The Tall Napoleon Myth

Napoleon is not short. He was actually average sized, and a silly translation trick caused the confusion.

Napoleon Bonaparte was not short at all. He stood about five feet and seven inches, which is the average height for a Frenchman of his time.

The story that he was tiny comes from how people measured height in the past. In France, they used a system called the metric system.

In England, people used a different system called the imperial system. They measured feet in inches instead of centimeters.

Because the French unit was larger than the English unit, a man who looked normal in Paris seemed much smaller when compared to an Englishman.

If you take a man who is exactly five feet and seven inches, he looks normal in France. But if you translate his height into English units, he seems to be only four feet and nine inches. This makes him look very short to the English people, who were used to their own measurements.

So, Napoleon was just an average man. The idea that he was short is a funny mistake caused by different rulers for measuring things.