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31 Debunked Misconceptions About the World

October 18, 2023

Do you ever feel like you’re getting too much information from the internet? Of course you do. It seems that almost everyone has a channel, and with so many sources of information, it's hard to know what to believe. Which is how common misconceptions like those below take hold. Here, though, is why they’re exactly that — misconceptions…

31

Mrs. O'Leary is remembered for causing the Great Chicago Fire. But she was innocent. And so was her cow. Despite all the campfire songs to the contrary, the 1871 Chicago fire wasn't caused by Catherine O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern she'd left burning. The official report actually cleared Mrs. O'Leary (and her cow). But that didn't stop The Chicago Tribune from publishing Michael Ahern's unproven story blaming O'Leary. Because of anti-Irish prejudice, she was reviled and literally spit on her entire life. CRACKED.COM https://www.thoughtco.com/mrs-olearys-cow-great-chicago-fire-1774059 — 21 Historical Figures Everybody Gets Wrong

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31 Debunked Misconceptions About the World — 26 Side By Side Comparisons That Fix Your Image Of History

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CRACKED.COM If you have HIV you can't be a mother WRONG! HIV-positive diagnosed women succeeded in having healthy babies in 98% of their pregnancies if they followed recent medical instructions and received proper treatment. — 27 Sex Myths Too Many People Still Believe

28

MYTH: Worried about criminal activity? It's got to be all those immigrants. FACT: Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes. First-generation immigrants (including undocumented ones) are actually 45 percent less likely to commit a crime than people born in the US. Border cities with higher rates of illegal immigration have lower crime rates than the national average, a trend that extends back well before we started upping border security. In fact, it appears that as the number of immigrants goes up, the crime rate goes down. CRACKED.COM http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-07-15-border-violence-main_n.htm — 23 Widely-Circulated 'Facts' About The Law That Are Myths

27

MYTH: PULLING OUT IS An AWFUL WAY TO AVOID PREGNANCY. FACT: Done CORRECTLY, IT'S 96% eFFeCTIve. Done correctly is a pretty big caveat. Factor in mistakes, and pulling out is only 82% effective. But that's almost exactly the same overall effectiveness as condoms. We associate the withdrawal method with anti-science kooks, but numbers don't lie. CRACKED.COM — Sex Myths You've Probably Believed Your Entire Life

26

MYTH: DIETING? SKIN YOUR CHICKEN BEFORE YOU COOK IT. FACT: IT Doesn'T MATTER WHen YOU Remove THE SKIN. Yes, you can reduce calories in chicken by skipping the skin, but cooking chicken with the skin on doesn't make it less healthy, no matter what cooking method you use. And the skin keeps the chicken from drying out while cooking. CRACKED.COM http://www.rd.com/health/wellness/eat-healthier-food-myths-you-still-think-are-true/ — 24 Food And Cooking Myths

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Consumption of food with high salt content does not actually make you thirsty, but instead makes you retain water more effectively. A study conducted on a group of cosmonauts' who went on a simulated flight to Mars showed that when they were subjected to a salty diet, they consumed less water, but got hungry more easily. CRACKED.COM — 21 Debunked Food Myths

24

If you're storing your vegetables in air-tight plastic bags in an attempt to increase their shelf life, you are actually accomplishing the opposite. and DE Vegetables need space for air circulation in order to avoid spoilage and should therefore be stored in reusable mesh bags or unsealed plastic bags. CRACKED.COM — 26 Food And Cooking Common Misconceptions

23

Bulls

MYTH Bulls will charge anything that's the color red. TRUTH Bulls are colorblind to the color red. CRACKED.COM — 18 Animal Misconceptions We Learned From Movies & TV

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A.D. stands for Anno Domini, not After Death, as many think. Anno Domini is part of a larger phrase in Latin that translates to In the year of the Lord, meaning the year of Jesus' birth. If A.D. did in fact mean After Death there would be a 33-year gap in the modern calendar as a result of Jesus' life. - - - - - 1 2 - в A . 8 9 10 11 ، 12 13 14 16 16 17 10 10 go 25 22 23 24 20 26 27 28 29 90 31 27 22 zu 29 — 40 Myths (That've Been Around Forever) We All Believe

