Interpretation of events. Witnesses and eyewitnesses of extraordinary phenomena come up with mysterious theories and assumptions that are not supported by any serious facts.
And the secret here is that most people like to believe in something mysterious. How can one not recall the famous phrase: "I know that this is so, and please do not fool me with your facts." Today we will look at well-known misconceptions and myths that have not been tested for strength. This article will appeal not only to history lovers, but also to those who like interesting stories from life.
Fox sisters
In the spring of 1848, strange things began to happen in the bedroom of two sisters, Maggie and Kate Fox. According to the girls, who were 14 and 11 years old, they heard strange sounds several times a month. It seemed to them that a certain ghost of a man wanted to get in touch with them. The increasing number of cases of this mystical phenomenon quickly became known to the entire northern part of New York.Having received millions of support from their fans, and then followers, the Fox sisters played a key role in the formation and development of spiritualism. When the girls grew up, they continued to conduct séances, only with more complex tricks. One day, the eldest of the sisters Maggie could not stand it, and publicly confessed to a deliberate hoax.
She explained that initially the whole story seemed like a simple childish prank. After all, the sounds made by the “ghost” were actually just clicks of the joints of the toes. Who would have thought that such fun would turn into a popular and rather large movement around the world.
The Amityville Horror
This story is known to many fans of horror films, and the expression "The Amityville Horror" has long become a household word. In 1974, Ronald Defoe, who was 23 years old, personally shot his parents, as well as four brothers and sisters. He committed the crime while the family members were sleeping peacefully in their beds.
Defoe himself explained his act by the fact that a certain voice ordered him to kill his relatives. When Ronald was checked by doctors, they recognized him as completely sane. A year later, the Lutz couple with three children settled in this house. A month after the move, various inexplicable things began to happen in the house.
As a result, various mediums and priests frequented them, who unanimously repeated that “otherworldly forces” really live in the house. As it turned out later, they were all in cahoots. They collaborated with an American writer who, in order to maintain this hoax, provided them with generous financial support.
Alien autopsy
In 1995, a sensational report appeared on the Fox television channel, which told about the autopsy of an alien found at the crash site of a UFO. As it turned out, in fact, the whole story was falsified. However, this did not stop the channel from getting huge ratings. The author of the report of one of the most famous alien hoaxes was Ray Santili and his colleagues.
As soon as the film fell into the hands of professionals, they immediately revealed a large number of “blunders” and historical discrepancies there. This whole hoax was more like cheap fiction than reality. As a result, in 2006, Ray Santili himself publicly confessed to the forgery.
Photograph of the Loch Ness monster
The Loch Ness monster is familiar to most people because this expression is used as something unknown and very scary. There was a sensational story about a monster living in Loch Ness, relatively recently. So, in the 30s of the XX century, a sensational photograph appeared, which depicted a certain creature, better known as "Nessie".
The picture was taken by Dr. Kenneth Wilson. The blurred photo showed the neck and head of the "monster". It was later revealed that it was just a stuffed monster attached to the hull of a children's submarine. This well-known hoax was carried out by a certain hunter with his son. Surprisingly, she turned out to be very tenacious.
Time traveller
In the 70s of the last century, a story about a time traveler named Rudolf Fentz was very popular in America. This is one of the most famous hoaxes, echoes of which can still be found today in various public social networks. The myth claimed that allegedly in 1950, Mr. Fentz suddenly appeared on one of the New York streets, straight from 1876. Unfortunately, due to his confusion, the “traveler” fell under the wheels of a car and died. In fact, all the characters and events of this hoax were borrowed from a little-known story by Jack Finney.
Crop Circles
In the late 70s, mysterious crop drawings began to appear in the south of Great Britain. Immediately, rumors began to circulate that the authors of these mysterious patterns were aliens. However, in 1991, David Chorley and his friend Douglas Bauer admitted that they were the authors of these ornaments.
