Newton and the Apple
The story goes that an apple once plunked onto Sir Isaac Newton’s head, suddenly giving him the idea of the concept of gravity. However, in the mathematician’s own telling, the apple never hits him on the head. In fact, he doesn’t even describe an apple falling in his telling, but instead describes his process of dwelling on the idea of an apple falling while sitting under the shade of an apple tree with a friend in 1666. That story, notably, comes from biographer William Stukeley, who remembered this conversation sixty years later in 1726.
Spanish Flu
Why is Spanish flu called that? Well, it broke out during the height of the Great War, leading many countries suffering from this pandemic to hide the truth of it to not give their enemies any insight into their health issues. Spain was the first country to openly discuss the disease, leading to every other country to adopt the name “Spanish flu,” despite the illness likely originating in Kansas.
Coca-Cola Invented Santa Claus
This one isn’t so much a mistaken fact as a bit of a misleading statement. The popularity of the red clothing and white trim seen on modern depictions of Santa Claus is a result of a highly successful 1930s Coke ad campaign. However, Santa himself and the reindeer and sleigh included in stories about him were mainly created by Clement Clarke Moore in an 1822 poem.
Thomas Edison and the Lightbulb
Thomas Edison gets credit for a whole host of inventions he actually had no hand in creating. Case in point: he didn’t invent the lightbulb, despite what your gut instinct tell you. Canadian inventors Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans actually pioneered the research that led to the modern lightbulb, Edison just bought the patent for the invention in 1879 after the Canadians ran out of funding to continue their research. This set up a legal battle over ownership of the completed product.
