Before they were heroes, we admired them - until everything fell apart.

BBC: Richard Gere tackles the financial crisis

"I think ... both the attorney general and I and the attorney general of Pennsylvania have indicated we believe those passengers on this jet were absolute heroes and their actions during the flight were heroic, " Mueller said.

CNN: Recorder reveals details of Flight 93 struggle

How were we to know that the inescapable destiny of heroes is defeat?

ECONOMIST: New fiction

In reality, however, by 1960 there were as many women working as there had been at the peak of World War II, and the vast majority of them were married. (Young single adult women were, as we'll see, as rare as female action heroes at this point in history.) More than 30 percent of American wives were holding down jobs, including almost 40 percent of wives with school-age children.

NPR: Excerpt: 'When Everything Changed'

We used to believe baseball players were not cheating the sport but found out that many of our heroes lied about using performance enhancing drugs.

FORBES: Who's Been Duped? The Manti Te'o Hoax.