History myths test
Some of the best-known facts about the past aren’t facts at all: the flat-Earth Middle Ages, horned Viking helmets, a tiny Napoleon. Most started as jokes, propaganda or later art, and stuck.
Before Columbus sailed in 1492, what did educated Europeans believe about the shape of the Earth?
About this test
Every wrong answer here is a named myth, with the real story after each question. At the end you get a course that starts from the ones you believed.
Questions people ask
Did people in the Middle Ages think the Earth was flat?
No. Educated Europeans knew it was round; ancient Greek scholars had shown it more than a thousand years earlier.
Was Napoleon short?
No. He was about 1.69 m, average for a Frenchman of his time. The myth comes from British propaganda and confusion between French and English inches.
Did Vikings wear horned helmets?
There’s no evidence they did. The image comes mostly from 19th-century art and opera.
Why do so many history myths stick around?
Because they make good stories. A short, vivid detail like horned helmets or ‘let them eat cake’ spreads easily, and by the time someone checks, it has been repeated in books, films and classrooms for generations.
Where do these answers come from?
From historians and the surviving sources: Roman writers like Tacitus, royal records, archaeology and later scholarship. Where the evidence is thin, the explanation says so instead of pretending to know.
