I gave a talk once at the then brand new science museum at La Vilette in Paris. A slightly chauvinistic pal from England came along and as we walked to the lecture hall he observed, sneeringly, “this is where the French pretend to have invented everything”.

I thought he was being ironic but it turned out he really assumed pretty much everything in the last 500 years or so had been invented in England.

I assume the equivalent belief is probably pretty widespread.