20 Historical Figures You’ve Always Imagined Wrong

One of the most persistent myths in all of history is that Napoleon Bonaparte was a short man with an outsized ego, but the reality is far less dramatic. He stood about 1.68 m tall, which, although it may seem short by today’s standards, was exactly the average height for a Frenchman in the early 19th century. This confusion stems largely from a misunderstanding between the French and English systems of measurement, combined with British wartime propaganda, which did not hesitate to mock him.

Most people’s image of Cleopatra is shaped almost entirely by Elizabeth Taylor’s iconic portrayal of her in 1963, but ancient sources paint a very different picture. Historians such as Plutarch noted that her physical appearance was considered ordinary by the standards of her time, and that it was her intelligence, charisma, and linguistic skills that made her so fascinating. Coins minted during her reign depict a woman with a prominent nose and striking features—a far cry from the glamorous image that popular culture has perpetuated for decades.

When we picture Henry VIII, we probably think of that imposing and commanding figure in Hans Holbein’s famous portrait, but that version of the king did not exist for most of his reign. In his youth, Henry was considered one of the most handsome and physically impressive monarchs in Europe: he stood over 1.80 meters tall, had a muscular build, and was renowned as an outstanding jouster and tennis player. It was only in his later years, following an injury sustained during a tournament that virtually prevented him from exercising, that his physique changed so radically.

The powdery white appearance seen in portraits of George Washington is actually not a wig at all; he wore his own natural hair, powdered and styled according to the fashion of the time. What most people don’t know is that beneath all that white powder, Washington’s hair was a reddish-brown. His face was also heavily scarred by smallpox, a disease he had survived as a teenager—a detail that portrait artists of his time tended to downplay.

Hollywood has long cast tall, imposing actors to play Julius Caesar, portraying him as a physically imposing and robust figure, but contemporary accounts describe a very different man. Ancient sources depict him as a thin man of somewhat frail build, prone to epileptic seizures and increasingly bald—the latter of which, it seems, deeply embarrassed him. It is said that he was so self-conscious about his baldness that he used to comb what little hair he had left forward and was particularly insistent on his right to wear a laurel wreath, which conveniently concealed it.

Ramses II is one of the most famous pharaohs of ancient Egypt; he is typically depicted in gilded statues and reliefs, in keeping with the customary artistic conventions of Egyptian culture. However, analysis of his mummy has revealed that he likely had naturally red hair, preserved by the natron used during the mummification process. In ancient Egyptian culture, red hair was associated with the god Set, a detail that adds a completely unexpected dimension to how this powerful pharaoh may have been perceived during his lifetime.

Shakespeare’s Richard III is one of literature’s most memorable villains (hunchbacked, with a withered arm, limping through life and consumed by bitterness), but archaeological findings paint a more nuanced picture. When Richard III’s remains were discovered beneath a parking lot in Leicester in 2012, researchers confirmed that he did indeed suffer from scoliosis of the spine, although this condition was far less severe and visually dramatic than the Bard’s description suggested. His skeleton showed no signs of a withered arm or noticeable limp, meaning that the physical monstrosity Shakespeare used to symbolize moral corruption was largely a theatrical invention.

Although he is one of the most influential figures in world history, there are no contemporary portraits of Genghis Khan created during his lifetime. The images that have survived were created decades or even centuries after his death, and they reflect the artistic conventions of the culture that produced them rather than any documented physical reality. Persian, Chinese, and later Western depictions differ radically from one another, meaning that no one really knows what the founder of the Mongol Empire looked like.

The idealized image of Marie Antoinette tends to place strong emphasis on her youth, her sumptuous gowns, and the portraits with softened features painted to flatter her, but she had the very distinctive physical features of the Habsburg dynasty. She had what was known as the “Habsburg jaw”: a prominent lower jaw and a full lower lip, features so common in the royal family that they have been the subject of in-depth studies by geneticists. Her teeth were also reportedly quite crooked when she was a child, a problem that was the subject of one of the very first recorded orthodontic treatments in European history.

There are many photographs of Abraham Lincoln from the 19th century, but those who met him in person always described his appearance in a way that still images could not capture. He stood 1.93 meters tall, making him the tallest U.S. president in history, and his contemporaries noted that his face was extraordinarily animated and expressive when he spoke—a far cry from the somber, frozen expressions required by the long-exposure cameras of the time. He did not grow his now-iconic beard until 1860, at the suggestion of an 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell, who had written him a letter saying it would improve his appearance.

