25 Facts Learned in School That Are No Longer True

Napoleon Bonaparte wasn’t that short

He was simply around average height for his time — approximately 5 feet 7 inches— but cartoons published in England portrayed him as short, according to a 2016 column by Tristin Hopper in the Canadian National Post. When he died, the people present said he was measuring 5 foot 2 inches, but this was because of the difference between the French and British units of measurement. For years, however, he had been portrayed as a tiny, petty, childish person in British cartoons.

You have more than five senses

The big five— touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing— are our most fundamental senses, but we’re getting information through a wealth of other mechanisms. Proprioception tells us where our bodies are in space, allowing us to maintain balance according to Live Science. Kinesthetic receptors detect stretching in muscles and tendons, which helps us keep track of our different parts of the body. We do have receptors that keep track of how much oxygen passes through our arteries.