Aditya says Napoleon Bonaparte was very short — so short that the term "Napoleon complex" was…

Why

Aditya's belief has real historical evidence behind why it spread so widely — it just is not evidence that Napoleon was actually short. His height was recorded as '5 foot 2' using the OLD FRENCH measurement system, where a French 'pouce' (inch) was about 2.7 cm — longer than the imperial inch (2.54 cm) most people assume when they read '5\'2"' today. Converting his recorded height using the correct French units gives around 1.67 metres, close to 5 feet 6 inches — a little above average for a Frenchman in the early 1800s, not short at all. The 'short' image was reinforced by British political cartoonist James Gillray, whose popular caricatures deliberately drew him small, and by Napoleon's own tall personal guards, who made him look shorter standing next to them. Test it: Napoleon himself is said to have remarked that Gillray's cartoons 'did more than all the armies of Europe' to damage his image — a sign that even he recognised the short image as propaganda, not fact. His sister is right: using the correct historical units, Napoleon was of average or slightly above-average height for his era — the 'short' reputation comes from a unit mix-up and British caricature, not his real height.