Accliamed Imposter's

I never really gave much thought as to who may have taken credit for something they never achieved or invented. I guess you can say one of the reasons why is because of the confusion I was taught whether Christopher Columbus ever discovered America or former comedienne Phyllis Diller really had a husband named Killer or Geraldine Jones who was a fictional African American character, the most famous recurring persona of comedian Flip Wilson. Geraldine was played as a sassy liberated Southern woman who was coarsely flirty yet faithful to her (unseen) boyfriend "Killer".  

Me and Kyrie Irving (aka Uncle Drew truly believe the world is flat!).

During my research of this fantastic prompt in my written historical conversation with self.  I found numerous people in history to be noted imposters.

One of American history’s most persistent legends involves Betsy Ross, a Philadelphia seamstress who supposedly made the first American flag. As the story goes, in 1776 Ross was commissioned to sew the flag in which then featured a circle of 13 stars by a small committee that included The first president of the United States George Washington. Ross supposedly produced her famous flag a few days later and even changed the design to make the stars five-pointed rather than six-pointed. While versions of this story continue to be taught in American classrooms, most historians dismiss it as a tall tale. Newspapers from the time make no reference to Ross or her meeting of George Washington was never mentioned in her involvement in creating the flag. In fact, the Ross legend didn’t even make its first appearance until 1870, when her grandson, William Canby, related it to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. But outside of showing affidavits from family members, Canby never produced any convincing evidence to support his claim. It’s true that Betsy Ross made American flags in the late 1770s, but the tale of her making the very first flag is likely untrue.

Side Note: Betsy Ross Comes Out to a Psychic! “First I saw the colonial flag, then I saw this woman in old fashioned clothes, with a petticoat, then I saw the Betsy Ross house and I knew it was her,” psychic medium Susan Lander explained. The author of Conversations with History: Inspiration, Reflections and Advice from History Making and Celebrites on the Other Side, Lander is also a native of Philadelphia and says she had often visited the Betsy Ross house as a child. When Lander asked Ross why she contacted her on the other side, the American icon psychic nut announced: “I am gay and I fly the flag of pride and liberty for all of us.” "Betsy blew me away," Lander said. "I didn't see that coming. She dropped that statement down in 10 minutes. She had it all ready. She said it over and over: ‘I am gay, I am gay, I am gay.’ It was amazing."

George Washington Carver was a Black American scientist and inventor famous for creating alternative food products and farming methods. But while Carver’s many innovations earned him comparisons to Leonardo da Vinci, the “erroneous belief”, that he invented peanut butter has stuck in the popular imagination of poor hungry people. Carver was indeed a peanut pioneer; he is reputed to have found over 300 uses for the legume (A legume is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae) or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as dry grain, the seed is called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock forage and silage and as soil-enhancing green manure), during his career but he wasn’t the first person to create peanut butter.

In truth, evidence of peanut-based pastes can be found in South America as far back as 950 B.C.

Meanwhile, modern peanut butter substances were first patented in 1884 by Marcellus Edson who referred to it as “peanut-candy” and later by John Harvey Kellogg, (who resided in a Battle Creek Sanitarium, was America’s most popular medical spa of the early 20th century, may be best known as the birthplace of the corn flake. But some might say that the biggest flake to come out of Battle Creek was the man in charge: John Harvey Kellogg, the dapper doctor who typically dressed in a white suit and white shoes, often with a white cockatoo perched on his shoulder), who unveiled a process for creating peanut butter in 1895. While he eventually became its most famous advocate, Carver did not begin his own experiments on the peanut until 1903.

Side Note: In truth I always thought Skippy invented peanut butter in 1932.

