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Many of us are victims of pseudohistory and might not even realize it. Pseudohistory is false history—historical facts that are presented as cold truth, even though they’re based on distorted or ignored evidence. A very popular example of this is the phrase “Let them eat cake,” which is attributed to Marie Antoinette, when in reality, the saying originated way before she was born. After having learned this, you may start wondering what else we have been lied to about for the entirety of our lives. To find out, all you have to do is scroll down.
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#1
Thought I'd add another reply to this thread because Neo-confederate apologia always gets me and I jsut wrote up this whole reply to a comment that got deleted.
No matter how you slice it the American civil War was fought first and foremost by the south to preserve the institution of slavery. It was fought over states rights you say? States rights to do what? Own slaves. That argument is bubkiss anyway because the southern states weren't concerned at all with the northern State's rights when they passed the [Fugitive S***e act] in 1850 which basically allowed southern runaway hunters to capture any black person in the North that they though might be a runaway.
What's that, it was a war caused by economic differences? Hmm, what led to these economic differences? I'll tell you what, it was the south's dependance on s***e labor which prevented it from investing in infrastructure and incentivized industrialization leading to vastly different economies to form in the North and South. This also allowed for a s***e holding class to rise to the cultural and political elite of the south and to dominate it in every way. In the few places this wasn't the case secession did not take place (i.e. West Virginia).
Still don't believe me? Well then maybe the words of the southern states themselves will convince you because they explicitly state that they are going to war to preserve slavery!
From the Confederate constitution (Article 1 Section IX):
>No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
It was illegal to make slavery illegal.
Or Article 4, Section 3 (New States):
>The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
The were also committed to *spreading* slavery.
From the Mississippi Declaration of Secession:
>Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world.
Georgia Declaration of Secession:
>For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-s***e-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
Need I go on? Just google any Declaration of Secession and CTRL+F "S***e" and you'll see they were obsessed with the topic.
My last piece of evidence is the [*Battle Hymn of the Republic*] which was popular among federal troops and demonstrates that they believed themselves to be fighting a holy war to end slavery:
>In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
sofacushionfort 6 months ago
Especially bad since there were so many other nations at that time also invested with slavery (British Empire, Brazil, Russia, etc.) that simply said “yea… let’s not do that anymore,” without tearing themselves apart
Jrog 6 months ago
The British Empire did away with slavery over three decades before the USA did. Slave trade was made illegal in all the British colonies in 1807 and by 1833 slavery was completely abolished. Slavery in Russia was officially abolished in 1723 by Peter the Great, and in 1861 serfdom was also made illegal (there is a major difference between serfs and slaves. Serfs are not property, and cannot be bought and sold. They are tied to the land, and often not born into it but reduced in serfdom through debts, punishments etc). The USA were among the last to abolish slavery.
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CP 6 months ago (edited)
It amazes me that this needs to be said. You aren't a terrible person if your ancestors were terrible. The people wanting to change the historical narrative act like they are guilty of past crimes.
The Darkest Timeline 6 months ago
It’s because they over-identify with their ancestors so they feel like they have to defend every aspect of who they were because they KNOW slâvery is wrong.
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Michael Largey 6 months ago (edited)
Each state gave in its secession declaration slavery as the primary reason. The inauguration addresses if the Confederate president and vice president said the same. The Confederacy was so locked into slavery that its constitution stripped slaveholders of their previous right to free their slaves if they wished to.
FreeTheUnicorn 6 months ago
Important as well that most letters to and from Confederate soldiers mention slavery.
The Darkest Timeline 6 months ago
Abandoning reconstruction and letting Confederate officers off the hook was a huge mistake we are still paying for today.
Eduardo 6 months ago
Looking back, we should have let the south recede from the union. Slavery was coming to an end with or without this war of succession.
The Darkest Timeline 6 months ago
It would have been prolonged and what followed it was nearly as bad. Left to their own devices, chattel slàvery might have ended but its replacement would be almost identical.
