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From the brains behind the New York Times'bestseller, The Book of General Ignorance comes another wonderful collection of the most outrageous, fascinating, and mind-bending facts, taking on the hugely popular form of the first book in the internationally bestselling series. Just when you thought that it was safe to start showing off again, John Lloyd and John Mitchinson are back with another busload of mistakes and misunderstandings. Here is a new collection of simple, perfectly obvious questions you'll be quite certain you know the answers to. Whether it's history, science, sports, geography, literature, language, medicine, the classics, or common wisdom, you'll be astonished to discover that everything you thought you knew is still hopelessly wrong. For example, do you know who made the first airplane flight? How many legs does an octopus have? How much water should you drink every day? What is the chance of tossing a coin and it landing on heads? What happens if you leave a tooth in a glass of Coke overnight? What is house dust mostly made from? What was the first dishwasher built to do? What color are oranges? Who in the world is most likely to kill you? Whatever your answers to the questions above, you can be sure that everything you think you know is wrong. The Second Book of General Ignorance is the essential text for everyone who knows they don't know everything, and an ideal stick with which to beat people who think they do.

Learn the facts on some popular myths so you'll be able to decide whether that smart-sounding person is spouting knowledge, or they're just full of it.Do you want the real facts to counter and correct the steaming piles of myth and misinformation you hear all the time? This fascinating collection from the founder of Listverse.com tells exactly what you need to know so the next time you hear someone repeat one of these common falsehoods, you'll be ready to call bullshit on:•Mary Magdalene was a prostitute•Your heart stops when you sneeze•Crime increases during a full moon•A goldfish's memory lasts only a few seconds•It was illegal to drink alcohol during Prohibition•Chameleons change color as camouflage•Slaves built the pyramids in Egypt•Decaf coffee has no caffeine•Buddha was fat

Our cherished culturally shared beliefs stem from a variety of sources, many of which propagate old wives'tales, myths, self-serving fantasies, innocent fallacies, or sheer nonsense. History is replete with stories of great men and events that either never happened or didn't happen the way we were told they did. Such items are part of our common knowledge. They are taught in schools. They are passed down to us by our families and friends and have become part of shared cultural knowledge, accepted without question. And they are wrong. Here, Herb Reich explodes 200 myths that you probably accept as fact, including: Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player in the major leagues. The captain of a ship can perform marriages. Mussolini's trains ran on time. Charles Lindbergh was the first man to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday in 1839. The Mason-Dixon line was drawn to separate the slave South from the free North. Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag. Cleopatra was Egyptian. Chicago is called “the windy city” because of the gusts off Lake Michigan. It is a cliché that history is written by the victors. But Don't You Believe It! will demonstrate that it is also written by teachers, by newsmen, by heirs, by hucksters, and occasionally by someone who has a lousy memory or an axe to grind.