Many of the historical stories people hear today are some of the real ones, while some are just wild stories passed down by word of mouth. When more people say it, everyone will believe it. There are many theories about Yang Guifei's death, but it depends on which one people are willing to believe.
In fact, there are many such unconfirmed rumors, and there are similar rumors in world history. And these rumors were later confirmed to be false, but in people's hearts they still believed that these things were real. So what are the "lies" in the history of the world?
Lie one Cleopatra
The legendary Cleopatra is an extremely beautiful woman, so in the movies made by later generations, Cleopatra always appears as a very beautiful woman. In fact, Cleopatra is not so beautiful that she is shocking, and her appearance is not even beautiful.
The woman known as Cleopatra, whose real name was Cleopatra VII, was the last female pharaoh of the Ptolemaic dynasty of ancient Egypt. Before her father's death, her father designated her and her half-brother as heirs.
Due to the dispute over rights, the two had a conflict. What Cleopatra VII did not expect was that because of the struggle for power, she was driven out of her country by her brother and several ministers. In order to regain her position, she gathered troops on the border between the two countries. At that time, Caesar happened to come to Egypt in pursuit of Pompeii.
But the brother of Cleopatra VII sent the head of Pompey to Caesar. Caesar naturally understood the man's purpose, so Caesar did not accede to his request.
Cleopatra VII naturally thought that he could take this opportunity to use Caesar's hand to regain the throne, so he found someone to wrap himself up and send it to Caesar.
Although Cleopatra VII is not particularly beautiful, he is good enough to be young. At the same time, she is also a clever and good at strategizing, and quickly makes Caesar fall in love with her. With Caesar's help, she managed to squeeze out her half-brother and become the female pharaoh of Egypt.
She later had a child with Caesar and wanted this child to become the new pharaoh. However, this idea did not materialize, and Caesar was assassinated. After this, she met Anthony. But by then Anthony was already married to Octavian's sister.
In order to be with Cleopatra VII, Antony abandoned his family. In fact, the two of them are not all together because of love, and a small part of the reason is because they both have their own purposes, and the two of them take what they need together.
Antony wanted a lot of money to maintain the army, while Cleopatra VII wanted to expand his power. To make his beloved woman happy, Anthony gave her parts of the area. Antony's later series of acts of loyalty to his lover greatly displeased the people of Rome.
The Roman people considered Cleopatra VII a scourge, so much so that Antony lost the trust of the people. The relationship between Octavian and Anthony was not good, and with his sister abandoned, Octavian took this opportunity to wage war against Antony. Anthony knew that his momentum was gone and finally chose to commit suicide.
Historically, everyone thought that Cleopatra VII seduced two men with his beauty, believing that women could only win the favor of men by virtue of their beauty. In fact, she is not beautiful, and she does not attract two men by beauty.
On the contrary, she has a super high double quotient and has enough ambitions. According to the book, everyone who has been with her feels very comfortable chatting with her, and she has a special personality charm. And it is precisely because of these that she can make two men fall for it.
Myth II Napoleon's height
Napoleon is the founder of the First French Empire, people who have studied history have some understanding of Napoleon, naturally also know that his height is often questioned and ridiculed, many people think he is short, and call him a little giant.
So was Napoleon that short exactly? How tall is he? According to records, Napoleon's height was about five feet two inches, but there was no uniform standard at that time, if calculated according to the size of the United Kingdom, then Napoleon was only 1.58 meters.
However, Napoleon was actually French, and the French foot was a little longer than the British one. According to French measurement standards, Napoleon was about 1.7 meters tall. In terms of French calculations, Napoleon was not a dwarf.
Plus men in the past like to wear high heels to make themselves look taller and mighty. Napoleon was no exception, even when he went to battle, he wore high heels, so later people would preconceive that Napoleon was a short.
Later, the official gave Napoleon's accurate height data: 5.2 feet is 5.6 feet, according to today's standard measurement methods, Napoleon's true height is about one meter seven.
If compared to the height of the man now, he may be a little short. But the general height of French men at that time was basically around 5.5 inches, so Napoleon was really not short in comparison.
In addition to the difference in measurement methods that caused everyone's misunderstanding of Napoleon's height, there is actually another reason. That is because many people were defeated by Napoleon, and every war ended in defeat, they were not convinced, so they called Napoleon "the little man".
Lie three "Poor grades" Einstein
From childhood to adulthood, I believe that many people have heard Einstein's story. Everyone hears about the version that Einstein did not get good grades when he was a child, and his math scores were also poor. Although he was later admitted to university, he did not perform as well as others during his time in college.
Many of his classmates successfully stayed in school, but he could only work as an ordinary clerk in a small research institute. Everyone never seems to question the authenticity of this story, is it really so stupid to be a famous scientist?