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Bartlet for world domination 6 months ago
More on this in the Triggernometry podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-hj5uwclmk
Cpt. Christan "Panda Bombero" 6 months ago
After the US Civil War, some former Confederates moved to Brazil, settling in areas like Americana and Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, which also had a slave-owning history. They were drawn to Brazil because slavery was still legal there, allowing them to continue exploiting enslaved labor. These former Confederates established communities, including towns, and maintained their Confederate identity and culture. The Brazilian town of Americana, in the state of São Paulo, is known as a Confederate town. It's a place where descendants of Confederate families who fled the United States after the Civil War continue to celebrate their Southern heritage and maintain a strong connection to the Confederacy. These descendants have maintained many traditions of the American South, including annual celebrations featuring Southern music, food, and dancing, and the display of the Confederate flag.
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#2
The pilgrims didn't leave England to escape religious prosecution. They left England because they disagreed with the religious freedom that was offered in England. So they went to a land where there would be no straying from the doctrine of Puritanism. Basically they went to the New World so that they could be the prosecutors. Also they didn't land at Plymouth rock or arrive on the Mayflower.
CD King 6 months ago
People seem to think the pilgrims where the first settlers to arrive, but Europeans has settled on the east coast long before they arrived. The pilgrims were a very small amount to people coming to the US. I’m not sure how they got all the glory….
Gavin Johnson 6 months ago
They probably wrote the history books. Write the book, own the glory.
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G A 6 months ago
They were religious zealots and complete ars eholes. England was better off with them thousands of miles away.
Auntriarch 6 months ago
Looks like it's about to come back to bite us now...
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Kirsten Kerkhof 6 months ago
They went to the Netherlands (or Republic of the Netherlands as it was) first because the Calvinist branch of Protestantism was practised there. But they found that people there were, once again, too tolerant of other faiths or denominations to their liking, so that's when they set off for the Americas.
Dave In MD 6 months ago
They didn't want freedom of religion, they had that. They wanted freedom from others religions. They wanted to be the only game in town.
Shane S 6 months ago
Sounds very familiar to what’s happening today. History repeats itself
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Ace 6 months ago
Persecution, not prosecution. But yeah. the only freedom they were looking for was the freedom to impose their own harsh rules on everybody else.
Sue 6 months ago
Ergo, the Heritage Foundation. Their precedessors started what has come to fruition now the minute Roosevelt passed the New Deal. Took them 100 years & they fooled dummies into voting their way. Of course, Blue Dog Democrats helped it all along.
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keyboardtek 6 months ago
Europe could not be happier the Puritans left. They were considered an extremist whack job religious cult.
Shane S 6 months ago (edited)
As an American, learning this history from the English perspective was eye-opening. We are taught here to revere the brave pilgrims fleeing from the tyranny of the Church of England. English history points out that they were religious weirdos and zealots who left because they thought England was too liberal. Totally different perspectives.
The Darkest Timeline 6 months ago
American reactionary conservatives are the heirs to the Puritans so it’s no wonder they retcon history to make it seem like they were escaping persecution and seeking freedom. They continue to try to rewrite history to make themselves seem like they’re poor, mistreated souls when, in fact, they’re the ones that want to persecute and curtail other’s rights and freedoms.
Patrisia Sheremeta 6 months ago
I see this alot, and while it's true that the Puritans were intolerant little s***s, England was hardly a bastion of religious tolerance at that time. Your safety and ability to practice your religion of choice was dependent on which monarch was ruling.
DragonofMordor 6 months ago
And which version of Christianity you wanted to practice. Catholics certainly had it rough.
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#3
That people during the middle ages thought the earth was flat, it was known since the ancient Greeks that it was round and people didn't just forget about it.
