The 10 Historical Figures Who Didn’t Do What You Think They Did

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Your elementary school history teacher was a liar. Sure, she looked all sweet and assuming and maybe she even had a major role in some of your pre-pubescent fantasies, but while you were listening to her praise the accomplishments of Christopher Columbus by day, she was laughing behind your back the whole time. Want proof?

10. Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin

A lot of famous names in history are wrongly attributed to their supposed creations simply because their names match: Col. James Bowie and the "Bowie" knife, Thomas Crapper and the flush toilet, Ron Jeremy and cockfighting.

Credit for the invention of the infamous French "guillotine" has long gone to Dr. Joseph Guillotin when, in fact, he had no hand in creating or developing the machine. Sure the machine bears his name, but he merely suggested the French government use it as a more humane form of execution in the 1790s. In fact, he was staunchly against corporal punishment and sought to banish its use but saw the quick and painless guillotine as a worthy compromise, if you consider having your head removed by a life-size "Slap Chop" a compromise.

9. Sir Walter Raleigh

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Early explorers are often the victim of historical legends and fabrications because there weren't many solid records to solidify their outrageous claims to fame. Just think if Christopher Columbus had a blog as he sailed across the ocean. He'd probably do two entries the first day and then not post a thing for three months because he'd keep watching the Keyboard Cat play off the death of the dinosaurs and forget why he got on his computer in the first place.

Sir Walter Raleigh has often been credited with introducing the British and European world to the wonder of potatoes after discovering them in the New World, or more specifically, Virginia. There are just two minor problems:Raleigh never visited Virginia and potatoes weren't being grown in North America. It's the historic equivalent of your fat douchebag roommate who keeps bragging about the Playboy Playmate he slept with multiple times while his girlfriend watched for proof, only less plausible.

8. The Wright Brothers

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History may technically be about the passage and influence of time, but it often completely ignores it. The same goes for you and anything your girlfriend says when she's not naked.

History's first "flyboys" might have constructed a working plane out of nothing more than a bundle of sticks and a dream, but they were far from the first to get off the ground. There are numerous claims of pilots who beat Kitty Hawk's heroes to the punch, but Gustave Whitehead seems to have them beat by at least two and a half years. Either way, I'm cursing all of their names for inventing something that can make my luggage, wallet, and sanity disappear in three different time zones.

7. Betsy Ross

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One of the most famous women of the American Revolutionary movement has long been credited with creating its first flag for future generations to gaze at proudly, salute at ball games, and use as useless talking points in political debates. The truth is that there is no actual proof that Ross designed or created a single stitch of the now familiar "Stars and Stripes." It's more likely that a distant descendant drummed up the story to make a historical society speech sound less like an audible Quaalude to those in attendance. It's the post-Civil War equivalent of The E! Channel.

6. Alexander Graham Bell

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This supposed inventor of the telephone actually didn't have any hand in creating the design for one of the most influential communication tools of our time. Sure he had a hand in signing the patent for it, most likely because he stole it as it was being patented. A front page story from the Washington Post in 1886 claims that Elisha Gray filed the original patent for the device, but another patent examiner testified that he had been bribed by an attorney to award the patent to Bell. Of course, Bell's family denies the malfeasance and still claims their distant ancestor created the phone...until they realized it eventually led to roaming charges and the "Crazy Frog" ringtone.

5. Charles Lindbergh

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It's one thing to say that someone missed being the first at something by a few months or even years. It's not a deliberate alteration of the truth. It's just another victim of the slow news cycle.

Lindbergh, however, was far from the first to cross the Atlantic by plane by himself. He was 13th. His was just the first to come with its own electrifying public relations campaign. And this is not an attempt to minimize his accomplishments in strength and aviation. It's simply a clarification. Although having to spend four hours on a plane with nothing to watch but Herbie: Fully Loaded should be considered an equally historic achievement.

4. Eliot Ness

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The so-called "Untouchable" sounds like the kind of folk hero that could make Indiana Jones doubt his own existence. The truth is the real Indiana Jones accomplished more in real life than Chicago's gritty cop...even though there is no such person.

His most famous claim to fame was the inevitable breakdown of notorious crime boss and bootlegger Al Capone. Not only did Ness fail miserably at his attempt to bring Capone down on any criminal charges, it was actually IRS Special Agent Frank J. Wilson who brought the tax evasion charges to trial and ended up with a successful conviction. And if you doubt that, take it up with the IRS. They won't hold it against you when you're being audited the very next day.

3. The Brothers Grimm

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Some of the world's most timeless stories and fairy tales come from the books put out by these famous brothers, perhaps even more famous than the Mario Bros., the Smothers Brothers, and the Baldwin brothers combined (if you don't count Daniel).

However, it should be noted that the boys did not actually write the fairy tales. They collected them from various local folklore and traditional storytellers and published them in a single volume. In fact, some of the original versions have gone through a morbid game of "Telephone" as they were passed down through the generations from their twisted beginnings. For instance, in the story of Cinderella, the enslaved beauty doesn't leave a crystal slipper for her prince-to-be. It's actually a furry slipper made from the skin of a squirrel and her evil stepsisters actually cut off parts of their own feet to fit their big honkin' dogs in it. Either way, I'm sure Disney could come up with an annoying tune to accompany the narrative.

2. Abner Doubleday

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There is nothing more American than baseball. Deep fried hot dogs? Sure, it's close but nope, not as American. Monster trucks? They're fun to take on carpool rides, but nope. Truck Nuts? Maybe if they are incorporated in either of the previous two, but not by a long shot.

This Civil War hero has long gotten the credit for creating the game that gave America something else to do while drinking and injecting ourselves with steroids. He's even been given credit by the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, but the false idea that he created the game actually came from a Colorado mining engineer who claimed that he saw Doubleday draw the design for the first game with a stick in the dust. Never mind that the game had already been played for almost 100 years (or maybe it was just a single game that felt like it was going on for 100 years).

1. Abraham Lincoln

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Perhaps the most famous influential President in U.S. history, Lincoln has long been the stuff of legend. His birth, life, and death reads like the story of Jesus, Superman, and Ash from Evil Dead all rolled into one, minus the resurrection, ability to fly, or awesome defeat of mystic zombies with a chainsaw hand. Then again, Lincoln probably had some hobbies.

None is more infamous than the unique tale of events leading up to the historic Gettysburg Address, a speech that was so brilliant it united a nation based on a few simple words he supposedly wrote during a stagecoach ride on the back of an envelope. The speech might have been written quickly because of the press for time, but not during the span of a coach ride, especially since he had written several drafts of the thing before he delivered it. And besides, if the legend was true, I'm sure it also would've put an end to the feud between cats and dogs, the Hatfields and the McCoys, and the East and West Coast gangs long before they even started.