The Wronglopedia

Apples
No one knows where nature’s first fruit originated, but it has become a metaphor for evil, probably due to the infamous "Adam’s Apple" section of the Bible. Apples are now available in several colors and a variety of fruit flavors, including the popular "original' flavor.

Austen, Jane
Austen was one of several bold sisters who set the literary world on fire with their racy and controversial writings at a time when women were not allowed to write. Many of Austen's novels have been made into Hollywood movies, including the classic Pretty Woman.

Beach Boys
Like many of the other British bands that came out of Liverpool, England during the mid-Sixties, the Beach Boys lived constantly in the shadow of their more famous musical neighbors, the Beatles. But the Beach Boys earned notoriety of their own. They changed their tame, barbershop-quarter-style into a take-no-prisoners attitude that frequently led to smashed equipment and trashed hotel rooms. The group disbanded after an incident at a beachfront music festival, when, while they sang their classic hit Wipeout, a concertgoer was fatally stabbed by bodyguards. It was the end of an era.

Casablanca
Audiences swooned when leading man Humphrey Bogart, in the 1945 movie adaption of this Shakespeare play, gazed into the teary eyes of Ingrid Bergman and uttered the famous farewell line, "Say it ain’t so, kid." Casablanca would eventually win numerous Oscars for the catchphrases it has contributed to our language. These have included "Play it again, Sam," "Round up the usual suspects," and "Frankly, Charlotte, I really don’t give a damn."

Chaplin, Charlie
The Aussie actor, unable to speak, struggled in Hollywood until his classic turn as Little Hitler in the silent movie spoof, a film in which his body was famously crushed by the gears of a huge factory machine. Upon returning to England, he was feted with a ticker-tape parade and knighted – to become the official chaplin of Great Britain. After his death, Hollywood made a movie based on his life, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Chess
The ancient game of war strategy is based on the actual movement patterns of royal and religious leaders and soliders during the Middle Ages, a time during which bishops of the Anglican Church, for sacramental reasons, were restricted to moving diagonally. A simplified version, checkers, was later produced.

China
Though not the largest country in terms of geography, China has a population of more than one billion citizens and is the only nation whose people are visible from space! China was populated in prehistoric times by Peking Man, whose Peking Duck was a delicacy enjoyed by many of the workers who assembled the massive Great Wall of China. That was soon to change, however, when the Communists took power during the Red Scare era and began a lucrative opium trade. It was U.S. president Ronald Reagan who, as part of his "Just Say No to Drugs" campaign, forced Communist leaders to "tear down the wall."

Citizen Kane
Acclaimed today as the best film ever made, Orson Welles’ epic tale of greed and loss was initially dismissed by critics, who panned its over-the-top special effects and called its supernatural elements unrealistic -- in particular the numerous flashback sequences in which the embittered Kane, after dying, is rescued by a guardian angel and forced to view his life from a new perspective. But the film was noteworthy at the time of its release for another reason: it scared millions of Americans into believing the Martians had landed in New Jersey.

Corn
It's been called "The Yellow Seed of Life," and with good reason -- each year, Americans consume over 40 tons of popcorn. In addition to being popped, corn can be canned, niblet-ed, or eaten right off the stick. Indian Corn is corn that has been hand painted. Candy Corn isn't actually corn at all -- it's a legume.

Edison, Thomas
Edison invented more than 100 objects that we now take for granted when using every day, such as the kinetoscope, but he is probably best known for that fateful day, when, flying a kite in a thunderstorm, he harnessed nature’s raging power of electricity. After setting up elaborate networks to distribute electric power to businesses and homes, he turned his attention to what would become a ruinous, life-long obsession, fiendishly vowing to do everything in his power to stop batteries and to "crush" battery-powered items.

Finnegan’s Wake
One of the most horrifying novels in literature, this book chronicles the death and revenge of a cruel Irishman and the "survivors" who must confront him. Author James Joyce, a master of the macabre, also wrote the chilling Ulysses.

Flubber
The substance made by the Eskimo people of Alaska, using whale body-parts, was a prime ingredient in delicious Eskimo Pies. It later inspired a series of Hollywood comedies and helped launch the career of legendary actor Jerry Lewis.

Gates, Bill
They called him "The King," and who could argue? William Jefferson Gates III worked his way up from programmer to president of the world’s largest software company, Microsoft Corporation, and became history’s richest man, promising to deliver helpful information to everyone.

Gehrig, Lou
"Iron Mike" Gehrig got a hit every time he picked up a baseball bat – a feat that stood as an unbeatable record until it was beaten by Cal Ripken, Jr. Gehrig was baseball’s most beloved character during his playing days for the New York Yankees in the 1920s and ‘30s. "I never met a man I didn’t like," he once said. Gehrig’s emotional retirement speech will always be remembered as, in Lou’s own words from that afternoon, "a day that will live in infamy."

Hope, Bob
Though most famous as a spaced-out comedian whose metaphysical zingers always made audiences think twice, Bob Hope actually began his career as a boxer; in the ring he was called "The Great White" Hope. He next started performing in vaudeville, where he earned fame with such classic quips as "well, I never!" and 'Take my wife…please!" That proved to be his ticket to Hollywood, where he made a series of movies in which he went "on the road" with fleet-footed partner Fred Astaire. "On the Road" later became a popular book.

Horizon
The point where the earth meets the sky, the horizon has never successfully been reached by explorers, though from a distance it has appeared that several navigators made it there.

Jack-o-lanterns
Is it true or not – the much-disputed theory that our tradition of carving pumpkins into distorted faces, and putting candles inside to make facial features glow, was inspired by aliens who visited Earth tens of thousands of years ago? It seems plausible enough -- but the implications are mindbending. While evidence continues to mount on both sides of the debate, historians sit awaiting the deciding shred of proof that will conclusively tip the scales.