Jrog 6 months ago
Interestingly, the first group to actually believe the Earth was flat since the ancient Greek were... Civil-war era Americans. The belief of the flat earth only started spreading after an american loon named William Carpenter came to know about the theories of a bunch of English religious fundamentalists that refused astronomical observation in favour of biblical literalism. Carpenter was a printer by trade, and published his own pamphlet listing a hundred (ridiculous) "Proofs the Earth is Not a Globe". He was absolutely clueless about science, geography and common sense in general (at some point he describes the existence of globes as myth, and denies a ship could go over the horizon and not be visible, something that could be observed daily but anyone who was not an idiot), and in the book, that is a short but exhausting read, his main recourse is parroting "the bible says so".
Jrog 6 months ago (edited)
Carpenter rant became the driving force behind a bunch of antiscientific and fundamentalist organizations that ultimately converged in the Flat Earth Society. His pamphlet became a common theme for Baptist and Pentecostal extremists, finding fertile grounds in counties with subpar education level and low-key entering the public discourse, where it stayed as a fringe theory until in the 1950s the Space Program threw that flock of dumbasses in full science-refusal mode. Internet, giving any cretin with a landline a public spot, was the final touch.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 6 months ago
Most people in the Middle Ages had no reason to even ask themselves the question.
Jill 6 months ago
Gotta love how wacky medieval are is! Someone can draw a pretty decent looking crayfish (bottom, left of center) but then have fish with teeth and all of them spewing water out of their mouths! 😂
Mari 6 months ago
I love medieval drawings. The drawings of cats and hares the most.
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Ozymandias73 6 months ago
Middle ages? Shiiiiiid....people TODAY still think the Earth is flat.
#4
That the ancient pyramids were built by slaves.
The latest evidence points to them being paid labourers.
Delineator 6 months ago
So… the aliens that built the pyramids were being paid for their labor?
Brody Garrard 6 months ago
I saw a documentary that said that they would even have competitions between groups for who could bring the most blocks up. Some of the names they chose for their groups are funny
Howl's sleeping castle 6 months ago
Oh come on..you can't just say the names were funny and not share them
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glowworm2 6 months ago
Yeah, I used to think this because we celebrate Passover, the Jewish holiday where we were freed from being slaves in Egypt. In actuality, our ancestors may have been building cities. Nothing about building pyramids is mentioned. Doesn't help though that every time it's referenced in media, we're shown building pyramids.
BeesEelsAndPups 6 months ago (edited)
Jewish historian here (although admittedly I'm an amateur at both, lol). There's actually no archeological evidence that the Israelites were ever enslaved en masse during the Old Kingdom Egypt. Also, Egyptian records around slavery are hard to interpret, as they had three types of slaves (chattel slaves, bonded slaves, and debt slaves), but their words for "slave" overlapped with other meanings including simply peasant, laborer, etc. Most likely, the whole story of Exodus/Moses was an ancient propaganda piece.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 6 months ago
Probably not, but better working conditions - free beer at night.
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TotallyNOTAFox 6 months ago
The building was done by peasents that had nothing else to do at times were no work on the fields was necessary
FreeTheUnicorn 6 months ago
Up to 10% of the population would have been enslaved, it's not logical that slaves were excluded from the workforce. Yes, skilled labor and artisans were paid, but the current theory that a labor tax was levied and it does not make sense that people would not have sent slaves or that there were no slaves in the craftsman villages set up for workers. Slaves labor was not all unskilled, some scribaln tasks and general administration would also have been done by slaves.
BeesEelsAndPups 6 months ago
I don't know the evidence for your statement of up to 10% of the population were slaves. Old Kingdom Egypt certainly had slavery, and the practice was common throughout the ancient world. But Egyptian records aren't really very clear as to who was and who was not a slave. Their words for slave overlapped in meaning with what we would today call a peasant, farmer, laborer, etc.
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G A 6 months ago
And they drank beer all day, in that heat, operating heavy gear, no safety equipment- H & S nightmare!
