50 Well-Known "Facts" That Are Actually Just Common Myths

[soybean]

10

Adding salt to water makes it boil faster.​

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The difference between boiling water with salt and boiling water without salt is negligible. As Middlebury College chemistry professor Lesley-Ann Giddings explained to LiveScience, "The temperature of saltwater will get hotter faster than that of pure water, but it still has a higher boiling point, and the mass is still greater when you add salt to the same volume of water. This doesn't mean that the saltwater boils faster."

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[soybean]

11

It takes seven years for your body to digest gum.​

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You no long longer have to fret over that piece of gum you accidentally swallowed a couple years back. While it's often been said that your body takes several years (seven is the number you've likely heard used most) to digest gum, that's just a common myth. According to the Mayo Clinic, your body actually can't digest gum at all, even in seven years. You see, gum doesn't stay in your stomach—it just moves quickly through your digestive system and exits through your stool.

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[soybean]

12

You swallow eight spiders a year while sleeping.​

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You don't need to be an arachnophobe to be creeped out by the idea that you unknowingly swallow eight spiders in your sleep ever year on average. But fear no more, because there's no truth to that notion. According to Scientific American, those eight-legged web-spinners don't intentionally try to come into contact with humans, and the vibrations that come from a sleeping person would probably frighten a spider. So, while it's plausible that you could swallow a spider in your sleep, it's not likely, nor is there any factual evidence that you gulp down eight a year.

 

[soybean]

13

The Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure visible from space.​

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Many people have been told that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure visible from space, but that's just not the case. According to Snopes, this false fact most likely developed as an attempt to convey the grand scale of the wall. From low space at 180 miles high, the Great Wall is not the only visible object, nor is it the most distinguishable. NASA images prove you can see "highways, airports, bridges, dams, and components of the Kennedy Space Center." And if you go further into space, the wall can only be recognized in radar images, not with the human eye or even with a photograph.

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[soybean]

14

Marie Antoinette said "let them eat cake" to spite the poor.​

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Marie Antoinette has long been a loathed symbol of royal decadence for replying to the news that French citizens had no bread in 1789 with the callous phrase, "Let them eat cake." But historians aver that the Queen of France made no such comment.


As History reports, similar stories had gone around for years before the late 18th century, including one about Maria Theresa of Spain, who married King Louis XIV in 1660. She was accused of suggesting that the French people eat "la croûte de pâté" (the crust of the pâté).

Plus, the author of Marie Antoinette's biography, Lady Antonia Fraser, says that it's unlikely the quote came from the French queen, who was not only very charitable, but also had great compassion for the poor. For example, on the day of her husband's coronation, she wrote to her mother: "In seeing the people who treat us so well despite their own misfortune, we are more obliged than ever to work hard for their happiness."

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[soybean]

15

Napoleon Bonaparte was extremely short.​

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Napoleon Bonaparte is often depicted as an aggressive man of unusually small stature, which is where the term "Napoleon complex"—used to describe men who overcompensate for their lack of height with aggression—comes from. However, Bonaparte was most likely average height at just over 5'5" tall, History says. Historians suppose the myth that he was uncommonly small is derived from a series of caricatures of the general by British cartoonist James Gillray in the early 1800s.

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[soybean]

16

A penny dropped from the top of the Empire State Building could kill someone.​

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We've all heard this one before, but it's just another myth to add to your list of fake facts. According to Scientific American, a penny is too small and flat for it to gain enough natural momentum to make any kind of fatal impact. At most, if you were hit, it might feel like being flicked in the forehead "but not even very hard," Louis Bloomfield, a physicist at the University of Virginia, told Life's Little Mysteries via HuffPost.

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[soybean]

17

Albert Einstein failed math class.​

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If only for the irony of it all, it's fun to imagine that Albert Einstein was a poor student—so much so, that he failed his grade school math class. But that's just not true. According to an article in Time, this rumor had spread so widely that it was a topic of a 1935 "Ripley's Believe it or Not!" column. Einstein himself disputed the article, claiming that he was at the top of his class in primary school. "Before I was 15, I had mastered differential and integral calculus," he added.

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[soybean]

18

You have to wait 24 hours before submitting a missing person's report.​

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Countless police dramas and crime thrillers have helped spread the myth that you must wait 24 hours before you can file a missing person's report (which always seemed a little disconcerting, if you ask us). Fortunately, this is only a "fact" in the fictional world of entertainment. According to Child Find of America, there is no time period in which someone must wait before reporting a person missing. In fact, acting within the first 48 hours is crucial to successfully locating a missing person.

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[soybean]

19

Touching a toad will give you warts.​

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Sadly, kissing a toad won't turn it into a handsome prince. But the good news is, touching one won't give you unsightly bumps. National Geographic says this rumor probably originated from the fact that toads themselves have wart-like bumps on their skin, but they're just glands that don't secrete anything that can cause warts. While some toad secretions can irritate your skin, actual warts are only caused by human viruses, dermatologist Jerry Litt told the publication.

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