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TOADSTOOLS AND MUSHROOMS:
Belief:   Toadstools and Mushrooms are different species.

Fact: Although, often thought to be different species, toadstools and mushrooms are actually both varieties of fungi. In the past both terms were often used without distinction, and, although some species of mushrooms are foul tasting or noxious, (e.g. the Destroying Angel mushroom), they were generally considered safer to eat while toadstools were commonly considered to be poisonous.

Fungi, have long featured in superstitious folklore. To rural people, who usually had a reasonable understanding of normal plant behaviour, their sudden appearance, often overnight, from unsown ground, their short life-cycle and often sudden disappearance seemed strange. Worse still, the fact they often formed circular patterns, suggested some form of sinister intelligence, and so they were often considered to be the magical manifestations of witches, fairies, evil spirits, lightning strikes, shooting stars or eldritch vapours. Known variously as Witches' Rings or Fairy Rings, these “magic circles” were greatly feared since, it was believed, anyone entering them could be struck blind, lamed, “pixilated,”  or disappear forever into the kingdom of the fairies.

In ancient folklore toads were widely regarded as loathsome and dangerous; their blood was said to be highly toxic and their body parts to possess strange powers. There is certainly some basis for such beliefs since certain species do possess poisonous or hallucinogenic properties and, it seems likely that, in the past, some individuals could have been affected by these compounds.

The 14th century English term “toadstool” is derived from very old superstitious beliefs that flies were attracted to certain types of mushrooms. Known as Fliegenpilz, (flies mushroom), they were said to be popular with toads which sat upon them to catch flies with their tongues. Eventually, it came to be believed that the “toxic” properties of the toads were absorbed by the mushrooms, making them highly toxic. In time, such mushrooms were given another German name, Krötenstuhl, literally toadstools.


VEHICLE ASSEMBLY LINE:
Belief:  The assembly line was invented by Henry Ford:

Fact: The basic principle behind the continuous linear assembly process, (assembly-line), is the division of labour into a series of specific and sequential tasks assembling smaller individual components into a larger finished product. Using interchangeable parts, this type of process was used in China as early as the 4th century BCE to mass produce crossbows. Later, centuries before the European Industrial Revolution, Chinese state run monopolies mass-produced metal agricultural implements, china, armour and weapons.

Circa 1104 the Venice Arsenal replaced an earlier group of shipyards with a new system where ships, in various stages of construction, were moved down a canal, and, as they progressed, workshops located along the way fitted them with standardized components. By the 16th century the shipyard employed some 16,000 workers and could produce one ship every day.

An early example of a linear and continuous assembly process in Britain was the Portsmouth Block Mills. Built circa 1802 it used 22 different types of tools to make individual components for the pulley blocks so essential for the rigging on ships of that era. By 1853 an assembly-line process had been established in Suffolk by Richard Garrett & Sons to manufacture portable steam engines. The main component, the boiler; was moved through the “Long Shop” stopping at various stages to have additional parts lowered from above and attached; some 15,000 of these machines were manufactured in this way.

The first modern vehicle assembly-line for the mass-production of motor vehicles was created and patented by Ransom Olds in 1901 for the Olds Motor Vehicle Company. A stationary assembly line system, the vehicles were pushed by hand along a set of tracks, with workers adding components at the different stages. The next major advancement was that of a moving assembly line, and, although attributed to Henry Ford, it was the combined work of a number of individuals.

It was inspired by a “disassembly line” system in the Swift & Company slaughterhouse in Chicago, where workers stood at fixed locations, performing specific tasks, as the meat reached them on a conveyor system. A Ford employee, William “Pa” Klann, who had viewed the Chicago meatworks advised P. E. Martin, the Ford Production Executive of the advantages of the assembly line system. Having in 1906 visited the Sears mail order facility, which had a similar automated system, in 1909 Henry Ford was interested enough in the idea to organize a team consisting of Martin, Factory Superintendant Charles E. Sorensen, Martin’s assistant, Clarence W. Avery, Draftsman, Harold Wills, Toolmaker Charles Ebender, and Engineer Jôzsef Galamb to research and develop a mobile assembly line system. They experimented with different systems and finally, by 1913, their separate ideas were combined to form a single moving assembly line which was used to build Model T Fords.

