My favourite is the story that there was mass panic over a radio broadcast of War of the Worlds where everyone thought a real alien invasion was happening. I heard this story as a kid and really thought this was a cruel prank played by the radio station.
In reality, they made it clear at the beginning of the broadcast, and twice during, that it was fictional. Not that many people were listening and most of the people who were, were aware it wasn’t real. A few idiots freaked out and it somehow turned into a story of mass panic. It was propaganda by newspapers to discredit radio.
Actually in WW2, it was the German army that was ultra reliant on horses. Not as cavalry, but for transportation.
The truly mechanized side was the Allies. Canada alone made more trucks than all the Axis powers combined.
Also:
That the French are terrible at war. The French are actually insanely good at war, which is why like half the words of the military lexicon are French. They just got hoodwinked a couple of times.
Also also: The Spartans were invincible and all about freedom. No they weren’t on either count. They actually regularly got their asses handed to them and the reason they needed a huge army was to prevent internal revolt from their slave class. They just got that one pass and milked it for all it was worth and EVEN THEN they had a LOT of help from folks like the 700 Thespians.