Often myths about the past were believed because the average layman did not have the right education to lead him to the real answers. This brings me to the thing that surprised me the most: the ease with which some people will (mindlessly) exploit others for financial gain. For example, the Cardiff Giant. Some men had found an easy way to extract money from people who were willing to believe anything that supported the word of the Bible. From creating the fraudulent Giant, to turning it into a lucrative tourist attraction (and scamming people out of their money), to forcing experts to analyze (and debunk) the Giant, to the confession of Hull, Newell and Hull were able to collect an obscene amount of money from a lie. Even after the giant was labeled a fake, people continue to pay for a glimpse of the “greatest hoax” (Feder). I find this fact even more astonishing than Newell and Hull's ability to deceive the American public. Honestly, the moral of this story: education is key – if the public had been better educated in the field of archeology (and history, for that matter), perhaps they wouldn't have fallen in the trap of this trick to “get rich”. I suppose it might be harder for me to say whether this was actually true, given that I'm looking at the event in hindsight. Nonetheless, I believe that educating people about the difference between facts and myths could prove more beneficial in the long run.