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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.

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.

21 comments

[–] cyclops1771 7 points (+7|-0)

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.

[–] CDanger 2 points (+2|-0)

Newton and Leibniz both did invent calculus--they just did so independently. Neither deserves more credit than the other necessarily.