Nero Playing Music While Rome Burns
A popular myth about Nero is that the Roman Emperor played his lyre and sang songs to himself while watching Rome burn in 64 AD. However, Nero himself lost numerous homes and works of art in the blaze, which incensed him and lead him to blame the fire on the then-new religion of Christianity. His brutal persecution of early Christians led to a countercultural pushback against his government, with Christians countering that Nero himself was responsible for the fires. In reality, the blaze was likely accidental and spread quickly due to the dry, windy conditions of Italy in the summertime.
The Salem Witch Trials
The Salem Witch Trials were a very real epidemic of mass hysteria over perceived black magic, but the women (and men!) accused of consorting with the devil weren’t actually burned at the stake in the colonies. That was a uniquely European practice. That didn’t make things much better for the victims of the Salem Witch Trial, however, they were hanged instead. No less horrific, but it is a common misconception of the Salem Witch Trials.
Related: 10 Bizarre Cases of Real World Mass Hysteria
The Stock Market Crash
You’ve heard this one before: after the stock market crashed in 1929, many bankers jumped out of windows due to the immense amount of money they saw suddenly erased from their ledgers. Winston Churchill helped spread this rumor. However, independent research has shown that there was no uptick in suicides on Wall Street linked to the 1929 crash.