Fijian mermaid
In the 19th century, this phrase was used to refer to various well-known exhibits at street exhibitions. They were deliberately passed off as mummified Fijian mermaids.
And such stuffed animals were made as follows: the body from an immature monkey was connected to the tail of some large fish, and then simply covered with papier-mâché. I must say that the hoax was primitive, but quite well-known and popular.
Witch of Salem
In the English city of Salem, in the 17th century, there was a real panic. And it all started with the fact that the daughter and niece of the clergyman Samuel Parria were stricken with a mysterious illness.
This disease made the girls emit hysterical cries and convulsions. As you know, at that time people fanatically believed in demonism, because of which the case received a great response. As a result of the witch hunt, there were sensational trials, and about 20 women died. Another 200 people were imprisoned. Later it turned out that all this was the usual collusion of girls who simply imitated the "symptoms" of their relatives.
An interesting fact is that similar things were also practiced in Russia. Women who behaved as if possessed by demons were called hysterics. After the issuance of the royal decree, in order to whip the hysterics with rods and deprive them of their rights in every possible way, those who like to shout and behave inappropriately significantly decreased. Here it must be said that certain psychiatric diseases with such symptoms do exist. But these are units. And history clearly demonstrates that the hysteria that appeared in one place quickly gained momentum. However, it was worth threatening the hysterics with a flogging, as immediately their “diseases” disappeared, and they instantly recovered. This is such a mental phenomenon.
Giant from Cardiff
One of the most famous and well-known hoaxes is a stone sculpture presented as the remains of a three-meter giant. The author of this hoax was the atheist George Halu, who argued with the clergyman about the giants living in ancient times. Thanks to his invention, George was able to make a decent fortune. Many people wanted to look at the "artifact" for only 50 cents.
History is a rather vast subject and it is impossible to fully study it, especially in the smallest detail.
Sometimes these seemingly insignificant details can be the most interesting part of it.
Here are some interesting facts from history that will not be covered in class.
1. Albert Einstein could have been president. In 1952 he was offered the post of the second President of Israel, but he refused.
2. Kim Jong Il was a good composer and throughout his life the Korean leader composed 6 operas.
3. The Leaning Tower of Pisa has always been leaning. In 1173, a team building the Leaning Tower of Pisa noticed that the base was warped. Construction was halted for almost 100 years, but the structure was never straight.
4. Arabic numerals were not invented by Arabs, but by Indian mathematicians.
5. Before the invention of alarm clocks, there was a profession that consisted of waking other people up in the morning. So, for example, a person had to shoot dried peas at other people's windows to wake them up for work. 
6. Grigory Rasputin survived many assassination attempts in one day. They tried to poison him, shoot him and stab him, but he managed to survive. In the end, Rasputin died in a cold river.
7. The shortest war in history lasted less than an hour. The Anglo-Zanzibar War lasted 38 minutes.
8. The longest war in history took place between the Netherlands and the Scilly archipelago. The war lasted 335 years from 1651 to 1989 and suffered no casualties.
People, stories and facts
9. This amazing species, known as the "Majestic Argentine Bird", whose wingspan reached 7 meters, is the largest flying bird in history. She lived about 6 million years ago in the open plains of Argentina and in the Andes. The bird is a relative of modern vultures and storks, and its feathers reached the size of a samurai sword.
10. Using sonar, the researchers found two strange pyramids at a depth of 1.8 km. Scientists have determined that they are made of a kind of thick glass and reach enormous sizes (larger than the pyramids of Cheops in Egypt).
11. These two men with the same name were sentenced to the same prison and look very similar. However, they have never met, are not related, and are the reason why fingerprints began to be used in the judicial system.
12. Footbinding is an ancient Chinese tradition where girls tied their toes to their feet. The idea was that the smaller the foot, the more beautiful and feminine the girl was considered.
13. The mummies of Guanajuato are considered the strangest and most frightening mummies. Their twisted faces make one believe that they were buried alive.