Later, Nobel officially released Einstein's real grades in high school. In his transcript, he scored five points in subjects such as line generation, physics, and mathematics, and almost perfect marks in liberal arts. The lowest score of all grades was in French Language and Literature. He scored only 3 points in French Language and Literature.
Perhaps many people believe that his studies are really poor because he scored only a few points in almost every subject, so much so that this lie has been circulating for centuries. However, in his high school years, the exam paper was a maximum score of 6, and the minimum score was 1.
In addition to Einstein's relatively low scores in French language and literature, other subjects are almost close to full scores, and it can be said that Einstein's arts and sciences are very outstanding. The real Einstein is not as stupid as people say, but his IQ is beyond ordinary people.
You might as well think about what kind of university Einstein ended up in. ETH Zurich was a university that many people dream of entering at that time, let alone today.
Regarding Einstein's IQ, some say it has exceeded 200. This statement is even more out of thin air. Between 90-100 is the IQ of an ordinary person, and people with an IQ of more than 100 are smarter than the average ordinary person.
Einstein's IQ has always been a mystery in people's minds. After Einstein's death, people analyzed his brain in order to know what his IQ was. Finally, a doctor named Harvey said that Einstein's IQ was about 140-150, which is not as outrageous as people say. However, an IQ of more than 140 is already a genius.
Lie IV Spartan Three hundred warriors
I don't know if you know the story of the three hundred warriors of Sparta, in which King Leonidas led three hundred elite soldiers and half a million menacing Persian soldiers to confront each other, and the scene was extremely magnificent. But in fact, Leonidas led more than three hundred soldiers.
The story actually takes place at the Battle of Thermopylae between Greece and Persia. This battle was also the most brutal. Persia had always wanted to attack Greece, but unfortunately both attacks failed.
Not long after the death of the king of Persia, Xerxes waited for the position of king of Persia. Like his father, he wanted to take Greece down. After all, it has already lost to Greece twice, and the face is really not hanging. Xerxes prepared for this attack on Greece for four years. Of course, Greece was also prepared for the Persian attack.
Athens and Sparta in Greece formed a united front in order to jointly defend against the enemy. Before the war began, Persia sent two emissaries to persuade them to surrender, but these two envoys were eventually thrown into the pit by the Greeks and Spartans. This move of theirs completely angered Persia.
So Persia began to attack Greece from both land and sea, and the Greek coalition chose Thermopylae as a place to defend in order to better defend against each other's invasion. And this place was precisely a place that was easy to defend and difficult to attack, and it was difficult for the Persian cavalry to attack.
Unfortunately, the war coincided with the Carnia Festival in Sparta and the upcoming Games, and Spartan law explicitly prohibited sending troops during major festivals. But Persia did not care about their festival and had already begun to attack, and they could not but send troops to defend.
In movies and legends, King Leonidas led only 300 warriors, which is an exaggeration. The truth is that Leonidas led 300 warriors and some ordinary warriors and slaves brought in from elsewhere, and even then, the number of them sent was only 7,000.
Looking at the Persian side, the 500,000 soldiers in the movie are also fictional, although there are not so many in reality, but they are also several times more than the Greek side.
A historian once counted the number of Persian troops. The Persian infantry was about 140,000 and the cavalry was about 40,000. Not only that, but they also had more than 600 naval warships, and with the number of navies, Persia had about 300,000 soldiers. Although not as exaggerated as in the movie, the number of soldiers is also quite large.
Despite this, Greece relied on the terrain advantage of the Thermopylae Pass and the Persian soldiers for three days, and finally all died. Persia, after a temporary victory, began to swell, insisting on the destruction of Athens. In the end, they were defeated at the Battle of Salamis, and the war between Greece and Persia ended in Greek victory.
summary
Although these stories have been passed down for many years, they convey the same idea: a high level of worship and recognition of heroes and celebrities. In fact, even if the stories handed down are somewhat different from the truth, this does not prevent them from still being heroes in people's hearts.
Cleopatra was not able to get the admiration of two men because of her beauty, and it was too shallow to define a woman by beauty. It was precisely because of her ingenuity and her political wisdom that she attracted two wonderful people and was able to protect her people.
Napoleon's exploits made his enemies feel ashamed of themselves, so they could only make up his height to attack him. It's just that their jealousy makes them very faceless. Those who are taller than this "little dwarf" are still beaten to the ground by this "little dwarf", isn't this hitting themselves in the face?
In the Greco-Persian War, although the warriors of Sparta were not as exaggerated as rumors and movies, their spirit of desperately defending against the enemy was worth learning. Einstein is not as stupid as the story suggests, otherwise how could he become a scientist? And how did you develop the theory of relativity?
What do you think about the "four great lies" in world history? Welcome to the comment area to discuss!