowledge that a healthy body will be doing all the detoxing you’ll ever need.

      Illustration

      Coffee is not made from beans. Chocolate-coated coffee beans are delicious, right? Except that in saying this you would actually be wrong, for what most people think of as coffee beans are not beans at all—they are seeds. But at least they still taste great, whatever they’re called, so you can leave the terminology to the botanists and get on with enjoying your delicious beans.

      Illustration

      THE MYTH

      Lemmings commit suicide by jumping off cliffs.

      THE TRUTH

      The claim that lemmings are suicidal and dive off cliff-edges en masse has been around since at least the nineteenth century, but was never based on fact. The idea was perpetuated in the twentieth century by the Disney film White Wilderness, which staged migration scenes using multiple shots of relatively small groups of lemmings dropping off cliffs into the water below in order to swim to the other side of the body of water in question (in this instance, it turned out to be the Arctic Sea, so there was no other side and the lemmings would all have drowned, but not deliberately). The filmmakers even pushed some lemmings off the cliff to get certain bits of

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1