I hope Daniel Boone existed. My mother claimed to be a descendant of him.
The Phantom of The Opera didn’t exist, but he made a shitload of money.
Enough people have poked the zombie and lived that I think it’s safe to get my own jab in.
Tokyo Rose never existed, but there were several English speaking female Japanese propaganda broadcasters.
I think you mean Mt. Airy, unless every podunk town in my home state is claiming the honor now.
Is this a whoosh? Of course Daniel Boone existed.
I cannot believe I’m the first person to mention the Marlboro Man.
I just skimmed page 2 and 3 ----------- anyone throw out Pope Joan and/or Saint Christopher?
Pandora Spox - the actress who played Serena on “Bewitched.”
Interesting..who was “Axis Sally”?
Ramona–the heroine of the best selling novel:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Ramona is a 1884 United States historical novel written by Helen Hunt Jackson. It is the story of a Scots-Native American orphan girl in Southern California, who suffers racial discrimination and hardship. Originally serialized in the Christian Union on a weekly basis,[1] the novel became immensely popular. It has had more than 300 printings,[2] been made into four film versions. It has been performed annually as an outdoor play since 1923. . . The novel’s influence on the culture and image of Southern California was considerable. Its sentimental portrayal of Mexican colonial life gave the region a unique cultural identity; as its publication coincided with the arrival of railroad lines to the region, countless tourists visited who wanted to see the locations in the novel.
[/quote]
I could have made that last Wiki entry myself. I worked near the place where she was married in the book, and I constantly had old ladies from the Midwest who’d read the novel come to me asking to know exactly where it happened. (A city in San Diego county was named after her, too.)
Well, now it is “years from now”. How about it? Any Lecter-themed theses? 
“When we are through with them, the only place graffiti will be written is in hell!”
There have been serious doubts about Aesop’s existence. The man was probably fiction.
http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/publications/new-look-aesop
Besides that article, his Wikipedia page also highlights the inconsistencies of his identity and alleged existence.
Some have asked whether the feared Axe Man of New Orleans, an unidentified serial killer who murdered in New Orleans in 1918-1919, really existed. The murders did happen, but were probably not the work of one killer, or could have been unconnected.
Boy am I getting into this late.
There is a 220 block of Baker Street, and a location within the Baker Street Emporium claims (kind of fraudulently) the number 221B for the Sherlock Holmes Library. The whole megillah is next door to Madame Tussaud’s, which you’d never know from watching Sherlock.
Similarly, for Harry Potter fans, there’s a “Platform 9¾” sign at King’s Cross railway station in London, with half a shopping cart sticking out of the brick wall, unbelievably cute.
Bigfoot.
The myth is extremely popular where I live. My uncle goes on Bigfoot hunting trips with his buddies, hoping to ‘catch’ one.
I’m not even kidding.
In 11 years, has no one named Nicholas Bourbaki?
Saint Christopher patron saint of travelers never existed according to my book on saints.
You can see the gravestone of Mother Goose in Boston’s Granary Burying Ground. Or rather, you can see the gravestone of a woman named Mary Goose who happened to be somebody’s mother. Tour guides like to deceive gullible tourists into thinking that she was the Mother Goose who wrote the nursery rhymes. The nursery rhymes were compiled from various sources and had no single author, let alone one whose name was literally “Mother Goose.”
Along these lines, there are scholars who say that St. Bridget of Ireland was really a pagan goddess that was “converted” into a saint, but I don’t know how seriously these people are taken. After reading her Wiki aricle, she looks pretty well-attested to me.
There was a real Brigid of Kildare. The point is that her veneration was syncretized with that of the older mythic figure: stories and attributes of the goddess were assigned to the Christian figure. The season and customs of the pagan festival were transferred to the saint’s Day.
Similar to Easter. 