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Ancient Rome

Slaves in ancient Rome weren't necessarily physical labourers or gladiators. There also were teachers, doctors and accountants. CRACKED COM — 26 Side By Side Comparisons That Fix Your Image Of History

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CRACKED.COM False. Sperm have Being just a few upside- minutes to swim into down your cervical mucus, post- where they coitus hang out and are re- helps the leased into the uterus sperm to over the reach the next several days. egg. do with it. has nothing to So position — 27 Sex Myths Too Many People Still Believe

19

MYTH: Remember the mother who sued the school when her daughter was caught having oral sex? SCHOOL BUS EMERGENCY DOOR FACT: The girl was actually the victim of assault. The story that ran in Newsweek made it sound like the mother was blaming the school for her daughter's actions. In fact, the girl was suspended for being caught performing oral sex on the school bus. When it came out that she had been forced to do it, the school suspended her again for not reporting it. The mother's lawsuit asked that school employees receive training on dealing with assault victims. — 23 Widely-Circulated 'Facts' About The Law That Are Myths

18

MYTH: LESBIAN sex IS STD-FREE. HPV VACCINATION FACT: LESBIANS ARe AS AT-RISK FOR most STDS. Lesbian sex may involve exchanging less body fluids, which is why lesbians are less likely to get gonorrhea and HIV. But other STDs pass on just fine. Some infections, like bacterial vaginosis, actually pass extra well between women. CRACKED.COM — Sex Myths You've Probably Believed Your Entire Life

17

MYTH: COOKING? WATCH OUT FOR THAT SHARP KNIFE! PH 100ml GIRON -SPITZENKLASSE- Ma GERMANY POSTERE NO FACT: IT'S THE DULL knives THAT ARe DANGEROUS. A sharp knife will stay focused on its job of cleanly cutting your food. A dull one will hit the food and bounce off, and can wind up hitting one of your fingers instead. And if you do happen to cut yourself, a wound caused by a sharp knife will heal faster than one from a dull knife. CRACKED.COM https://sohoknives wordpress.com/2014 014/08/20/sharp-knife-safe-knife/ — Source

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GRACKED.COM To cure a pollen allergy do you have to use local honey? NOPE! Research has shown that given the variations in pollen that bees gather, locally produced honey may or may not have enough of the allergens to build up a tolerance. Reliable results can be obtained by using any minimally filtered raw organic honey from a trusted supplier. — 21 Debunked Food Myths

15

When seasoning steak, you need to add more than what your gut tells you. You are only seasoning the surface of the steak, not the whole steak itself, which means that you'd have to compensate for the lack of flavor inside. CRACKED COM — 26 Food And Cooking Common Misconceptions

14

MYTH Sharks can smell blood from miles away. TRUTH Sharks can smell blood from a quarter of a mile away. CRACKED.COM — BBC Science Focus

13

When you think of NOAH'S ARK you're probably picturing something like this. But the word ark in the Bible, from the Latin arca, always refers to a box or chest. The dimensions God gave to Noah, 300 x 50 X 30 cubits are the dimensions of a box. So it would have looked more like this: CRACKED.COM — 40 Myths (That've Been Around Forever) We All Believe

12

Remember the story of George Washington chopping the cherry tree? It's completely made up. According to the story, when Washington was six years old he chopped down his father's prize cherry tree. When confronted, he said, I cannot tell a lie and confessed. Ironically, invented this iconic of story about the first value of honesty was Cheems. The itinerant Weems minister just and figured bookseller he'd make up some stories Locke he by Washington's named biographers, Mason one an thought would make Washington look virtuous. And people bought them American so hard school that Weems' textbooks pack for of lies — 21 Historical Figures Everybody Gets Wrong

