1 One bear, two tripods and four men legging it for their lives. This went viral – then was promptly debunked. It was actually taken on a film location scout in Colorado four years ago and Photoshopped with a stock shot of a bear then shared on Facebook to spook their friends.
2 Is this woman saving a magician from a watery death? Nope. In fact, it’s the climax of a burlesque beef in New Orleans in the 1940s. Evangeline the Oyster Girl (the axe-wielder) was so upset about being upstaged by Divena the Aqua Tease (the underwater stripteaser) that she ran on stage and smashed the tank to smithereens. Water flooded the Bourbon Street club and Evangeline was arrested. She was fined $10 in court the next day – and the whole thing emerged as a publicity stunt.
3 That is not Marie Curie. Look at the 90s school photo backdrop; look how modern her dress is. It’s an actor, Susan Marie Frontczak, playing Curie in a play to bring science to the masses. But the image has actually been used by Togo, Mali and Zambia for official Curie postage stamps.
4 Is this India during Diwali as seen from space? Course not. It’s spliced from multiple shots that show population growth, with years of data overlaid until it dazzles.
5 Could this dweeby tourist really be Vladimir Putin lining up to shake hands with Ronald Reagan in the 80s? This shot sparked a bizarre conspiracy theory about a plot to humiliate the US president on his first state visit to Moscow (Putin was a KGB agent at the time). Russian officials vehemently denied it.
