My absolute favorite non-accomplishment that was spread far and wide in the 90's (see the attached 1 minute Nickelodeon PSA they'd play in February) is George Washington Carver "inventing" peanut butter when:
1.) There was a patent for peanut butter before he "invented" it
2.)
PEANUT BUTTER IS A RECIPE, NOT AN INVENTION
At first I thought they just harped on this one to appeal to kids, but after looking into this shit more, it's really because they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find any semblance of black ingenuity.
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