Thus Ford was not the actual inventor of the this type of assembly line; as Sorensen later wrote In his memoirs, “Henry Ford is generally regarded as the father of mass production. He was not. He was the sponsor of it.”


KING CANUTE:
Belief:    King Canute ordered the incoming tide to stop.

Fact: It is claimed that, on one occasion, Cnut Sweynsson, (Cnut the Great, or King Canute, 990-1035), king of Denmark, Norway and England, had his throne set down on the sea-shore and ordered the incoming tide to halt its progress before it reached his feet. As the incoming tide continued unabated it swept over his feet and the king leapt up and ran back from the waves, declaring, "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws."

However, it appears this story is complete fiction. A morality tale, to demonstrate to his flattering courtiers that even a king’s powers were limited, it was created by Henry of Huntingdon, a 12th century English historian.


LUDDITES:
Belief:   The Luddites took their name from Ned LUDD.

Fact: Although the origins of the Luddite movement is generally attributed to Ned Ludd, who, it is claimed, in a fit of rage in 1779, destroyed two knitting machines it appears that such an individual never actually existed. The origins of the claim are to be found in the 1811 book, History of Nottingham, by John Blackner. He refers to a story about a youth named Ludham who, told by his father, a framework-knitter, to "square his needles" in a fit of rage, took a hammer and destroyed the machines. It is claimed that news of the event spread amongst other angry workers and thereafter, whenever machines were deliberately sabotaged, people would jokingly say "Ned Ludd did it". A fictional character, over time, this imaginary individual came to be referred to as General, or King Ludd, who, it was claimed, like Robin Hood, lived in Sherwood Forest.


SABOTS:
Belief:   The word “sabotage” is derived from workers using sabots  to destroy machinery.

Fact: The word “sabotage” evolved from the 13th century French, sabot, (“a wooden shoe”), which, over time, came to mean “to walk noisily” and, in early usage to mess up, or do something clumsily or badly. The English word “sabotage” evolved as a term for industrial disputes where disgruntled sabot wearing workers used a variety of deliberate actions to disrupt production; however, the popular belief that these workers deliberately threw their sabots into machinery appears to be a complete myth.


TEA BAGS:
Belief:   Tea bags are a recent innovation;

Facts: In the early 19th century, various devices such as tea-eggs and tea-balls, (small perforated metal containers which could be filled with loose tea leaves), were popular means of infusing tea. The first tea bags, stitched mesh fabric bags known as “tea leaf holders” were produced in 1901 by Roberta C. Lawson and Mary Molaren of Milwaukee, and were similar to the current design.

In 1908, Thomas Sullivan, a New York tea and coffee importer, began production of hand sewn silk bags, containing loose tea leaves. Intended to allow customers to remove the leaves from the bags, many users found it easier to simply place the bags in teapots to brew the tea, then, after complaints from customers that the silk fabric was too fine to allow full infusion, he switched to a gauze fabric.


NAPOLEON:
Belief:  Napoleon Bonaparte was of short stature.

Facts: When spoken of, especially by his former enemies, Napoleon was often disparagingly described as being of “short stature,” a “little man,” etc. Despite these claims Napoleon was actually 168 cm. tall, (5’ 5”), at a time, (1800-1830), when the average height for a French male was 163.9 cm, (5’ 3”), German 167.8, (5’ 5”), and Englishmen, 170.7, (5’ 6”).


HUNDRED YEARS WAR:
Belief:  The Hundred Years' War lasted 100 years.

Facts:  A series of conflicts between the House of Plantagenet and the House of Lancaster in which five generations of kings fought for the right to rule the Kingdom of France, then, the largest kingdom in Western Europe. Lasting from 1337 to 1453, the conflict actually lasted for 116 years, the term Hundred Years War being a historigraphical periodisation.


QUEENSBURY RULES:
Belief:  The Queensbury Rules were formulated by the Marquis of Queensbury.

Facts:   A code of conduct for boxing, consisting of twelve rules, was originally drafted in London in 1865 by John Graham Chambers. These rules were first published by the Amateur Athletic Association of England in 1867 entitled, “The Queensbury rules for the sport of boxing.” They were given this name in honour of the sponsorship of John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, one of the founders of the association, a patron of sport, and a boxing enthusiast.


THE RIDE OF PAUL REVERE:
Belief:  Paul Revere rode from Lexington to Concord.

