The official history tells us that the city of Troy was founded in 3000 BC. This same very history teaches us that the city was abandoned in 500 BC. The Trojan War was a historical event of the 13th or 12th century BC, but by the mid-19th century AD, both the war and the city were widely seen as non-historical. I find this particularly interesting, considering that the city of Troy is present on just about every map dated as early as 1540, and as late as 1859...

Troy: X marked the spot for centuries, but the ruins were only identified in 1822