There are some things that, over the years, have become part of what I like to call ‘common memory’.

Common memory consists of “facts” and universally accepted “beliefs” that people just kind of know.

When confronted with the origin of these “facts”, you probably won’t be able to pinpoint the exact moment that you memorised them. Maybe it was something that you heard in passing, or read on the inside of a Chappies wrapper when you were a kid.

Still, most people are so convinced that they’re true that they’ll happily relay them at the first conceivable opportunity.

Business Insider compiled a list of nine “facts” that aren’t true, but are so widely accepted that they’ve become part of pop culture and common memory.

Prepare to become that person who disputes them at the first conceivable opportunity:

1. A small coin dropped from the top of a skyscraper will kill you.

Apparently, a coin “travelling at terminal velocity cannot penetrate concrete or asphalt”. If we take this into account, then a coin dropped off a building is not going to damage a person.

It won’t even pierce flesh, although it might sting a little…

2. You can see The Great Wall of China from space.

NASA confirms that The Great Wall of China, “frequently billed as the only man-made object visible from space”, can’t actually be seen from the final frontier.

Even though the supposed “fact” has been debunked, many textbooks haven’t been changed, so people still believe that it’s true.

3. Cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis.

It’s annoying, but it won’t cause arthritis.

Dr. Robert Klapper, an orthopaedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and co-director of their Joint Replacement Program, explained on the hospital’s site that there is no harm to cracking your knuckles. “The noise of cracking or popping in our joints is actually nitrogen bubbles bursting in our synovial fluid,” he wrote. “It does not lead to arthritis.”

Like I said, just annoying.

4. Van Gogh cut off his ear in a fit of madness for a woman.

This was a lie to cover up a bar fight.

But Hans Kaufmann, one of the authors of the book “Pakt des Schweigens” told ABC that he and some experts believe that to save Gauguin from prosecution, van Gogh and Gauguin lied to authorities after Gauguin attacked van Gogh with a fencing sword and swore to never talk about it again. This would account for the difference in stories.

Temperamental artists. Can’t take them anywhere.

5. It takes seven years for your body to digest a piece of chewing gum.

Chewing gum will pass right through you and leave your body within a couple of hours or days. The ingredients from gum can’t be digested at all, so they won’t stay in the body.

Don’t go swallowing large quantities of the stuff, though, or you’ll cause a blockage.

6. Walt Disney’s body is cryogenically frozen.

That’s some pretty crazy technology for 1966.

His biography states that after he died from lung cancer complications in 1966, his body was cremated in Glendale, California. Mental Floss reported that the rumor likely got started because the president of the Cryonics Society of California told the Los Angeles Times that Walt Disney Studios had inquired about the process.

In other words, Walt Disney is super dead.

7. On average, you swallow eight spiders a year in your sleep.

I was really happy to discover that this one is a lie.

“Spiders regard us much like they’d regard a big rock,” Bill Shear, former president of the American Arachnological Society told the site. If a sleeping person has their mouth open, they’re likely snoring, creating vibrations that warn spiders of danger and scare them off.

Spiders, generally, aren’t interested in humans.

8. When briefed on those suffering in her kingdom, Marie Antoinette replied ‘”Let them eat cake.”

There is no record of Queen Marie Antoinette of France ever having said these words.

The reality is that the phrase was probably associated with satirical drawings done at the time to make fun of the royal family.

9. Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death.

Nope. The truth is even worse.

“Nerve cells die within three to seven minutes” after death, proving that they stop growing. However, the skin around the hair and fingernails retracts after death, due to dehydration, making them appear longer. Funeral directors will apparently heavily moisturise the fingernails to prevent this sight.

Gross.

Now take these facts and go forth to self-righteously correct your friends and family.

You’re welcome.

[source:businessinsider]