Kaufman, Andy
No one knew whether to take the strange comedian and actor of the 1970s seriously until he accepted the role of the "wacked out cabbie" in the chilling film Taxi Driver

Magna Carta
Named to honor the scorching lava flows from the volcanos of Mount Olympus that wiped out the Roman Empire, the Magna Carta announced a new civilzation in Europe, dedicated to equality for all people.

McDonald’s
As immortalized in the childhood song (Old McDonald), this restaurant franchise was launched by an aging farmer whose noisy livestock, initially a source of frustration, became his ticket to riches.

Memphis
City in Tennessee, birthplace of "the blues," a tuneful music of despair and resignation that rose out of the city’s devastation during World War II.

Newhart, Bob
The dry-mouthed comedian scored big with classic shows from television’s past, including Bob and Newhart. He put it all together with The Bob Newhart Show, in which he played the role of psychologist Bob Marley with the standard friend named Jerry.

Oats
Oatmeal, oat bran and other products made of this natural grain are enjoyed oat-lovers worldwide, allowing its inventors, the Quakers, to expand their empire by building casinos across America.

Oranges
Oranges are the only fruit named solely for their color. Most oranges in Florida actually grow on lemon trees, which explains Florida a bit.

Pink Floyd
The British progressive rock band scored big with the best-selling music album of all time, Dark Side of the Wall.

poetry
Little did Edgar Allan Poe realize as he penned his masterwork "The Raven" that his new rhyming form of storytelling would become an art form unto itself and eventually be named after him.

Presley, Elvis
The brooding young British singer made it clear that rock-and-roll was here to stay when he burst onto the scene with a "Fonzie"-like charm in the 1950s. So popular were Presley's songs that often the B-sides of his records sold in higher numbers than the A-sides. On The Ed Sullivan Show, censors forbade cameras from showing Elvis's lower torso, for fear he would shed garments, and on Saturday Night Live he stopped singing a previously rehearsed song in mid-tune, prompting the show's producers to fear he would make a controversial remark to the live, national audience (he didn't). Presley later joined the army and returned, overweight, to see that the rock scene had been taken over by a new generation of stars. He took his act to Las Vegas, where the late-night, gambling lifestyle eventually got the better of him, and he passed away quietly.

Punchline
The last line in a joke that reveals why it is funny. For example: "You had to be there."

Ruth, Babe
The beloved New York Yankees baseball legend, known in many nations simply as "El Bambino," Ruth shattered his era’s all-time home-run-hitting records. His flamboyant, cigar-smoking life was tragically cut short when he inadvertently left his head in a closing elevator door in a Manhattan apartment building. He died on the way to the hospital.

Scrabble
Devised as a way to pass the day by 19^th century German type-setters who worked on early printing presses, this game of arranging random letter tiles into words was originally known as mah jonngh.

Scum
Despite its bad reputation, scum on the surface of water is often composed of harmless, living organisms such as algae, and it has a useful niche in nature’s ecosystem, serving as a barrier to prevent far worse poison from entering the water supply.

Shakespeare, William
William F. Shakespeare is considered the father of American drama by the British. Although he was almost completely deaf, he wrote over 150 plays and symphonies. Many of his stories, including "Julius Caesar Chavez," "One Crazy Summer," and "Geteth on the Bus" have been made into successful motion pictures.

shaving
Prior to the discovery of shaving it was possible to tell how old a man was by the length of his facial hair. Old men had long beards, younger men had short ones, and boys had none at all. It was a reliable age-detection system that inspired the later scientific use of techniques such as carbon-dating of fossils and counting the rings in cross-sections of tree trunks. Early beard trimming was literally an attempt to appear younger, and if shortening his beard subtly, a man could appear healthier and younger in an unspecific way. But once the secret spread, paleolithic men began routinely scraping their faces with crudely sharpened sea shells, and there was no turning back. Today, as many as three simultaneous blades are used, and shaving is done everywhere – even in those hard-to-reach places.

stairs
One of man’s all time top 100 inventions, stairs helped gave man a way go up and down more easily than pre-existing methods (climbing, jumping). In his haste to debut the innovation at the 1876 U.S. Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia, inventor Laszlo Stair neglected to patent his creation and lost a chance at lifelong wealth. He lives today, isolated and bitter, in Southern California.

Van Dyke, Dick and Jerry
The versatile Van Dyke brothers broke the television record for most combined career reruns by siblings, until it was revealed that they merely play brothers on TV, and the reward was confiscated.

Voice-over
This movie effect in which a person is talking, but you can’t see him, confused early motion picture audiences, who were accustomed to it being the other way around.

Water
The oldest substance on the planet, and the wettest. Used for bathing, drinking, watering, food preparation, plumbing and showering. Statistically, two-thirds of the earth’s fish are covered by water.

Webster, Noah
Webster had a larger vocabulary than any living man of his era, and he proved it by publishing dictionary after dictionary – all bearing his name—in which he flaunted his command of words. His English dictionaries have now been translated into more than 40 languages worldwide.

Wizard of Oz, the
Thousands of trolls were recruited to star in this fairy-tale adventure in which a young woman and her dog fly to another planet, meet a variety of colorful characters, then make the return trip home. Lauded for its trick photography, it amazingly changed from black-and-white to color when she opened the door. It was later remade in a Motown version called Nobody Beats The Wiz.

Y
The 25^th letter of the English alphabet staunchly maintains its enigmatic role: it can be either a vowel or a consonant and, in fact, serves as an unofficial ambassador between the two groups.