Contrary to Popular Belief...

[Reverend Jim]

Cliven Bundy does not have the "ancestral rights," claimed because his family had worked the land since the 1870s, before the creation of the BLM. In fact, according to Clark County property records, his family purchased the land in 1948 from Raoul and Ruth Leavitt. The United States Bureau of Land Management was created in 1946.

[Ancient Dragon]

contrary to popular belief, the Earth is flat and the sun revolves around it. The Earth is also only 10,000 years old.

[Agilemind]

Contrary to popular belief, denying the existence of something does not make it cease to exist nor give you immunity to its effects.

[happygeek]

Contrary to popular belief, Mary Mary wasn't...

[Reverend Jim]

Contrary to popular belief, Napoleon was not short. He was actually slightly above average height for a Frenchman of that era. He is unjustly believed to be short because the French foot of that time was slightly longer than our modern foot. He was 5'2" using the old measurement but just shy of 5'7" in today's feet. Also, there were height requirements for his personal guard such that when seen with them in public he appeared short in comparison.

[ChrisHunter]

Contrary to popular belief, the notion that goldfish have a memory span of just a few seconds is false. It is much longer, counted in months.

... I guess I don't have the memory of a goldfish.

[mike_2000_17]

Contrary to popular belief, the debate between Christopher Columbus and his peers was not about whether the Earth was round or flat, they all agreed it was round, but they disagreed on the size of it and the size of the Eurasia. The consensus on both sizes of the Earth was pretty accurate to the real figures, and since they didn't know about the existence of America, they rightly figured that the trip across to Asia would be impossible. Imagine if there was no America, crossing the Altantic, and then, the Pacific in one trip, with no re-supply point, would be crazy, especially with the means of the time. Columbus used the wrong measurement units and thought the Earth was 75% smaller, and on top of that, he had re-calculated, very wrongly so, the size of Eurasia to be much larger than it really is. That's why he thought the trip was possible because it put the east coast of Asia just a bit east of the real american east coast, and it's also why he naturally assumed he had landed in India when he reached the Caribbeans, because with his calculations, that's almost exactly where he expected to be. This whole myth of "everyone believed the Earth was flat until Columbus proved otherwise" comes from a fictional biography by Washington Irving.

And on a related topic, contrary to popular belief, people stopped believing in a flat Earth a long time ago (except for a resurgence by some Christian fundamentalists in the US in the 19th century, for instance, this hilarious map of the Earth). The consensus by historians is roughly this: "with extraordinary few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat".

[Reverend Jim]

And of course, the Flat Earth Society (of which Canadian Author, Farley Mowat) was a member. The Flat Earth Society is to geography what Pastafarians are to religion.

[Reverend Jim]

Contrary to popular belief, captains of seagoing vessels have never had the legal authority to perform weddings.

[jwenting]

contrary to popular belief, most popular beliefs are wrong.

[Reverend Jim]

Contrary to popular belief, gun ownership in the US is actually declining. In the '70s, nearly half of all American households had a gun. Today it's closer to 34%.