Five Things You Know About Napoleon Bonaparte That are Simply Wrong
Don’t believe the myths
If I ask you to name the most famous leader of the past 500 years, who comes to mind first? Your answer will likely depend on where you are from; Americans might name George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, someone from England might reply with King Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth I, and a Canadian might say Wayne Gretzky. People from any nation might go a more negative route and name someone infamous like Adolph Hitler or Josef Stalin. And surely some (whether French or not) will name the man who for 15 years was both the most famous and most feared person in the Western world: Napoleon Bonaparte.
Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power ten years after the French Revolution and dominated European and world affairs from 1799 to 1815. His tactics during the Napoleonic Wars are studied by military commanders and military historians to this day (you’re clearly no slouch if they name wars after you). He was both beloved and hated in his lifetime and after. Given all of this, it’s no surprise that myths grew up around him almost immediately. Here are some of the best known that simply aren’t true.
1. Napoleon was short. This is easily the most enduring of all the myths about Napoleon; to this day, a short person with an overinflated ego is said to have a…
