#5. The Brontosaurus
Here's a fun game: Look up
"dinosaurs" on Google Images.
Now look up stills from The Land
Before Time. OK, now look at
dinosaur coloring books. Toys.
Garanimals outfits. Bed sheets.
Bandaids from the pediatrician's
office. Tattoos. Fantasia. Oh, we
forgot to tell you to count up
how many brontosauruses you
saw. Trust us when we say
"dozens."
Some of whom died tragically.
We've got terrible, terrible news
for you: The brontosaurus as you
know it never existed. We're so
sorry.
The Reality:
Here's what happened: Back in
the 1870s there was a massive
rush to find and assemble
dinosaur bones. The first person
to find a new dinosaur fossil
would get to name it, after all,
and who wants to miss their
chance to find history's first
Orgasmosaurus? There were two
bone hunters in particular who
had a kind of Sosa/McGwire
thing going on, minus the juicing
(we assume). In 1877, Othniel C.
Marsh found the skeleton of a
leaf-eating, long-necked, long-
tailed dinosaur. He was just
missing the head, so he
substituted a different dinosaur's
head to complete the picture. He
named his find "apatosaurus" --
Greek for "deceptive lizard" --
apparently implying that the lying
bastard had intentionally
fossilized itself with the wrong
head.
"In a few million years, this is
gonna be hilarious."
Meanwhile, Marsh's fellow
paleontologist Edward Cope was
making his own discoveries. But
instead of encouraging one
another with a gentle but
friendly rivalry, the two used
spies and thugs to sabotage
each other. When Marsh found
another long-necked specimen
two years later, he was so
paranoid that Cope would get to
it first that he hurried up and
named it "brontosaurus." This
one had more bones and actually
got mounted, but not in a sexual
way, in the Yale Peabody Museum
of Natural History.
What Marsh didn't understand
was that he hadn't found a new
species at all -- he had found
another apatosaurus, just one
with the correct head (it also had
extra pelvic vertebrae, but that
was because it was younger
than the specimen the last guy
had found). So there never was a
separate dinosaur called
brontosaurus: It was just a
screwup by a paleontologist.
Even stranger, scientists figured
this out as early as 1903, but the
"brontosaurus" made it to a
museum first, so we've been
calling it that ever since.
Paleontologists weren't as
diligent back then, but they were
way more heavily armed.
#4. The Hanging Gardens of
Babylon
Getty
On the list of the Seven Wonders
of the Ancient World
you have things like the Pyramids
at Giza, which are still around,
and the massive Lighthouse of
Alexandria, which is long gone.
But then you have the Hanging
Gardens of Babylon, which
apparently never existed at all.
Ah, the ancient lynx-and-wine
orgies that could have been.
If you're not familiar with the
Hanging Gardens or why they
were a big deal, just imagine if a
section of Central Park was 80
feet above ground. We're not just
talking about the riding paths
and urine-soaked vagrants, but
every tree you can imagine,
flower beds, and statues -- all of
it up in the air, supported by
stone columns.
The story goes that, deep in the
deserts of what is now Iraq, King
Nebuchadnezzar II's wife was
homesick for the lush foliage of
her homeland, so Neb
commissioned an elaborate
terraced pleasure garden for her
benefit. And while, say, the
pyramids were just a one-time
deal, the Hanging Gardens would
have been a sprawling, ongoing
project requiring engineering
knowledge that surpassed
everything else at the time --
you're trying to keep water
flowing to all of these tiers of
suspended foliage in the middle
of the freaking desert.
"Sand can eat our Mesopotamian
dicks."
It's hard to overstate how
impressive an achievement it
was. Or would have been, had it
been true.
The Reality:
There are no records of the
Hanging Gardens having existed
at Babylon. Experts today believe
that the myth of the Hanging
Gardens was perpetuated by
soldiers returning to Greece from
Babylon. They told exaggerated
tales of the things they saw --
Babylon did have some sweet
buildings, and the land was more
fertile back then -- and in turn
the ancient historians made
those descriptions even more
fanciful, until we had a Wonder
of the Ancient World on our
hands.
"Yeah, this shit'll never do. Needs
way more plants.
