Myths Debunked Facts

The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off!

Diamonds can be shattered with a hammer.

The bright flash of lightning you see actually travels upward from the ground. While invisible downward 'stepped leaders' descend from clouds, the brilliant 'return stroke' that creates the visible lightning bolt travels from ground to sky at one-third the speed of light.

A bullet dropped (not fired) from the Empire State Building would reach a terminal velocity of only about 50 mph—not fast enough to kill someone. However, heavier objects like pennies could still cause painful injuries.

On some poorly researched trivia lists it is stated as a fact that a pregnant goldfish is called a twit. This is not true as goldfish lay eggs.

There is no mention of Adam and Eve eating an apple in the Bible.

Decaffeinated coffee is not 100% caffeine free. When coffee is being decaffeinated, 2% of the caffeine still remains in it.

There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses!

Contrary to popular belief, hair does not grow back darker and thicker after it has been shaved.

Most alcoholic beverages contain all 13 minerals necessary to sustain human life.

In Ancient Greece, if a woman watched even one Olympic event, she was executed.

Mosquitoes prefer children to adults, blondes to brunettes.

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie!

In ancient Egypt, life expectancy at birth was around 30 years—but this statistic is misleading. High infant and childhood mortality rates dragged down the average. Egyptians who survived to adulthood commonly lived into their 50s, 60s, or even 70s.

The 'vintage date' on a bottle of wine indicates the year the grapes were picked, not the year of bottling!

Koalas are not bears—they're marsupials more closely related to wombats and kangaroos.

More than 90% of shark attack victims survive.

All the swans in England are property of the Queen.

A peanut is not a nut. It is a legume.

The average person farts 8-14 times per day, and despite popular belief, studies show men and women pass gas at roughly the same rate.

Manhattan Island was purchased by Dutch colonial governor Peter Minuit from the Lenape people in 1626 for trade goods valued at 60 guilders—roughly $1,000-$1,150 in today's money, not the commonly cited $24.

Contrary to popular belief, the first ironclad warships were built by Korea in the 16th century.

You would need to smoke between 20,000-40,000 joints to be at risk of dying of a THC overdose.

Carrots were originally purple, white, and yellow. Orange carrots emerged in 17th-century Netherlands through selective breeding by Dutch growers—possibly as a tribute to William of Orange, though this patriotic origin story may be more legend than fact.