# Historical myths DEBUNKED! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 19, 2025, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251 "2025-08-19T02:56:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2025, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/81 "2025-08-20T23:27:53Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > I think most Dopers likely already know this, but… Yes, [Thomas Crapper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crapper) was a real plumber in Victorian London. No, he was not the inventor of the flush toilet as many lists of “fun facts” have claimed. At most, he held a few patents related to improvements to the toilet. He invented the ballcock, which is kind of an important innovation in flush toilet technology. ETA - and the U-bend. “a few patents” indeed, but really rather important ones. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/82 "2025-08-21T00:28:26Z")
But, apparently, the slang word for a toilet does indeed originate from toilets stamped with “T. Crapper & Co". ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/83 "2025-08-21T00:37:35Z")
Did it? Because the Wikipedia article states that the first recorded use of “crap” as slang for feces, according to the OED, was in 1846, when Mr. Crapper was only 10 years old. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/84 "2025-08-21T00:45:06Z")
But the use of the word “crapper” to mean a toilet was brought back to the US after American servicemen saw it printed on toilets in Britain during WWI. The word crap was rarely used in North America before toilets started to be called crappers. > **[Where'd The Word 'Crap' Come From?](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/word-meaning-crap_n_1930243)** > > Where'd The Word 'Crap' Come From? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/85 "2025-08-21T02:16:17Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > One fire may have been started this way, but that fire broke out in FIVE places at approximately the same time, and it coincided with a large forest fire that nearly destroyed Peshtigo, Wisconsin. Ore boats on the Great Lakes also reported seeing “fire falling from the sky.” Most likely, an asteroid broke up in the atmosphere, and some of the pieces actually landed. “Meteorites are hot when they land” is a myth. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/86 "2025-08-21T02:56:21Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > “Meteorites are hot when they land” is a myth. Fire from the sky reports were much more likely to be embers from other wildfires. The whole region was a tinder box that year, no need for some extraterrestrial explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/87 "2025-08-21T03:06:15Z")
Grace Hopper did not coin the word “bug” to refer to a technical problem. Annoyingly, the evidence presented for this myth actually refutes it. Here’s the log entry about the bug that caused a computer problem for her: [https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=NMAH-92-13129&max\_h=150](https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=NMAH-92-13129&max_h=150) Note that it’s labelled “first _actual_ case of a bug being found” - if the word was being coined in that log entry, it wouldn’t be worded like that. It would be something like “Here’s the cause of our computer problem - a bug.” Clearly the text in the log indicates that “bug” had been used as a term for a hard-to-find technical problem and what’s notable is that in this one case it was a real bug. And in fact, Edison used the word “bug” with just that meaning, years before Hopper > **[Did You Know? Edison Coined the Term “Bug”](https://spectrum.ieee.org/did-you-know-edison-coined-the-term-bug)** > > Bugs have plagued technologists for centuries > And in November of that year [1878] he wrote to Thedore Puskas about what happens after conceiving an invention, when difficulties arise and the unexpected occurs: “This thing gives out and then that. ‘Bug’—as such little faults and difficulties are called—show themselves, and months of anxious watching, study, and labor are requisite before commercial success—or failure—is certainly reached.” ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/88 "2025-08-21T03:26:46Z")
One I was absolutely taught as a fact by my school teacher: that the glass in ancient cathedral windows is thicker at the bottom than the top, because glass is actually liquid and will gradually flow downwards over the centuries. Total BS. Glass in ancient cathedrals is like that because they weren’t very good at making glass in the middle ages. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/89 "2025-08-21T04:34:44Z")
And you put the thicker part of the glass window at the bottom rather than the top, because that way it’s more stable. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/90 "2025-08-21T05:08:33Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > One I was absolutely taught as a fact by my school teacher: that the glass in ancient cathedral windows is thicker at the bottom than the top, because glass is actually liquid and will gradually flow downwards over the centuries. > > Total BS. Glass in ancient cathedrals is like that because they weren’t very good at making glass in the middle ages. Right—and Bill Bryson repeated this myth in his book, _A Short History of Nearly Everything_. Glass can be described as an “non-crystalline amorphous solid” or even a “supercooled liquid” that does in fact have a tendency to creep, just very, very slowly. But not in human timescales. I read a paper once that calculated that ordinary glass at room temperature would take many billions of years to show any measurable difference in thickness. > [@Kimstu](#): > > And you put the thicker part of the glass window at the bottom rather than the top, because that way it’s more stable. Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/91 "2025-08-21T11:30:46Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > I think most Dopers likely already know this, but… Yes, [Thomas Crapper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crapper) was a real plumber in Victorian London. No, he was not the inventor of the flush toilet as many lists of “fun facts” have claimed. At most, he held a few patents related to improvements to the toilet. When I took the “Underground Seattle” tour many years ago, they proudly displayed a period toilet with the “Crapper” logo prominently displayed on it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/92 "2025-08-21T11:39:07Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Well just check the sources, [the sources that Wikipedia uses for the origins of “Drinking the Kool-Aid” directed to cult members](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid) still get the drink used in the Jim Jones massacre wrong IMHO. > > Many sources still go for the new myth that “it was just Flavor-aid” the drink that the Jim Jones cult in Guyana used to poison everyone in the cult compound. (I still have the feeling that a lot of the media is weary to anger the Kraft-Heinz sponsors) > > The whole truth is that [Flavor-Aid was there, but there is video evidence that shows Jim Jones demonstrating his supplies in a storage room, Kool-Aid was there too.