But surely there must have been
something there for the ancients
to embellish, right? Well, a tablet
was found in the Assyrian city of
Nineveh that has a depiction of a
garden, which has one
Assyriologist raising the
possibility that Babylon's gardens
were actually an exaggerated,
overhyped version of something
that existed elsewhere, maybe.
By the way, the tablet looks like
this:
We've said it before, and we'll say
it again: People could not draw
worth a shit back then.

#3. The First "End of the World"
Scare
Let's give credit where credit is
due. Maybe we spent the turn of
the millennium freaking out over
our computers and hoarding
bottled water and canned goods
and mechanical can openers, but
at least we didn't go nuts like
some people. After all, as the
news media tells us, these
millennial freakouts happen
every thousand years. You may
have heard during the Y2K panic
that back in the year 999, the
Christian faithful were so sure
that Jesus was returning that
they prayed obsessively, forgave
debts, gave all their possessions
away, pardoned criminals, and
stopped tending their fields.
Some even flocked to Jerusalem
in anticipation of the return of
Christ
.
With all this hype, we'll be lucky if
it isn't a bigger disappointment
than the Star Wars prequels.
So while a few crazies today
obsessively prepare for the
apocalypse, we're not exactly
shutting everything down in a
blind panic as a society. Not like
those dipshits back then.
The Reality:
European Christians were too
busy with the day-to-day
business of not starving to death
to get caught up in an
apocalypse-prepping panic. For
one thing, they could barely
agree on which year it was, so
it's kind of hard to get worked
up over the next round number
on the calendar when you
thought the fatal day had already
passed a few years ago. For
another, these people were
always anticipating the return of
Christ. It was kind of their thing,
ever since John scribbled down
some incoherent ramblings
about horsemen of the
apocalypse and a LovePeddler of
Babylon.
His motivation is lost to time.
Which is why historians have
been dismissing the notion of
widespread panic at the last turn
of the millennium for more than
a hundred years now. No one
went crazy. No one flocked to
Jerusalem. People just went
about their ordinary business of
being dirty and hungry, maybe
with an occasional look to the
sky, just in case.
What's really interesting is how
the rumors of collective millennial
shit-losing got started in the first
place. The stories actually began
in 1605 when a Catholic cardinal
mentioned the panic in his
history of the church. Protestants
later used the stories as evidence
of how unenlightened and
superstitious Catholics were.
Finally, a politically motivated
19th century French historian
embellished the accounts as a
final indictment against the
church. By the time he was done
with the first millennial scare, a
retroactive mass hysteria had
seized all of religious Europe. We
almost wish we could be here in
a thousand years to see what
our ancestors have to say about
our handling of the year 2000.
Getty
"It's probably a good thing the
robo-syphilis outbreak of 2016
killed most of 'em."

#2. The House of Tudor
Even if you're not the world's
biggest Anglophile, you probably
know about Henry VIII, aka "That
king who kept beheading his
wives because they wouldn't
give him a son."
"Kings don't pay no alimony."
The story there is that his dad
was Henry Tudor when he took
over the throne of England, and
in order for the Tudor name to
continue, Henry VIII needed boys,
not girls, to keep the lineage
alive. Henry's wife Catherine
delivered a daughter and some
not-living boys before her womb
dried out altogether, so Hank
moved heaven and hell to divorce
her for a new wife, causing a
massive upheaval at the time.
Anything to keep the Tudor
monarchy going, right?
Eventually, Henry's daughter
Queen Elizabeth I died childless
and the Stuart era began. Too
bad for the legendary family
known as the Tudors. The whole
drama makes for a pretty good
soap opera.
Everyone in this picture looks so
fancy, you can almost forget that
their lives were one long chain of
chronic diarrhea.
The Reality:
You know how no one who lived
in the Dark Ages actually thought
of themselves as living through
the Dark Ages? The phrase was
invented by later historians as a
nice way to break up that bit of
history from the years before
and the years after. It's the same
thing with the idea of a " House
of Tudor" or "Tudor England."
For one thing, the first Tudor
king wasn't too crazy about
throwing his last name around
because he came from humble
origins. Apparently, "Tudor" was
like the "Jim Bob" of the day.
After scouring contemporary
documents, one historian found
one single lonely mention of the
word "Tudor," and that was in a
poem written after Elizabeth's
death.
