Things everybody knows that are actually wrong

[The Mikado]

The Great Wall of China is visible from the Moon and was built more than 500 years ago.

Wait...I knew the part about the Moon was false, but isn't it close to 2500 years old?  I thought it was raised in the Sui Dynasty.

     That Marie Antoinette said "let them eat cake."

But it's such a great line!  I feel that way about a lot of lines people didn't actually say.  Churchill never described the Royal Navy as "Rum, sodomy, and the lash," but can you think of a better description of the RN than that?  It's such a brilliant quote, even if he didn't say it.

[The Mikado]

everyone seems to think the line is "Luke, I am you father," when the actual line is "No, I am your father."

No...that's not true.  That's impossible!

[The Mikado]

Thomas Edison invented the Light Bulb.

Wait...who did?

(I know Edison is extremely overrated, but THIS I thought was a fact).

[The Mikado]

Oh, I was more curious as to what you claim are the reasons for Western success. It's a pretty complex issue, imo, so how does one know whether a statement on it is righ or wrong?

Competition baby. So many states in such a small area (an area known as Europe), that one needed the best and the brightest to get that critical edge. The other potential player out there, China, lacked that critical component. One needed in all events to be on the Asian/European land mass. That is where the killer germs were bred from pigs and cattle, etc., and that is where the resistance to the same developed over the generations.

You forgot one other crucial factor:

[The Mikado]

Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah

I was thinking of doing this. Except for with "God Exists". I didn't want to get anyone mad.

This stops NOW.  No thread hijack here.  This thread is too interesting.

[The Mikado]

One thing that kind of irritates me is when Wiccans try to act like those executed for witchcraft were some sort of martyrs for their faith by those evil, evil Christians ("their" referring to the modern day Wiccans of course), as if the people were actual witches and not also Christians. And of course ignoring the fact that their spiritual predecessors killed way more people in human sacrifice and that early pagans killed way more Christians than actual pagans killed by Christians. That's not even considering that the Nazis were more pagan than Christian.

I agree overall, BRTD.  But has human sacrifice as a Druid or earth religion ritual been historically verified?  I know it happened in certain cultures in Central America.  But were the practicioners of what they call "The Olde Religion" into human sacrifice?

I honestly don't know, but wonder if it might also be a canard of sorts.  Along with native Americans eating their babies.

Very few classical civilizations did human sacrifice (for obvious reasons).  The fact that the Carthaginians did was enough to freak out the Romans, and anyone with a basic memory of history (or even the New Testament) knows that it took a lot to unnerve the Romans.

[The Mikado]

Damascus predates even that.

wow.

how about Baghdad?

Baghdad dates to ~750 CE, if I remember correctly.  You want ancient in that neighborhood, Ctesiphon and Babylon are both within walking distance of Baghdad and are much, much more ancient.  Ur and Nineveh are both in Iraq, too.

There are a lot of claimants for oldest city.  The folks at Jericho are pretty insistent about their claim to the title.

[The Mikado]

I wonder what most people would answer as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the US is. Probably something stupid like Boston.

The answer is St. Augustine, FL by the way for European settlements, though there are some remote Native villages in Arizona and New Mexico which go back as far as the 12th century.

The only reason I knew that is because the map I had over my bed when I was a kid had that on it.  If not for that, I'd have guessed Jamestown.