Believe it or not, rumors and gossip weren’t invented by today’s pop stars as a means to capture even more of our attention and, most importantly, money. No, dubious stories about notable people have been circulating since there were notable people to spread (probably) untrue stories about. It’s all part of being a recognizable figure.
Sometimes, fame will bring you the best table at a fancy restaurant and other times it will bring about rumors that you were Jack the Ripper. I’m sure it all evens out in the end. Take a look at these strange legends below!
1.) Genghis Khan had his men decapitate the entire population of a city (1,748,000 people) in a single hour.
2.) Copernicus invented bread and butter.
3.) Filipino revolutionary Jose Rizal was Jack the Ripper.
4.) Wife of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, Empress Theodora, was a prostitute.
5.) Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip got his second chance to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand after stopping at a cafe to eat a sandwich.
6.) Marie Antoinette’s hair turned white overnight.
7.) Adolf Hitler, the man who killed millions of Jewish people during the Holocaust, was Jewish himself.
8.) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill had his life saved twice by the man who discovered penicillin, Alexander Flemming.
9.) Queen Elizabeth II bribed an official before England’s 1966 World Cup victory with a golden whistle
10.) Woodrow Wilson murdered his first wife so he could marry his “true love.”
(via Listverse)
I never envisioned Woodrow Wilson as hopeless, murderous romantic. People always have to gossip about something, I guess!
