Important Things From History Everyone Pictures Incorrectly

1. The pyramids of Giza were originally white and shiny.

The Perception:

The Pyramids are marvels of ancient engineering. We admire their massive, layered golden bricks but forget we’re seeing only ruins. Freshly built, they looked entirely different—far more impressive than they appear today.

The Reality:

The Pyramids today are just the exposed layers of their structural base. Ancient Egyptians strongly valued afterlife rituals, adorning tombs with gold, utensils, and gemstones for comfort beyond this world. Pharaohs’ tombs, encased within the Pyramids, displayed extreme opulence, aiming to be the most dazzling structures.

Originally, smooth white limestone covered the staggered yellow limestone bricks, creating the illusion of a solid pyramid. Builders polished the Tura limestone casing to reflect sunlight, achieving astonishing precision—often within a hundredth of an inch.

Each Tura limestone block measured nearly five feet per side, weighing about 15 metric tons. Some original stones reached 40 metric tons. Workers cut and polished them at the final location to ensure perfect alignment with the Pyramid’s face.

How did they position so many massive stones so precisely? No one knows for sure. But with their gleaming limestone surfaces, the Pyramids likely shone like jewels, visible from miles away.

Why We Picture it Wrong:

Surviving nearly 5,000 years, the Pyramids have inspired amazement and folklore. Throughout history, artists depicted them in varying states of wear, reflecting what they saw. These structures endured sun, sandstorms, earthquakes, and human interference. What remains today are only worn-down remnants of their original form.

Many outer casing stones were removed and repurposed for nearby buildings. Bahri Sultan An-Nasir Nasir-ad-Din al-Hasan used some to construct mosques in Cairo, a few of which still stand. Worse, treasure hunters in the 19th and 20th centuries looted much of the Pyramids using pickaxes, knives, and even explosives.

Look closely at the base of the Pyramid of Khufu, and you might spot a few original casing stones still in place.

source–> todayifoundout

2. Jesus Looked Nothing Like the Paintings

His light eyes, sharp features, and long hair—straight out of a modern shampoo ad—make Jesus Christ instantly recognizable. More than half the world sees him this way.

It isn’t a modern-day phenomenon either, with Renaissance era paintings (like this illustration from Room of The Segnatura at the Vatican or Good Shepherd) exhibit :

The Reality:

As you can probably guess, Yeshua of Nazareth, the man Christians think of as “Jesus Christ” today, actually looked a lot more Middle Eastern seeing as he was… well… actually Middle Eastern.

Most scholastic texts agree that Jesus was like a ‘common man’, a fellow ‘brother’ to the mankind. Sure, he was the divine one, the chosen one, but he was also someone who led by example. And to be that, he needed to be ‘human’ and not look like someone concocted with magical potions of good looks and Caucasian skin color (something which was pretty synonymous with supposed racial supremacy for the Western world).

 

 

That’s just an artist rendering based on what the average person of the time and place Jesus actually came from looked like, but you get the idea.

Why We Picture it Wrong:

For Jesus’ image as a white man, blame Renaissance artists like Da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo. True to their artistic style, they painted him as a handsome Greek or Italian figure—easily recognizable to European Christians.

During the Crusades, the Church found it convenient not to remind people they were praying to a small, brown Jewish man.

Similarly, African and Arab Christians depicted Jesus with dark skin and curly hair, while artists in the Far East and Hispanic regions gave him local features. These versions helped believers relate to him more easily.

3. Velociraptors Had Feathers

The Perception:

If your idea of killer dinosaurs comes from old encyclopedia drawings—or the Spielberg classic Jurassic Park—you probably picture Velociraptors as terrifying, scaly predators that looked something like this.

The Reality:

They had feathers.

Almost—but not quite like birds. Velociraptors were smarter than many of their contemporaries, but what truly added to their eerie appeal (as if giant, intelligent lizards weren’t scary enough!) was their feathered bodies.

Since birds evolved from certain reptile species, this isn’t surprising. However, Velociraptors couldn’t fly. Their feathers acted more like a fuzzy outer layer, likely used for intimidation or mating displays.

Why We Picture it Wrong:

The truth is, we didn’t know until paleontologists at the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum made a groundbreaking discovery in 1998. They found evidence of quills in Raptors, proving they had feathers. This revelation came nearly half a decade after Spielberg shaped our childhood memories. Just saying…

4. Greek Statues Were Brightly Painted

The Perception:

Quick, what do you picture in your head when we say, “Ancient Greece”? If you’re like most people, you picture a muscular man with a weapon, dressed in a white robe and without pupils in his eyes.

The artists from Renaissance era carved many memorable statues from marbles, trying to mimic the ‘Greek’ style.

The Reality:

Archaeologists however, found enough proof in ancient scriptures, some even including illustrations of painting statues, to remain interested in knowing how widely colors were used in ancient Greek era. Modern laser-dating techniques have shown that the ornate marble structures were just the base models, which were then painted with bright primary colors by the Greek artists.

Why We Picture it Wrong:

Over time, the vibrant paint chipped away due to heat, humidity, and erosion. Later civilizations admired the simplicity of white marble, associating it with strength and purity rather than colorful decoration.

