Mistaken Beliefs

Are you strong enough to face how mistaken many of your most cherished beliefs are?

1. Marie Antionette did not say "Let them eat cake." The phrase was attributed to her by those in opposition to Louis XVI, but had actually been used by other prominent figures long before.

2. Charles Lindbergh was not the first person to fly nonstop across the Atlantic. He was the 92nd, although he was the first to do it alone.

3. The centipede doesn't have a hundred legs; it usually has 21 or 30, though some have more than 100. And the millipede certainly doesn't have a thousand legs; very few have more than 200.

4. "A red flag to a bull" is meaningless&md;because bulls are colorblind.

5. The Emperor Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned. Fiddles had not been invented, and at the time of the fire he was 35 miles away.

6. An ostrich never buries its head in the sand. It only looks that way when it lowers its head in fear, to feed itself, or to cover its eggs for protection.