Seven Misconceptions We Learn in School

Mice like cheese.
Mice enjoy food rich in sugar such as peanut butter and breakfast cereals. A mouse would prefer a candy bar to a hunk of cheddar.

Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.
Thomas Edison was the inventor of many things, but the light bulb was never one of them. He did develop a light bulb, but it was around the same time as Joseph Swan, who originally came up with idea.

Lemmings throw themselves over cliffs to commit suicide.
Lemmings are sometimes desperate for food and have been known to "jump off of a cliff," however, they aren't committing group suicide. The myth that lemmings commit mass suicide has floated around for years due to a number of factors. For example, in 1955, Disney Studio illustrator Carl Barks illustrated an Uncle Scrooge adventure comic with the title "The Lemming with the Locket." the comic depicts a massive number of lemmings jumping over Norwegian cliffs.

Humans evolved from apes.
For years, Darwin has been misquoted as saying humans evolved from apes, which is incorrect. Darwin theorized that gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans had a common ancestor. In 2005, the fossils of Nakalipithecus were found in Kenya and Ouranopithecus were found in Greece. The fossils provided molecular evidence suggesting gorillas, followed by chimpanzees, split off from the line leading to the humans. We didn't evolve from apes, we evolved from a common ancestor.

Columbus believed the Earth was flat.
For decades, students have been led to believe that Columbus thought the world was flat, when in fact, he wasn't sure how big the world was. He never believed that he would fall off the edge of the planet.

Vikings had helmets with horns.
During the time of the Vikings, they were buried with their helmets and their drinking horns. When they were dug up by the Victorians, they assumed that the helmets had horns.

Napoleon Bonaparte was short.
Napoleon was actually around 5 ft 7, which was completely average/normal for the time period in which he lived in.