11

You probably think most women in the 18th century were housewives, whose primary concern was putting jam between two slices of bread. And this is what they actually did. About 98% of married women in 18th century London worked in factories or retail. CRACKED.COM — 26 Side By Side Comparisons That Fix Your Image Of History

10

Despite blame deflectors like Josh Duggar's allusions, there is no link between viewing pornography and criminally deviant behavior. A 2009 study showed only one consistent variable between sexual fantasies, porn consumption and abhorrent sex behaviors: The offenders already suffered from psychopathy. CRACKED.COM — 27 Sex Myths Too Many People Still Believe

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MYTH: Americans should speak English. It's our official language, right? bridges, English adj language on Ca FACT: Britain, Irel Nope, and it's nowhere in the Constitution. Attempts to make English the official language of the United States have repeatedly failed, although they have succeeded at the state level. So far, 31 states have passed laws declaring English as an official language. An official language, not the only one. Hawaii, for example, has also declared native Hawaiian as an official language, while Alaska declared their 20 indigenous languages official. https://www.washingtonpost com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/18/ CRACKED.COM when-and-why-do-u-s-states-make-english-their-official-language/ — 23 Widely-Circulated 'Facts' About The Law That Are Myths

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MYTH: PUBERTY GIVES BOYS WET DREAMS AND GIRLS PeRIODS. FACT: women GeT sex DREAMS AS OFTen AS men. Plus, wet dreams in general aren't as common as you might think. Many men never have them. They're really in no way analogous to menstruation. Sex ed just links them because it's convenient for teaching. CRACKED.COM — Sex Myths You've Probably Believed Your Entire Life

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MYTH: RAW FOOD IS HEALTHIER, BECAUSE COOKING DESTROYS enzymes. FACT: YOUR BODY DESTROYS THOSE enzymes ANYWAY. It turns out that when you eat raw vegetables, even though their enzymes are intact, they dissolve and get washed away in your digestive acids. And the thing is, the enzymes in plants are what helps them grow. They're not needed by humans, because we have digestive enzymes of our own, rendering plant enzymes pretty useless. CRACKED.COM http://www.livescience.com/889-raw-food-diet-raw-deal.html — 24 Food And Cooking Myths

6

is better for heart health than the others! MALTLIQUOR ICE BEER Calm down. Good news for everyone: Turns out, no one type of alcoholic beverage is better than the others. The correlation between reduced risk of heart disease and alcoholic consumption comes from alcohol itself and not the type of alcoholic drink. CRACKED.COM — 21 Debunked Food Myths

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Cooking with extra virgin olive oil on high-heat as you would with any kind of oil is a mistake. Extra virgin olive oil has a lower smoke point than other types of oil. When cooking with high-heat, a high smoke point oil should be used. CRACKED.COM — 26 Food And Cooking Common Misconceptions

4

MYTH Lions have kings (or at least alphas). TRUTH Lions don't have a hierarchy. They live in a egalitarian society. CRACKED.COM — BBC

3

Let them eat cake. MARIE ANTOINETTE NEVER SAID 'LET THEM EAT CAKE.' The quote showed up in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's autobiography, Confessions, which was published in 1765. Marie Antoinette was about 9 years old at the time. No reference to her uttering the quote exists from sources dating to the French Revolution. It was pro-revolutionary historians that first attributed it to her. CRACKED.COM — 40 Myths (That've Been Around Forever) We All Believe

2

When posing for a photo. Victorians weren't always prim and proper... CRACKED.COM They can be silly tool — 26 Side By Side Comparisons That Fix Your Image Of History

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Napoleon is always depicted as being short. Не was actually slightly above average height. Historians agree that Napoleon Bonaparte was almost 5'7, which was in fact just above average for the early 19th century (and wouldn't exactly make him a freak even now). His guards towered over him, but that was because they had a height requirement to make them look intimidating. The French used a slightly different system that listed the emperor at 5'2. When England got wind of that fact, the British propaganda machine just ran with it. CRACKED.COM https://www.thoughtco.com/was-napoleon-bonaparte-short-1221108 — 21 Historical Figures Everybody Gets Wrong

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