Just interested in learning about some of the lesser discussed misconceptions about historical figures. Everyone knows about Thomas Edison, but I'm more interested in hearing about people who were equally as famous but those whose "fame-stealing" isn't' as widely known.
The Isaac Newton - calculus argument has been mentioned before to promote Leibniz. In fact, we use most of Leibniz's notation to this day.
One would be remiss to ignore the obvious "Columbus discovered America" item, but they has mostly been passed out of history. Columbus didn't "discover" it, he opened it, just as Perry opened Japan 350 years later.
George Washington Carver didn't invent peanut butter yet numerous elementary school level text books all across America say he did precisely that.
http://www.nationalpeanutboard.org/peanut-info/who-invented-peanut-butter.htm
Well, holy shit. TIL
Yeah, everyone knows Jimmy Carter invented it.
Guglielmo Marconi wasn't the first one to demonstrate radio. Tesla publicly demonstrated it at a world fair years earlier.
Bill Gates and DOS. I don't think Bill Gates has personally created anything that his company is known for; he bought DOS.
I do have to give Gates credit for his inventive use of unsavory and unethical business practices, however. It's also a little-known fact that Bill Gates appropriately named his company after his penis.
A lot of people don't know this, but Osama Bin Laden didn't actually plan OR execute 9/11, George W. Bush did. Bin Laden just took credit for it.
It goes deeper. The CIA and Mossad actually planned it but OBL just took credit after GWB messed up the planning the first time in 1993 and couldn't be trusted with operation 2.0.
Killing people by way of gas was invented by the Jews.
The Ramones didn't invent punk rock.
Amelia Earhart was not the first person to fly solo over the Atlantic.
Does anyone say she was? I thought her fame was for being the first woman to do so.
I grew up with the impression she was the first person. Could just be me.
Magellan was not the first man to circumnavigate the globe, yet is often credited with it. He died before the expedition made it back to Portugal. Interestingly though, it was not another member of the crew that was the first either. Magellan had a Malaysian slave on his ship, who had been brought along because of his usefulness in speaking languages they would eventually encounter on their travels. When the expedition arrived at Malaysia, he became the first man to circumnavigate the globe, albeit not in one trip.