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=najBMAItPYU&t=0s) (And Royal gelatin, but I think Jones’ henchmen did not have time to make a jiggly treat with the poison. /jk) I was around at the time, and listened to the stories. It’s my recollection that Time magazine and TV reports explicitly said “Fal-R-Aid” and never mentioned “Kool Aid”. The emphasis on the off-brand Flav-R-Aid rather than the MUCH more familiar Kool Aid really made this part of the story stand out and stick in my memory. Why didn’t they mention Kool Aid? Maybe the first reporters only saw Fla-R-Aid. Maybe they were afraid of slandering General Foods, distributors of Kool Aid, but weren’t worried about the folks at Flav-R-Aid. In any event, I didn’t hear about Kool Aid being there until much later. So if you’re looking for an origin of the “myth”, it’s because that’s the way it was reported at first. By the way, Jones’ crew wouldn’t have had to take time to make a frozen jiggly confection out of the Royal Gelatine mix. I’m sure they would’ve been just as happy simply mixing it with water and poison and giving it to the followers. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/93 "2025-08-21T14:18:06Z")
Naw, just spend some time searching newspaper archives, and almost all of the contemporary reporting said “Kool Aid.” “Flavor-Ade” (or any variant) hardly ever shows up, Time notwithstanding. I’ve mentioned this before on the subject, but I’ll repeat it again her. I would give Rush Limbaugh some credit for making the Kool-Aid/Jones connection part of the lexicon starting in 1991. At the time, he had millions of listeners on his radio program, and Bush 41 was riding high in the polls. He was predicting the Democrats would probably all melt down with the upcoming victory in 1992 (which obviously didn’t materialize), and they were already “pouring the Kool-Aid” as the party was headed to defeat. I don’t know that he ever said anything about drinking the Kool-Aid, maybe yes, maybe no, but he definitely repeatedly made the connection. Maybe coincidentally and maybe not, Chris Matthews and Mark Russell both mentioned “drinking Kool Aid” in 1992 columns, which presumably had widespread audiences. As noted above, it really started picking up steam in the late 1990s, possibly due to the Internet? Yeah, a lot of “maybe’s” and “possibly’s” (Not wanting to turn this thread into a Jonestown hijack, though) 😇 ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/94 "2025-08-21T14:26:58Z")
Using the Flavor Aid logo wouldn’t sell many pins or t-shirts. [![](https://cdn.printblur.com/unsafe/960x960/assets.printblur.com/2023/02/13/63ea57f86fb22-1676302328.jpg) ](https://cdn.printblur.com/unsafe/960x960/assets.printblur.com/2023/02/13/63ea57f86fb22-1676302328.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/95 "2025-08-21T15:37:23Z")
Introducing a facetious note, the thread title reminds me that someone in my late mother’s debating society once proposed a talk with the title “Historical Fallacies Exposed”. It fell to her to explain why it wasn’t the best title. ---
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/96 "2025-08-21T15:56:52Z")
I had no idea such tours were available. We will definitely do one the next time we’re in Seattle. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/97 "2025-08-21T16:20:28Z")
> [@robby](#): > > Right—and Bill Bryson repeated this myth in his book, _A Short History of Nearly Everything_. But it wasnt debunked until fairly recently- that book dates from 2003, and of course written earlier. > **[Glass viscosity calculations definitively debunk the myth of observable flow...](https://ceramics.org/ceramic-tech-today/glass-viscosity-calculations-definitively-debunk-the-myth-of-observable-flow-in-medieval-windows/)** > > Glass scientists have taken a closer look at the urban legend of glass flow in medieval windows—combining theory and experimental techniques, the results definitely bust the myth and indicate the highest ever direct measurement of glass viscosity at... But this is a good historical myth, thanks > [@CalMeacham](#): > > In any event, I didn’t hear about Kool Aid being there until much later. So if you’re looking for an origin of the “myth”, it’s because that’s the way it was reported at first. Again, this is too modern for this thread. Interesting though. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/98 "2025-08-21T16:48:42Z")
In case anybody still believes this one: George Washington did not (to anyone’s knowledge) chop down a cherry tree. [https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/cherry-tree-myth](https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/cherry-tree-myth) ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/99 "2025-08-21T17:01:49Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > > [@robby](#): > > > > Right—and Bill Bryson repeated this myth in his book, _A Short History of Nearly Everything_. > > But it wasnt debunked until fairly recently- that book dates from 2003, and of course written earlier. On the contrary, I taught college-level general chemistry for five years from 1995 to 2000 and the fact that this was a myth was well known even then…because I clearly remember bringing it up in my classes when covering this topic. I subsequently read the Bryson book around 2005 or so and remember being annoyed enough at perpetuating this myth after it was known to be false that I added a hand-written note in the margin of my copy. Upon searching just now, I found a Scientific American [article](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-fiction-glass-liquid/) that discussed the myth in 2007, but I am positive I read something similar a few years earlier than that while I was still teaching chemistry. The 2017 paper by The American Ceramic Society you linked to was an effort to more precisely quantify how long it would take glass to flow at room temperature, but it was by no means the first debunking. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/100 "2025-08-21T17:07:36Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Naw, just spend some time searching newspaper archives, and almost all of the contemporary reporting said “Kool Aid.” “Flavor-Ade” (or any variant) hardly ever shows up, Time notwithstanding. Your experience is very different from mine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251.md?page=6)