Things everybody knows that are actually wrong

[dead0man]

You know the dye some people put in their pools that turns the water red when you pee?
It doesn't exist.

Cow tipping?
never happened

Nobody has ever had a kidney stolen and then been left in a hotel bathtub.

The Cowboys are a consistently good football team.
Nope, they haven't won a playoff game since 1996.



I'm sure there are more....

[dead0man]

"Everyone thought the world was flat until Columbus discovered America." Unbelievable something Washington Irving pulled out of his ass several hundred years ago is still taken as 100% truth by so many people who should know better.

GREAT ONE!  The best part is Columbus was wrong!  He thought the Earth was much smaller than it was and the educated of the day told him it would take forever to get to China going west.

[dead0man]

That Europeans regularly gave Native North Americans blankets purposefully infected with small pox.
Didn't happen.

[dead0man]

Duh, he's the guy that killed George Washington.  Everybody knows that.

[dead0man]

That Salem witch trials were burned instead of hanged [and there were a fair percentage of men too]

Or that it was an American phenomenon.  The Euros that stayed behind killed many MANY more innocents.   link

[dead0man]

That muscle cars in the 60s and 70s were faster than todays family cars.

[dead0man]

That southerners were completely intolerant to non-Protestants and non-whites prior to the civil war.

On this subject.  The greatest baseball game ever played.  link

[dead0man]

Just don't use this squirrel in your evil mad scientist games

[dead0man]

The oldest continuously inhabited city is Jericho.

That was going to be my guess.

[dead0man]

Who thinks corporations or individuals can't restrict freedom?  I think maybe you should take ilikeverin's advice.

[dead0man]

You can have maximum freedom and liberty with a lot of govt intervention? 

Of course it's not a black and white issue (less govt intervention=more freedom is clearly not universally true), but generally speaking, the fewer the rules, the more freedom an entity has.

[dead0man]

Well sure, but an entity includes people and groups of people.  The people half is more important than the "groups of people" half, but the "groups of people" half is still important enough to warrant a mention.

[dead0man]

People are still ignorant of Every Breath you Take and Good Riddance?  I suppose I can understand being stupid about the Police song, but anybody that thinks that way about Good Riddance should be shot if they are telling people they are fans of Green Day.

[dead0man]

Yeah, except nobody knows who the funk that is.

[dead0man]

Pretty much Everything I've ever heard Americans say about Irish history.

uhhh, your potatoes all died....150 years ago or something.  Then the rats came and some dude with a flute ran 'em out of town.  Then you all moved to NYC and Boston to become cops.

Pretty much everything I've ever heard Americans say about British history.

Romans came and built a couple of walls.  Then they left or blended in.  1066 some Vikings from France kicked the natives ass and really got your history going.  A bunch of kings and queens ensued.  Some ladies lost their heads.  One of them was a smart ass about it.  Then you colonized the world.  Then we kicked your ass because we didn't like paying taxes on tea without getting to yell at you guys in your little weird politician yelling hall.  Then you guys sold some heroin to China to make your tea cheaper.  Then you got your ass kicked in Afghanstan.  Then the World Wars....your welcome.

[dead0man]

Pretty much anything Irish, British or American people say about Australia's history

Founded by criminals and now you're like Americans...but slightly cooler.  By crikey.

[dead0man]

I think we are getting away from the spirit of the thread again.

[dead0man]

We need a special thread for "what I think everyone thinks that is wrong, but hardly anyone actually think that" thread.

You could add "and I'm only bothering to post here in this thread to make a little political hay"

[dead0man]

Anyway back on track:

The Spanish Inquisition.

Yeah but it gave us two of the better comedy bits in film/television history.

[dead0man]

NO POLITICS IN THIS THREAD

But then it would lose most of its entertainment value

I thought it was plenty entertaining before politics invaded.

Agreed

[dead0man]

That Henry Ford raised the pay of his workers so that they would have enough money to buy his cars.

wrong

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Yes, it was a side benefit to sell a few more cars, but it wasn't why he did it.  And he was a douche about it....but that shouldn't be shocking to anybody that knows anything about Henry Ford.