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#5
This may be more a prehistoric misconception but the idea that individuals in hunter-gatherer or "caveman" societies were/are stupid. Imagine how difficult that life is and all of the things every individual has to know in order to survive. There is no infrastructure or existing structural supports, everything has to be done by hand. These societies have to know which plants are edible, what animals will be where during which times of year, how to treat injuries without any sort of medical equipment. imagine any aspect of your life and now imagine it without any modern comforts at all. Relationships and hierarchies are maintained without use of record keeping. Food is gathered and prepared without any means of long term storage. Now remember that the entire planet was settled this way. From the African veldt to the Scandinavian fjords, and from the the Atacama desert to the Islands of the pacific, and these people utilized some pretty ingenious discoveries and inventions to do these things.
Kira Okah 6 months ago
Any human throughout history was just as intelligent as we are, they just lacked the cumulative knowledge that we have. Just as our future descendants will have more than us.
Helena 6 months ago
I don't know, we seem to be sliding into idiocracy quite quickly.
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Ian Webling 6 months ago
In archaeological terms, there are no primitive people, merely primitive technologies.
G A 6 months ago
It's a convenient lie by the Ancient Astronaut mob, who want people to believe mankind wasn't clever enough to build the ancient monuments around the world.
Sue 6 months ago
Don't know about the AA's, but if you don't have the distractions of modern life, you have a lot more time to figure things out.
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Laura Gillette 6 months ago
Also the commonly held belief that "cavemen" (prehistoric hunter-gatherers) men brutally dominated the woman--the image of the caveman with a club dragging a woman off by her hair is a commonly used trope. But the hunter-gatherer societies that still exist around the world are predominantly egalitarian, with women having equal status, power, and value to the group as the men.
Krd 6 months ago
We almost always underestimate what people were capable of back then. We still are doing it. Every few weeks/months I read an article about them discovering something that they didn't think existed for centuries later. Like last year they discovered remnants of a village. It was from a period where they thought all sapiens were nomadic. But nope, turns out people had figured out how to live in one place, and established a permanent community long before we thought they did. Look at the pyramids, a lot of math and ingenuity took place building them. To the point we still aren't 100% sure how they did.
SheHulk 6 months ago
And we should have never left the trees in the first place!
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#6
Joan of Arc was not condemned to death on charges of Witchcraft but for Heresy, a totally different crime.
Kira Okah 6 months ago
She signed an abjuration, so was classified as a repentant heretic, which absolved the capital punishment so long as she was transferred to an ecclesiastical prison and didn't repeat the heresy. The secular court (French, though I don't remember whether or not the English may have had a hand, been a long time) refused to release her to the ecclesiastical prison and forced her to break the abjuration, so that she could be executed. She was set up to be killed.
Peter Bear 6 months ago
Technically speaking, the only 'crime' she was ever convicted of was 'wearing men's clothing'.
BrunoVI 6 months ago
Weeellllll.... heresy here doesn't mean what you probably think it means. Her case was a strong reason why Rome would insist on inquisitions being papal instead of local (the Spanish I*********n being a unique case, given that it centered on reconquering Spain from Muslims who often claimed to be Catholic.) The papal i*********n made it so kings no longer had the authority to claim that an offense against them was an offense against God, nor could try someone for an offense against God; only the Church could do that. Heresy, here does not mean promulgating doctrine contrary to the Catholic Church. She was told she must recant having heard the voices of angels and saints, and she refused to do so. This was considered heresy because the British insisted that saints couldn't be goading her into defeating them.
kissmychakram 6 months ago
Holy cràp. I can't believe BP censors inquîsition!
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#7
Vikings didn't have horns on their helmet.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 6 months ago
The myth actually comes from the costume design of a Wagner opera.
Remi (He/Him) 6 months ago
Also viking isn't an identity, but something you do. As in you go on a viking journey to get riches and the rest of the year you're just a Swede or something.