Seeing these sculptures in bare marble created a lasting impression of Greek statues as stark and powerful. Some modern thinkers even deemed it fitting that the founders of Western civilization celebrated art in white. This idea of pristine marble statues became deeply rooted in popular culture.

5. The Statue of Liberty is a modern version of the Colossus of Rhodes.

The Perception:

With a broken shackle at her feet, the famous Statue of Liberty is recognized worldwide. Often seen as a gift from France to America, it is widely believed to symbolize freedom from colonial oppression, especially with the American independence date inscribed on the pedestal.

The Reality:

The actual history of the statue is rather more than that. The statue of ‘Libertas’ or the Roman Goddess of Freedom, is actually modeled after the ancient Colossus of Rhodes.

The similarities don’t end there. The Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, stood guard over the Mandraki Harbor in Rhodes, Greece (depicted below).

The similarity doesn’t end there. Athe Colossus of Rhodes, one of the ‘ Seven Wonders of the Ancient World,’   oversaw the Mandraki Harbor in the city of Rhodes (Greece).

 

The Statue of Liberty was designed and built to the scale and design of the original Colossus of Rhodes (at least as it was believed to have looked at the time Liberty was constructed).

Left: The Colossus of Rhodes depicted in 1880; Right: Statue of Liberty

History of the statue

Beginning in 292 BC, Charles of Lindos and his team took nearly twelve years to complete the 110-foot statue, which stood atop a 50-foot pedestal. The base was carved from white marble and joined to the statue at the ankles. This statue was dedicated to the Greek God of the Sun, Helios (or Apollo), whose blessings were believed to have secured Rhodes’ victory over Cyprus in 305 BC.

The equipment from the defeated enemy was sold to fund the statue’s construction. It stood for over 50 years, earning fame among scholars and visitors from distant lands, until a devastating earthquake in 226 BC destroyed it. The dedication inscription on the statue, discovered later, spoke of a “statue leading to Olympus.”

While the Statue of Liberty is often associated with liberty and freedom, it is mostly viewed as a modern metaphor for America as the “land of opportunity” for immigrants. However, given its design inspiration from the Colossus of Rhodes, a renowned symbol of freedom in the ancient world, the Statue of Liberty owes much to the architectural and symbolic legacy of its predecessor.

Fotovolos Apollon. Ancient Corinth Museum.

Similar facial expression, seven beams of light in exact position with those in the Statue of Liberty,  same dimensions…. Just a coincidence?

 

6. Nobody Dressed How You Think They Dressed

The Perception:

Given that much of historical data without illustrations is often speculative, we tend to imagine skilled fighters a certain way. Say the word “Ninja,” and you likely picture them in all-black uniforms, looking something like this:

Talk about Vikings and immediately a guy with a mighty mo’and horned headgear rides into our thought:

The Reality:

The art of being an assassin and skilled fighter lies in deception. It’s more about practical advantages on the battlefield than wearing attention-grabbing outfits. Ninja assassins were trained to track and eliminate targets, so they dressed like ordinary people—merchants, monks, shopkeepers, or farmers. If you were hunting down your prey, you wouldn’t want a “uniform” that screamed Ninja from a mile away, would you?

Even when ninjas moved in the dark, they often wore dark blue instead of black, as black would create a clear silhouette against the night.

As for the Viking helmet—would you really want to wear something on the battlefield that enemies can easily grab? Ever wonder why armed forces personnel around the world sport crew cuts instead of flowing hair like they’re from Lord of the Rings? Exactly. Viking helmets were designed to be practical, looking like any other protective headgear, not something to be grabbed in combat.

Why We Picture it Wrong:

The all-black Ninja outfit actually originated in theaters. During the Edo era, stagehands and prompters wore all-black to blend into the background. Directors decided that actors playing ninjas should wear the same attire to represent their stealth and ability to sneak undetected before leaping into action. This idea carried over into modern movie stereotypes.

As for Vikings, the “horned” warrior image was an exaggeration created by Roman and Greek historians about the northern invaders. Artists later picked up on this idea, illustrating it in a way that cemented the misconception.

7. Columbus didn’t Discover the Round Earth

Well, even if he did, he was nearly 2,000 years late.

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There is documented proof that both Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570 – c. 495 BC) and Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) understood that the Earth was round. Aristotle even provided physical evidence, such as the lunar eclipse and the Earth’s curvature, which sailors had long observed when watching a ship disappear over the horizon.

Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276 BC – 195 BC), a Greek mathematician, geographer, and astronomer, is credited with accurately determining the Earth’s size, the tilt of its axis, and its distance from the sun, all backed by scientific calculations.

Why We Picture it Wrong:

So where did the false story about Europe laughing at Columbus and fearing his crew would “fall off the Earth” come from? The myth of Europeans believing in a “Flat Earth” is mostly propaganda, likely fueled by Washington Irving’s 1828 biography of Columbus, which is highly revisionist.

In reality, any educated European in Columbus’s time knew the Earth was round. The issue was that Columbus vastly underestimated the Earth’s circumference. He believed Europe was much wider than it actually was and disagreed with Ptolemy’s estimate of Asia’s size.

In the 18th century, America, still a relatively new country, was searching for national heroes. Free from English colonial influence, they distanced themselves from English figures of the past. Since Marco Polo had already explored Asia, they instead celebrated Columbus—a flawed mathematician working for Spain—as their hero.

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source–> cracked

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