Getty
She was mistakenly killed by a
vampire hunter.
The point being, subjects living
under Elizabeth's or Mary's or
Henry's reign wouldn't have
been nearly as concerned about
whose house was named what --
they were probably more
concerned about whether or not
Bloody Mary was going to
execute them for Protestantism.
In fact, when Elizabeth died, the
country was relieved that there
was a quick succession that
didn't involve an invasion or
revolt
. If they were lamenting the end
of the Tudor era, they didn't let it
show. Unfortunately, all of this
means that we're not going to
get to take reruns of The Tudors
very seriously anymore.
#1. The Female Pope
If you've never heard the story of
"Pope Joan," we feel sorry for
you, because it's awesome. For
instance, if your initial reaction to
hearing the name was "I didn't
know they let women be pope at
all," well, that's the point -- they
don't. This is the story of a
woman who pulled off the con of
a millennium.
Despite the handicap of a right
arm that started well below her
waistline.
In the ninth century, a German
woman named Joan started
studying at a monastery, claiming
to be a man. Covered from head
to toe in junk-hiding monk
clothes like everyone else, no one
suspected that she wasn't a
dude. Then she made her way to
Rome, where she became a
secretary to a cardinal. And when
the pope died, according to one
12th century chronicler, Joan
was deemed the best person for
the job.
For two whole years she pulled
off the charade, until the day
came when she gave birth in the
street during a procession.
To a toddler, apparently.
The story gets fuzzy from there.
While still trailing afterbirth, Joan
died or was stoned by the crowd
or was dragged from the tail of a
horse, a worthy punishment for
being a religious leader with a
vagina.
For centuries after, papal
processions avoided the street
where Joan plopped out a Pope
Jr. A statue was erected to
commemorate the story. Her face
showed up on ancient Roman
tarot cards and statues in
cathedrals. For years, each papal
candidate was forced to sit on
the sedes stercoraria, a special
throne with a hole cut in the
seat ... so cardinals could reach
up underneath to confirm there
were balls a-danglin'. Like this:
Popes and the Papacy
"While I'm down here, how
about the ol' stroke-and-wiggle?"
Someone even made a whole
movie about Pope Joan's story,
shockingly not starring Tilda
Swindon or Glenn Close.
Aaaaand, it's bullshit.
The Reality:
Unfortunately, Pope Joan's story
has some birth-canal-sized plot
holes. Like the year of Pope
Joan's coronation, 855. That
can't be right, because Leo IV
was immediately replaced by
Benedict III in 855. Unless she
was actually John VIII, who
reigned from 872 until 882,
except that fully penised guy had
his own backstory and sad
demise. There really are no empty
spots in the church's history
where a theoretical mystery pope
could have stepped in.
Penn Provenance
Or squatted down.
The most damaging evidence
against Pope Joan is the fact that
there are no contemporary
references or relics
that support her existence -- no
commissioned paintings of a
suspiciously feminine pope or
papal panties or anything.
As for the reason the church
avoided that street where she
allegedly gave birth, it was
because it was too narrow for
the pope's entourage. And the
statue erected on the spot had
actually always been there -- it
was a pagan goddess later
attributed to Pope Joan. And as
for the part everyone wishes
were true -- that every pope has
to go through a laborious
scrotum-groping ritual -- we
have to disappoint you once
again. It was a conclusion people
came to when they saw the hole
in the sedes stercoraria, which is
really a ceremonial toilet.
Franco Origlia / Getty
His Holy Taco Poops are too good
for regular porcelain.
Maybe that's the real story here --
that somebody who at one time
was considered an expert looked
at a chair with a hole in it and
instead of thinking "toilet"
thought "This must be the pope's
nut-grabbing chair." We've got to
say, we kind of like how that
guy's mind worked.

Your topic should have been: "5 things popular in Western History that never existed."
I'll give you one truly very popular History figure that never existed:
Prince Arthur, Merlin, Camelot and the Whole Idea Of Magic During The Dark Ages: I won't talk much, but know that Prince Arthur never existed, Merlin too. Camelot too is tied to the foregoing controversy. And there was no Magic during the time called the "Dark Ages", hence Merlin had no magic. Infact the Dark Ages was a time characterised by feudalism, religion and superstitution. I rest my case here...