#1 Napoleon Bonaparte’s height.
He's usually pictured like this, leading everyone to believe the stories about him being very short, but Napoleon wasn't any shorter than your average 19th century man. He was 5'6″, which is still taller than today's height of the average woman. He wasn't crazy short, he just wore funny clothes.
#2 Pyramids.
When you're thinking of ancient Egypt, you imagine pyramids like this, right? Wrong. You're probably picturing them this way because this is how they look today and how they look in movies about ancient Egypt.
Ancient Pyramids.
The truth is, they were originally made of marble. Think about it, have you seen pharaoh tombs? Those ancient Egyptians loved themselves some tacky decorations. The reason the pyramids look the way they do now is simply the wear and tear of time and thousands of years of sandstorms.
#3 Jesus.
Think about it. Jesus Christ, originally Yeshua of Nazareth, was from the Middle East. Let's be realistic here, people from the Middle East don't look like the Jesus on the left but that's how he's been depicted in paintings. Right Jesus is the real deal, he could totally survive in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. Left Jesus looks kinda whimpy. No offence, Jesus.
#4 Pocahontas.
We all picture a beautiful Native American lady with long hair that waves in the wind, which she paints with as well, and a willow tree for a grandmother. However, the original Pocahontas, real name Matoaka, was actually a bald, naked 12-year-old when she ran into John Smith. This was tradition in their tribe. Before this gets really awkward, she didn't actually fall in love with John Smith. She was kidnapped by the British at 17 and married a different John, John Rolfe. Here's a picture of her. She also liked crazy hats.
#5 Ninjas.
This is a ninja right? Wrong. Ninjas were known for blending in with their surroundings, and black stands out. They were more likely to wear dark blue colors at night time, but sometimes they would cover themselves in hay to hide in a haystack. Which is not as cool as the picture above, but they still had throwing stars so they're still pretty awesome.
#6 The big bang.
The big bang wasn't really a bang at all, more like a rapid expansion of matter. The "mightiest of explosions" documentaries talk about unfortunately isn't really a thing in space.
#7 Greek statues.
Everyone likes to think of majestic white statues, because that's what's left of them in culturally and historically rich countries like Greece and Italy.
Greeks Statues
But really, they were kind of stupid looking. It's similar to what happened to the pyramids. We're imagining these statues as they are now, but they weren't always like that. In reality, they were like a paint-by-numbers for Greek artists.
#8 Velociraptors.
Noooooo, not the dinosaurs! Yes, unfortunately, we're picturing dinosaurs wrong. Let's be honest, we're probably basing everything we know on Jurassic Park. It's OK, everyone does. In reality though, most dinosaurs had feathers. Don't believe it? Here's a picture of their bones.
Aveage Dinosaurs Bones
Yup. Dinosaurs are just really really really old chickens. Fun fact: most dinosaurs weren't even bigger than a chicken. Apart from the super awesome huge ones, of course.
Dinosaurs
We know it hurts, but this is more likely to be an accurate depiction of a velociraptor. Just a big, mean chicken. Sorry!
