10 Historical Misconceptions #9 (Hint: Something to do with what you can't really see)

 

9. The Great Wall of China Is Visible from the Moon

You can see a lot of things while standing on the moon, but the Great Wall of China isn't one of them. In his 1938 publication, Second Book of Marvels, Richard Halliburton stated that the Great Wall was the only human-made object visible from the moon. However, the Great Wall is only a maximum of 30 feet wide and is about the same color as its surroundings, so it's barely visible to the naked eye while orbiting Earth under ideal conditions, much less from the moon, which is about 239,000 miles away.

Taken from How Stuff Works