The ancient Athenians placed great importance on physical beauty, which they regarded as the outward reflection of inner virtue; it is therefore all the more interesting to note that their most famous philosopher was, by his own admission and according to his contemporaries, rather unattractive. Contemporary descriptions portray him as a short, stocky man with an upturned nose, bulging eyes, and thick lips—features that his students sometimes compared, with obvious affection, to those of a satyr. Socrates himself turned this into a philosophical argument, asserting that inner wisdom mattered far more than outward appearance.

The now-iconic portraits of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart generally depict a handsome, well-groomed young man, but the real Mozart bore the physical scars of a difficult childhood. He had contracted smallpox as a child, which left visible scars on his face, although these were rarely depicted in commissioned portraits. The idealized image of Mozart was very deliberately cultivated, both during his lifetime and in the centuries that followed.

Tutankhamun’s golden death mask is one of the most beautiful and recognizable objects in human history, immortalizing a serene and handsome young pharaoh for eternity. However, CT scans and DNA analyses of his mummy have revealed a very different physical reality: he suffered from severe maxillary prognathism, a clubfoot, and had hips with feminine contours; he likely relied on canes to get around, as more than 130 of them were found in his tomb. Inbreeding within the Egyptian royal family was almost certainly responsible for all of the medical conditions from which he suffered throughout his short life.

The image that dominates the collective memory of Queen Victoria is that of an austere widow, dressed in black, as she was during her final decades; but the young queen who ascended the throne at the age of 18 was a completely different person. She stood only 1.50 meters tall and was, according to accounts, charming, energetic, and passionate about dancing; her diaries from the early years of her reign read like enthusiastic and at times even cheerful accounts. It was the death of Prince Albert in 1861 that definitively shaped her public image into the somber one that the world has come to associate with her name.

Catherine the Great of Russia is generally portrayed as a majestic and alluring empress, but those who knew her personally left accounts suggesting that her portraits played a significant diplomatic role. She herself acknowledged in her private correspondence that she was not conventionally beautiful, and foreign diplomats at her court noted that while her appearance was pleasant, it was far from the idealized images produced by her court painters. Like many monarchs of her time, she understood that portraiture was as much a political tool as it was a personal record.

Most artistic depictions of Thomas Jefferson show him with chestnut or slightly auburn hair, but according to most contemporary accounts, his hair was actually a distinctive, vivid red. He is also said to have had matching freckles, and descriptions by those who met him in person consistently highlight this color as a distinctive feature. It’s a small detail, but it alters the mental image of one of the United States’ most prominent Founding Fathers in a way that is surprisingly difficult to get used to.

When most people think of Charles Darwin, they picture that elderly, white-bearded patriarch whose likeness graced the 10-pound note, but that version of Darwin existed only during the last decade or so of his 73-year life. During the Beagle voyage—which allowed him to make the observations that formed the basis of his theory of evolution—and for many years afterward, he was a clean-shaven young man with no beard. He did not grow his famous beard until his early fifties, which means that the most intellectually productive years of his life passed while he bore no resemblance to the figure history tends to portray.

In modern adaptations, Anne Boleyn is often portrayed as a fair-skinned woman, sometimes with red hair, but contemporary descriptions indicate that she had an olive complexion, dark eyes, and very dark hair—features considered exotic and striking at the English court. She also had a small extra nail on one of her fingers, which Tudor propagandists later attempted to use as evidence of witchcraft, but which was most certainly a minor genetic variation. The actual appearance of Henry VIII’s second queen likely bore much less resemblance to a traditional Tudor portrait and was considerably more striking by the standards of her English contemporaries.

In popular culture, Nikola Tesla is often portrayed as a gaunt and eccentric figure, and photographs from his later years do indeed show a tall, angular man, but in his prime, he was widely considered strikingly handsome. Contemporary accounts from his time in New York describe him as an impeccably dressed, highly elegant man with a magnetic physical presence that drew attention in social circles. The dark, disheveled image of the tormented inventor is largely a 20th-century construct that took hold long after his death.

Given his terrifying reputation as one of the most feared conquerors of the ancient world, one might expect Attila the Hun to have had an imposing physical presence, but the descriptions that have come down to us from those who actually met him paint a very different picture. The Roman diplomat Priscus, who met Attila in person in 449 A.D., described him as a short, stocky man with a large head, small eyes, and a sparse beard, whose appearance was not particularly intimidating.