14. Heroin was once used as a substitute for morphine and was used to relieve coughs in children. 
15. Joseph Stalin may have been the inventor of Photoshop. After the death or disappearance of some people, photos with him were edited.
16. Recent DNA tests have confirmed that the parents of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen were brother and sister. This explains many of his illnesses and defects.
17. The Icelandic Parliament is considered to be the oldest functioning parliament in the world. It was founded in 930.
Unexplained and mysterious facts of history
18. For many years, miners in South Africa have dug up mysterious balls about 2.5 cm in diameter with three parallel furrows. The stone from which they are made belongs to the Precambrian period, that is, their age is about 2.8 billion years.
19. It is believed that Catholic saints do not decay. The oldest of the "non-decaying" is Caecilia of Rome, who was martyred in 177 AD. Her body remains virtually the same as it was 1,700 years ago when it was discovered.
20. Encryption from Chaborough in the UK is one of the mysteries that have not yet been solved. If you look closely, you can see the inscription in the form of letters on the monument: DOUOSVAVVM. No one knows who carved this inscription, but many believe it is the key to finding the Holy Grail.
Prospects for making a profit - it was believed that at a speed of 60 km / h, passengers would suffocate.
In 1992, a group of Australians set themselves the goal of winning the national lottery jackpot at all costs. They invested $5 million in lottery tickets ($1 per ticket) to cover almost every possible combination and won $27 million.
II
One nun really needed a ladder, and she had no one to turn to. The pious woman began to earnestly pray to the patron saint of carpenters, Saint Joseph. Soon a man appeared on the doorstep, who offered his services and in a couple of months made a beautiful strong spiral staircase. When the work was completed, the man simply disappeared without receiving any payment or gratitude, and all attempts to find him were unsuccessful. It is curious that the staircase is made without any props, without a single nail, and at the same time makes a 360-degree turn. 
III
Elephants rape and kill rhinos. In the Pilanesberg National Park (South Africa) alone, 63 such cases have been reported. 
IV
In 1995, the New York magazine Newsweek published an article "Why the Web Can Never Become Nirvana" mocking the future of the Internet. The author of the article ridiculed the idea that someday people will get the news, buy airline tickets and study online. This article can still be read on the publication's website. 
V
There is a territory between Egypt and Sudan that is not claimed by any state. It is called Bir Tawil and is a quadrangle with an area of about 2000 kilometers. In theory, this territory should now belong to Egypt. However, in 1958, Egypt demanded that Sudan return to the 1899 borders and transfer the Halayib Triangle, refusing Bir Tawil in return. Sudan refused. So Bir Tawil turned out to be the only "no man's land" outside of Antarctica. 
VI
In 1730, the French pirate Olivier Levasseur was sentenced to the gallows. Just before the execution, he unexpectedly threw a note with a cryptogram into the crowd, shouting: “Find my treasures if you can!” The treasure has not yet been found. 
VII
During the excavation of an ancient Roman temple in London's Southwark, a jar of ointment was discovered, which is at least 2000 years old. The substance retained its structure, it even left fairly clear fingerprints. 
VIII
The largest robbery in Japan took place in 1968. One day, a bank car carrying a large amount of money was stopped by a policeman on a motorcycle. He said that according to his information, a bomb was planted in the car and ordered everyone to get out. He then climbed inside "to defuse the explosive device." Suddenly, the car filled with smoke and the bank employees who were escorting the valuable cargo fled in a panic. And the “policeman” calmly left. During this heist (crime scene pictured below), 300 million yen was stolen and remains unsolved to this day. 
IX
Most of the borders of the Middle East were set by a couple of European aristocrats in 1916. The Frenchman François Georges-Picot and the Englishman Mark Sykes developed the so-called "Sykes-Picot Agreement", which demarcated the spheres of interest of Great Britain, France, Russia and Italy in the Middle East after the First World War. 
