Physics textbooks assert that in the famous interferometer 1887 experiment to detect absolute motion Michelson and Morley saw no rotation-induced fringe shifts - the signature of absolute motion; it was a null experiment. However this is incorrect. Their published data revealed to them the expected fringe shifts, but that data gave a speed of some 8 km/s using a Newtonian theory for the calibration of the interferometer, and so was rejected by them solely because it was less than the 30 km/s orbital speed of the Earth. A 2002 post relativistic-effects analysis for the operation of the device however gives a different calibration leading to a speed > 300 km/s. So this experiment detected both absolute motion and the breakdown of Newtonian physics. So far another six experiments have confirmed this first detection of absolute motion in 1887.