WASHINGTON, DC — Some of the most familiar “facts” from history are really just stories that got repeated often enough to sound official. A Reddit thread asked people to name historical claims that lack evidence, and the answers ranged from schoolroom staples to pop-culture classics. Here are 14 widely repeated myths that historians and other experts say do not actually stand up.

1. Betsy Ross did not design the American flag

The classic story says Betsy Ross stitched the first American flag, but historians say there is no evidence supporting that claim. One visitor even reported being told on a tour of the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia that Ross had nothing to do with the flag and had not actually lived there. The legend is famous, but the documentary trail for it is missing.

2. Victorian doctors and hysteria treatments are murkier than the legend

Another long-circulating claim says doctors in the Victorian era treated hysteria with orgasms. The source often cited for that idea is a relatively recent book, and experts have questioned the documentation behind it. The broader point is that secretive or sexually charged practices are often hard to verify historically, especially when the records are thin or unreliable.

3. Napoleon’s alleged bathing note appears to be unsupported

A popular story says Napoleon wrote to his wife asking her not to wash herself before he came home. Several experts say there is no surviving evidence that such a letter exists. The earliest known book to mention it was published in 1981, which makes historians skeptical that the line can really be traced back to Napoleon himself.

4. The Bible never says Eve ate an apple

The forbidden fruit in Genesis is one of the best-known symbols in Western art, but the text never identifies it as an apple. In the original Hebrew, it is described only as fruit. The apple connection appears to come from later language and symbolism, including a Latin pun involving the word malus, which can mean both apple and evil.

5. Titanic was not marketed as unsinkable

The Titanic’s reputation for being “unsinkable” became stronger after the disaster, when the ship’s story took on a larger-than-life quality. The article says there is no evidence that the Titanic was promoted that way before it sailed, and the same is true of its sister ships with similar safety features. The myth grew after the fact, not before the voyage.

6. People in the 1700s did not all die at 30

Life expectancy in the past was dragged down sharply by infant and child mortality, which makes averages look much lower than they really were for people who survived early childhood. Using England as an example, the source notes that from about 1580 to 1720, almost one-third of young people died before age 15. If someone made it past the most dangerous years, living into their 60s or 80s was entirely possible.

7. Marco Polo did not bring pasta to Italy

Pasta was already documented in Italy before Marco Polo ever returned from Asia. The source points to records from 1154 by Arab geographer Idrisi, while Marco Polo’s journey began in 1271. The modern myth was boosted later, including by a 1929 article in the Macaroni Journal and, according to the International Pasta Organization, by the 1938 film The Adventures of Marco Polo.

8. Marie Antoinette probably never said let them eat cake

The quote is often misremembered as “let them eat cake,” though the French phrase usually associated with it is “let them eat brioche.” Even that version has no confirmed link to Marie Antoinette. The line appears in Rousseau’s Confessions, attributed to a “great princess” when Marie Antoinette was still a child, which has led many historians to treat it as later propaganda rather than a real quotation.

9. A lot of psychology research has failed to replicate cleanly

The list also moves beyond ancient history to a modern scientific problem: not every influential psychology study has held up. The source describes the “replication crisis,” in which many findings proved hard to reproduce under new tests. In one major project in the 2010s, fewer than half of the attempted replications produced similar results, suggesting that at least some original conclusions were false positives.

10. Medieval Europeans did not think the Earth was flat

The idea that educated people in the Middle Ages believed the Earth was flat is itself a modern myth. According to the source, European scholars were familiar with the round Earth, and Greek thinkers had measured its circumference with impressive accuracy long before the medieval period. The flat-Earth story is said to have gained traction in the United States in the 1830s, helped by later writing and religious polemics.

11. People in the Middle Ages did not live on beer alone

It is often repeated that medieval Europeans drank beer instead of water because water was unsafe. The source says that is too simple: people did drink water, and beer was not always the default. Unless beer was brewed at home, it had to be bought, which made it too expensive to use as the only everyday drink for everyone.

12. Not everyone in Scandinavia during the Viking Age was a Viking

Another myth flattens an entire region into one label. The source explains that Vikings were the raiders and warriors, while people who stayed at home were Norsemen and women. In other words, “Viking” was more of a job description than an identity for everyone living in Scandinavia between the 9th and 11th centuries.

13. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are not definitively proven

Unlike some of the other Ancient Wonders, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon have no independent historical record or archaeological proof confirming they existed in the way later tradition describes. The source notes that the other six wonders have some kind of evidence behind them, whether ruins, historical testimony, or surviving remains. For the gardens, there are no ruins at a secure original site and no clear Babylonian literary reference.

14. St. Patrick did not bring Christianity to Ireland first

Vatican records show that St. Palladius was sent to Ireland before Patrick, and those records also say he was sent to people who already believed in Christ. That means Christianity had reached the island before Patrick’s mission. The source adds that trade and refugees likely helped spread the faith as well, and it also notes another common correction: St. Patrick was not Irish.

A quick reminder to question the story you were taught

What makes these myths so durable is that they are tidy, memorable, and easy to repeat. But the source shows that plenty of them collapse once you ask where the evidence actually comes from. A surprising amount of “everyone knows this” history turns out to be a story that simply got passed around for generations.