X
In 1967, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared without a trace. Went for a swim with friends in the bay and vanished. He could not drown, as he was an excellent swimmer, there were no sharks in those places, and the cheerful prime minister had no reason to commit suicide. Holt's body was never found. This disappearance has entered Australian folklore. The expression "make Harold Holt" means to the locals to disappear suddenly and mysteriously. 
XI
In May 2013, an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to New York was forced to make an emergency landing to expel a Whitney Houston fan who had driven passengers and crew to despair. The woman, without stopping with a good obscenity, yelled the famous hit “I Will Always love you” and flatly refused to shut up. She sang even when the police took her out of the salon:
History is a sphere of conjectures, hypotheses and conjectures. However, if you know some facts of the past, you can avoid mistakes in the future!
1. In Napoleon's army, soldiers could address generals as "you".
2. In Russia, grasshoppers were called dragonflies.
3. Punishment with rods was abolished in Russia only in 1903.
4. The "Hundred Years War" lasted 116 years.
5. What we call the Caribbean Crisis, the Americans call the Cuban Crisis, and the Cubans themselves call the October Crisis.
6. The shortest war in history was the war between Great Britain and Zanzibar on August 27, 1896. It lasted exactly 38 minutes.
7. The first atomic bomb dropped on Japan was on a plane called the Enola Gay. The second - on the plane Bock's Car
8. Under Peter I, a special department was created in Russia to receive petitions and complaints, which was called ... racketmaking.
9. On June 4, 1888, the New York State Congress passed a bill abolishing the hanging. The reason for this "humane" act was the introduction of a new method of the death penalty - the electric chair.
10. According to an agreement between the engineer Gustave Eiffel and the city authorities of Paris, in 1909 the Eiffel Tower was to be dismantled (!) And sold for scrap (!)
11. The Spanish Inquisition persecuted many groups of the population, but more than other Cathars, Marranos and Moriscos. The Cathars are followers of the Albigensian heresy, the Marranos are baptized Jews, and the Moriscos are baptized Muslims.
12. The first Japanese who came to Russia was Denbei, the son of a merchant from Osaka. His ship was nailed to the shores of Kamchatka in 1695. In 1701 he reached Moscow. Peter I appointed him to teach Japanese to several teenagers.
13. Only in 1947 in England was the post of a person who had to fire a cannon at the entrance to England Napoleon Bonaparte (!) Was abolished.
14. Guy de Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Gounod, Lecomte de Lisle and many other cultural figures signed the famous protest against ... "the mutilation of Paris by the Eiffel Tower."
15. When the famous German physicist Albert Einstein died, his last words went with him. The nurse next to him did not understand a word of German.
16. In the Middle Ages, students were forbidden to carry knives, swords and pistols and appear on the street after 21:00, because ... this posed a great danger to the townspeople.
17. On the tombstone of the monument to Suvorov, it is written simply: "Here lies Suvorov."
18. Between the two world wars, more than 40 different governments changed in France.
19. For the last 13 centuries, the imperial throne in Japan has been occupied by the same dynasty.
20. One of the American aircraft in Vietnam hit itself with a fired missile.
21. The mad Roman emperor Caligula once decided to declare war on the God of the Seas - Poseidon, after which he ordered his soldiers to randomly throw their spears into the water. By the way, from the Roman "Caligula" means "little shoe."
22. Abdul Kassim Ismail - the great vizier of Persia (10th century) was always near his library. If he went somewhere, the library "followed" him. 117 thousand book volumes were transported by four hundred camels. Moreover, books (i.e. camels) were arranged in alphabetical order.
23. Nothing is impossible now. If you want to buy a car in Guryevsk - please, if you want - in another city. But the fact remains, it needs to be registered and get license plates. So, the Berlin businessman Rudolf Herzog attached the very first car number to his car. It happened in 1901. There were only three characters on his number - IA1 (IA are the initials of his young wife Johanna Anker, and the unit means that she is his first and only).