Lady Godiva was best known for defiantly riding naked through the streets of medieval Coventry to protest the crippling taxes her husband had levied on the townspeople. According to legend, at some point in the 11th century Godiva pressured her powerful husband, Leofric, to reduce the people’s debts. When he mockingly responded that he would only do so when she rode naked on horseback through the town, Godiva called his bluff and galloped into the history books. While this story has become the stuff of legend a tailor who spied on Godiva even inspired the phrase “peeping Tom”, (Peeping Tom is a 1960 British psychological horror-thriller film directed by Michael Powell, written by Leo Marks, and starring Carl Boehm, Anna Massey and Moira Shearer. The film revolves around a serial killer who murders women while using a portable film camera to record their dying expressions of terror. Its title derives from the slang expression 'Peeping Tom', which describes a voyeur),.scholars agree that the nude horseback ride probably never happened. Godiva certainly existed, but most historians mention her as simply the wife of an influential nobleman. In fact, the complete Godiva myth didn’t even appear until the 13th century, 200 years after the ride supposedly occurred. The story was later picked up by notable writers like Alfred Lord Tennyson, whose 1842 poem “Godiva” helped cement the tall tale as a historical fact.

Side Note: Singer Erykah Badu Window Seat Video Uncut had started talk because it channeled the JFK Assassination in Dallas. But what was left out of the discussion was that Erykah Badu herself strips naked and is shot in the video.

Abner Doubleday was a Civil War general and abolitionist who famously ordered the first Union shots in defense of Fort Sumter. But while he had a distinguished military career, Doubleday is more commonly remembered for inventing baseball, even though he did no such thing. The story dates back to 1905, when former National League president A.G. Mills headed a commission to investigate the origins of America’s favorite pastime. Based on a letter from a man named Abner Graves, the commission incorrectly concluded that Doubleday had invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. In truth, Doubleday was attending West Point in 1839 and had never claimed any involvement with baseball. Nevertheless, the myth persisted for years, and the Baseball Hall of Fame was even established in Cooperstown on the sport’s mistaken centennial in 1939.

Side Note: As it turns out, the real history of baseball is a little more complicated than the Doubleday legend. References to games resembling baseball in the United States date back to the 18th century. Its most direct ancestors appear to be two English games: rounders (a children’s game brought to New England by the earliest colonists) and cricket. 

Contrary to popular belief, the French doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotine did not directly invent the feared decapitation machine that bears his name. Ironically, Guillotine was a noted opponent of capital punishment. Desperate to put a stop to the brutal ax beheadings and hangings used in state executions, in 1789 he proposed to the French National Assembly that a more humane and painless method be developed. With Guillotine acting in a managerial role, the plans for what became the guillotine were then drafted by a surgeon named Antoine Louis, who modeled the device on similar machines found in Scotland and Italy. After a German named Tobias Schmidt built the first prototype, it was put into regular use by the French government. While Guillotine had neither designed nor built the apparatus, it still eventually became known much to his disgust as the guillotine. Another popular claim states that Guillotine was later beheaded by the guillotine during the French Revolution, but this too is a myth.

Side Note: A magician's guillotine is always a fake one with a pair of interchangeable blades. The first one is sharp and the other blunt. First he performs a demo cut using vegetables, Porgy the pigs head, fruits etc. At that time he'll be using the sharp blade and whenever he performs with a human he'll be using the blunt ones.

Lastly, I discovered that when she was informed that her people were starving from lack of bread, the 18th-century French queen Marie-Antoinette is said to have quipped, “Then let them eat cake.” This famous line has traditionally served to underscore the monarch’s ignorance of her subjects’ plight, yet there is almost no evidence that Marie-Antoinette ever uttered those words. The phrase first appeared in reference to a “great princess” in the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s book “Confessions,” which was written in early 1766. If Rousseau were indeed referring to Marie-Antoinette, it would mean she was only 10 years old and not yet a queen when she said it. Scholars think Rousseau either coined the phrase or that it was a common insult used to criticize various aristocratic figures in the 18th century. So if “let them eat cake” was ever directly attributed to Marie-Antoinette in her lifetime, it was most likely part of a deliberate attempt by her political opponents to discredit her.

Side Note: Rodney Dangerfield said I drink too much. The last time I gave a urine sample it had an olive in it.

What’s so insane is these are the historical facts that we were taught to believe. Those imposters who were  given credit for many things for no fault of their own.