Facts: On the 18th April, 1775 William Dawes was sent out from Boston to warn the countryside that the British were coming. Paul Revere accompanied him as a second rider, then, along the way, they picked up Samuel Prescott. These three were stopped by a British Army patrol at a Lincoln roadblock and although Revere was detained, Dawes and Prescott managed to escape and continued to spread the warning. The following day forty or more riders rode out to warn the countryside that the British had landed and were marching towards Lexington. One of these riders, Israel Bissell, rode so hard his horse dropped dead under him. He took another horse and rode 300 miles in four days, without rest, to reach Philadelphia. Yet when Henry Longfellow came to write about the epic ride in 1860, unable to find words to rhyme with "Bissell" he used Paul Revere's name instead.


AMERINDIANS WERE SAVAGES:
Belief:   American Indians were all hunter gatherering non-agrarian nomads:

Fact: When the first Europeans arrived in North America they found many native tribes; with little evidence of what Europeans considered to be the basic requirements of civilization, they dismissed them as inferior savages. Despite these early assumptions, numerous ancient structures, some quite large, evidence of quite sophisticated native societies, have since been discovered between the Great lakes and the Gulf of Mexico; these include: -

•    Barrows: Dated circa 1,000 BCE, these were burial sites of the Adena people, who mainly inhabited the Ohio River Valley. These usually comprised small hillocks, covering rectangular tombs which contained individual bodies with personal tools and ornaments;

•    Animal shaped mounds: Burial mounds constructed by the Hopewell Indians possibly between 100 BCE and 200 A.D. Found throughout, Ohio and Illinois to Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri, these hillocks were generally much larger and more complex than those of the Adena;

•    Temple Mounds: Built by the Mississippians, the Native American civilization which flourished in the Midwestern, Eastern and South-western United States, from about 700 CE onwards, these platforms or temples were often the size of small hills, with steps, or ramps up the sides. Topped with wooden temples, or the homes of the priests or  members of the aristocracy, these mounds were effectively the equivalents of the stone pyramids of the Aztecs and the Maya; and, like those, their primary purpose was for ongoing religious ceremonies and were rarely ever used for burial purposes.

Surrounding these central hillocks were various settlements, some of them large enough to be classified as cities; possibly the largest was Cahokia, which is estimated to have had an urban population between 20,000 and 50,000. Located on the Mississippi River across from the present city of St. Louis, Illinois; it comprised, one hundred flat topped mounds. Of these, Monk's Mound measured some 305 m. (1,000 feet) long, 213 m. (700 feet) wide and 30 m. (100 feet) high. It covered 5.7 hectares (14 acres); larger than the base of the Great Pyramid in Egypt, it comprised the largest earthwork in the world, and was built by the Mississippians.

As a group they developed rapidly around the 8th century; reaching their developmental peak in the 13th or 14th centuries, before declining and fading into complete obscurity. While they appear to have had a relatively advanced knowledge of astronomy, it appears they failed to appreciate the fragile ecology of the land, and, as their fields lost their fertility, and the forests were stripped of trees, their civilization declined. The surviving remnant of the Cahokians were seven Natchez tribes of Mississippi, and when Europeans first arrived they found them living in seven villages, each built around a single earth mound, with the entire complex built close to a much larger hillock, the Emerald Mound, more than 11 m. (35 feet) high.

Even before the Europeans' arrival their population was dwindling. The French settled peacefully next to the Natchez, but within six years of their arrival European diseases killed about a third of their population. Then, in 1729, after increasing French encroachment upon their land, warfare broke out resulting in most of the Natchez being massacred. The few survivors were assimilated by the Chickasaws, Creeks, Catawbas, and Cherokees, effectively ending the Natchez and the era of the mound builders.


THE FIRST ACTOR TO PLAY JAMES BOND:
Belief:   Sean Connery was the first actor to play the role of James Bond.

Fact: The first actor to play the role of James Bond was American actor Barry Nelson. This was in a one-hour TV adaptation of Casino Royale in 1954, eight years before Sean Connery appeared as Bond in Dr No. Considered to be a pilot for a television series, however, because at that time, Fleming’s novels were relatively unknown, the Bond character was played as an American agent named Jimmy. The Bond novels remained largely unknown in the U.S. until 1961, when President Kennedy listed From Russia With Love as being amongst his ten favourite books.