Things that are widely believed, but not true

[Jarkko]

The notion that the Mongol invasions of Poland and Hungary in 1241 were stopped by the death of Ogedei Khan doesn't make sense if you consider logistics-it would've taken months for news of the Khan's death to get that far. So the actual reason was probably a tight resistance from the natives, stormy weather, supply lines drying out, and/or just getting bored to tears of the campaign.

So it was sort of like Operation Barbarossa except 700 years earlier. Except for the boredom part, anyway.

Which reminds me of one concerning WW2. It drives Russians crazy when people from outside of Russia say that the Soviets won their campaign against the Nazis strictly because of the winter. (There are a couple other WW2 opinions that are held particularly by Americans that rile them up, but I'll focus on this one. ) There were absolutely other reasons, but probably the one that my Russian teacher emphasized the most is that the Soviets were quite literally fighting for their own survival due to Nazi Germany's ethnoracial superiority complex concerning Slavs. This only increased Soviet tenacity and they fought for every square inch even if their tactics were sometimes suspect (not talking about atrocities here btw - yes there were some from the Soviets as well, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole). Said my Russian teacher, who was in the Soviet Army several decades later, "the winter was hard for us to deal with as well." They may be more used to it, yes, but a fuel freeze is a fuel freeze. Oil is oil, gas is gas. The physics of these things don't change by nationality, all else equal!  

Another one, which, thankfully, at least Canadian schools emphasize, was that Hitler made a major strategic blunder in sending his army to Stalingrad when the Caucasian oil fields could have been reached even while bypassing it. He mistakenly believed that taking Stalingrad would break the Russian populace because it had Stalin's name attached to it. While a major city, the Nazis would have been better off ignoring it and splitting the gap between it and Rostov-na-Donu. Bada-bing, more oil! But no, Stalingrad it was, and thanks to scorched-earth tactics and just a strong desire to see the motherland survive, not even for Stalin's sake, the Soviets won out and started slowly driving the Nazis back. The failure to secure this fuel source would come back to haunt them on multiple fronts. (Especially since they were prevented from getting to Arabia, having been turned around at the Battles of El Alamein.)

[Opal Fruit]

So...he was shot in the face? Anyway...

No, there is nothing to say that he was shot in the face with an arrow at all.

[JHG]

The idea that the Rhodesian Defense Force was this all elite military that won every battle but lost the war is...kinda true at best? They actually didn't win any truly decisive battles and resorted to diplomacy precisely because they knew their cause was lost. This idea was made up by rebel organizations during the war to make sure they took the enemy seriously and when they won the war and took over the new Zimbabwean government, they continued to shill the Rhodesian Defense Force to make their victory look more impressive.

[JHG]

No, no, no, NO! The idea that Allosaurus(along with other allosaurids and Carnotaurus) used a "hatchet bite" to hunt is just the worst. It was based on faulty evidence that seriously undersold the bite force of Allosaurus and slightly exaggerated the gape(ability to open the animal's mouth.) It wouldn't make sense physically either as the lower jaw would get in the way. Sure it might work on a smaller animal like a Camptosaurus or Dryosaurus but in such a situation, the Allosaurus could just overwhelm it with superior size and biting bone would shed teeth. So flesh tearing is a more plausible hunting method.

[JHG]

No, Giganotosaurus is not the biggest carnivore the world has ever seen. Even restricting this to just terrestrial animals, this premise is at best oversimplified. Sure, early estimates did make it heavier than Tyrannosaurus and other theropods but the methodology was dubious and based on a skull proven to be shorter than thought although still longer than any other theropod. Newer estimates have Giganotosaurus more on par with other theropods and less bulky than tyrannosaurids so...long live the KING! Of course, by length and height Spinosaurus beats the rest but it was probably not the heaviest and likely was more of a fisher than a terrestrial macropredator.
What WAS Alan Grant thinking? He's interacted with Tyrannosaurus before!