Irrtum
8 cards from across every topic, each citing a source. Tap one to open it in the feed.
- Nobody reached 30 in the Middle Ages – that's a maths error.
The low life expectancy of past eras is an average dragged down by high infant mortality. Among the English peerage it …
- QWERTY was not designed to slow you down.
The popular story says the keys were deliberately spread awkwardly so typists would go slower and the typebars would …
- The iron maiden is younger than the steam engine.
No source mentions an iron maiden before the 19th century. The famous Nuremberg version went on show from about 1802 …
- The medieval chastity belt is a museum fake.
There is no credible evidence for chastity belts before the 15th century – so crusaders cannot have used them. The …
- The nursery rhyme is not about the plague.
Many take "Ring a Ring o' Roses" for a coded account of the 1665 plague. Folklorists disagree: the reading only appears …
- The witch hunts were not a medieval phenomenon.
Their fiercest phase ran from 1560 to 1630 – the middle of the Renaissance and early modern era, alongside printing and …
- Thumbs down was invented by a painter in 1872.
Roman sources only say "pollice verso", with a turned thumb – which gesture meant which outcome is unclear. Our mental …
- You cannot see the Great Wall from the Moon.
The Moon averages 384,399 kilometres away – from there the wall would look as wide as a hair seen from three …