24. At the end of the evening prayer on the ships of the Russian Imperial Fleet, the officer on duty commanded "Cover yourself!", which meant putting on headgear, and at the same time the prayer end signal was given. Such a prayer usually lasted 15 minutes.
25. In 1914, the German colonies were inhabited by 12 million people, and the British - almost 400 million.
26. In the entire history of temperature registration in Russia, the coldest winter was the winter of 1740.
27. In the modern army, the rank of cornet corresponds to an ensign, and the rank of lieutenant corresponds to a lieutenant.
28. The Thai national anthem was written in 1902 by the Russian (!) composer Pyotr Shchurovsky.
29. Until 1703, Chistye Prudy in Moscow was called ... Filthy Ponds. 30. The first book printed in England was devoted to ... chess.
31. The population of the world in 5000 BC. was 5 million people.
32. In ancient China, people committed suicide by eating a pound of salt.
33. A list of gifts to Stalin in honor of his seventieth birthday was published in Soviet newspapers from December 1949 to March 1953.
34. Nicholas I gave his officers the choice between a guardhouse and listening to Glinka's operas as punishment.
35. Above the entrance to the Lyceum of Aristotle was the inscription: "The entrance here is open to anyone who wishes to dispel the delusions of Plato."
36. The third decree after the “Decree on Peace” and the “Decree on Land” issued by the Bolsheviks was the “Decree on Spelling”.
37. During the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on August 24, 79, in addition to the well-known city of Pompeii, the cities of Herculaneum and Stabiae also perished.
38. Fascist Germany - the "Third Reich", the Hohenzoller Empire (1870-1918) - the "Second Reich", the Holy Roman Empire - the "First Reich".
39. In the Roman army, soldiers lived in tents of 10 people. At the head of each tent was an elder, who was called ... dean.
40. A tightly tightened corset and a large number of bracelets on the hands in England during the reign of the Tudors were considered a sign of virginity.
41. FBI agents did not acquire the right to bear arms until 1934, 26 years after the founding of the FBI.
42. Until the Second World War in Japan, any touch to the emperor was considered blasphemy.
43. On February 16, 1568, the Spanish Inquisition pronounced a death sentence on all (!) inhabitants of the Netherlands. 44. In 1911, in China, braids were recognized as a sign of feudalism and therefore their wearing was prohibited.
45. The first party card of the CPSU belonged to Lenin, the second to Brezhnev (the third to Suslov, and the fourth to Kosygin).
46. The American Physical Education League, the first nudist organization in the United States, was founded on December 4, 1929.
47. In 213 BC. Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huangdi ordered to burn all the books available in the country.
48. In Madagascar, in 1610, King Ralambo created the state of Imerin, which means "as far as the eye can see."
49. The first Russian saints were Boris and Gleb, canonized in 1072.
50. One of the punishments for criminals in ancient India was ... mutilation of the ears.
51. Of the 266 people who occupied the papal throne, 33 died a violent death.
52. In Russia, the original was a stick used to beat a witness, seeking the truth.
53. In normal weather, the Romans wore a tunic, and when the cold came, several tunics.
54. In ancient Rome, a group of slaves belonging to one person was called ... a surname.
55. The Roman emperor Nero married a man - one of his slaves named Skorus.
56. Until 1361, in England, legal proceedings were conducted exclusively in French.
57. Having accepted the surrender, the Soviet Union did not sign peace with Germany, that is, it remained at war with Germany. The war with Germany was ended on January 21, 1955 by the adoption of a corresponding decision by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Nevertheless, May 9 is considered Victory Day - the day the Act of Unconditional Surrender of Germany was signed.
58. The eruption of the Mexican volcano Paricutin lasted 9 years (from 1943 to 1952). During this time, the cone of the volcano rose to 2774 meters.
59. To date, archaeologists have discovered on the territory associated with ancient Troy, traces of nine fortress-settlements that existed in different eras.