Daniela Lavanza 6 months ago
And they were more often merchants and traders than warrior per se. If they could settle somewhere and live among other populations, they did. This happened in Normandy for instance.
nm 6 months ago
Also they settled in the area between Baltic-Black seas and became Russes.
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#8
It's my pet peeve that most people still believe that Marie Antoinette said "let them eat cake." Not only did she never say it, but "cake" is a crummy translation for "brioche." Literally.
Multa Nocte 6 months ago
"The phrase can actually be traced back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions in 1765, 24 years prior to the French Revolution, and when Antoinette was nine years old and had never been to France."
Bryn 6 months ago
Or the fact of anything Marie Antoinette was like. The poor girl (because she was a freaking girl, she was 13 when she came to French Court) has been vilified.
FreeTheUnicorn 6 months ago
Shouldn't this one be under the misconceptions too many people believe?
#9
That knights going into battle in a full suit of plate needed to be winched onto their horses, and if they fell off would be basically immobile and helpless. They could actually move quite well, some could even walk on their hands when they wanted to show off. The misconception came from Mark Twain's novel "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", where he references a specific type of jousting plate.
G A 6 months ago
They just used mounting blocks and their squires. Plus their horses weren't massive great cart horses, just standard size.
Jrog 6 months ago (edited)
War horses were not Clydesdales, but not standard size either. Destriers were typically large stallions not very tall but of though build, that were trained since young to be brave and not react to metal noise, distractions and even explosions. They were not excessively tall, but were muscular and strong. The closest thing to a warhorse today is the French Percheron, that comes from the french province supplying the most prized warhorses of the French king, nobles and knights, bred -according to the tradition- from crossing the conquered Spanish Moor purebred and the drafthorses used in the countryside. A specific type of horse, the Courser (similar to an andalusian or arabian purebread, or to the Spanish Pura Raza) was used for raids, where the knights went in light armor so a fast animal was preferred to a strong one.
Load More Replies... Auntriarch 6 months ago
I saw a video in the armoury museum in Leeds of a bloke in full armour doing somersaults
TotallyNOTAFox 6 months ago
The armor was able to provide some flexibility and the weight distribution granted adequate mobility
Krd 6 months ago
Yes, the armor was built so they could mount a horse, and they trained a lot to the point they could mount a horse quickly in battle. Most heavy Armour, the kind where you actually couldn't mount a horse, were only used in tournaments (and for show).
Load More Replies... Remi (He/Him) 6 months ago
There's a video somewhere in YouTube of a firefighter testing full medieval armor and doing quite well. The firefighting gear is about the same weight after all
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 6 months ago (edited)
Well, you need to consider that Mark Twain's novel is narrated by its protagonist, who is a (by then) modern man. Real knights were trained since childhood. Also, let us consider that a full plate armor was not much heavier than the amount of weight modern soldiers carry in combat.
#10
That Napolean was short (he was of average height for a Western European of that era... cartoonists in London newspapers and pamphlets just like to caricature him as a small figure).
Ian Webling 6 months ago
Napoleon was 5'7" in British imperial units but was 5'2" in French imperial units. Of course, the British used the French measurements without converting them for propaganda purposes.
Kira Okah 6 months ago
He also chose some very tall imperial guards, they had a minimum height requirement that was taller than him.
Krd 6 months ago
Easier to block flying arrows when the guards are bigger than you!
Load More Replies... Kirsten Kerkhof 6 months ago
Also, there were no standardised measurements, and a British foot was less than a French foot in length.
Gavin Johnson 6 months ago
As with Hitler only having one ball it’s propaganda to try and ridicule the leader of an opposing force.
General Anaesthesia 6 months ago (edited)
Goering had two but but very small, Himmler was very similar, but poor old Goebbels had no balls at all.
Load More Replies... Renno Lillemets 6 months ago (edited)
And still to this day all over the world people believe this... Just like Marilyn Manson and his "missing" ribs.
Jrog 6 months ago (edited)
BTW, the legend about Marilyn Manson is not original. It is repurposed from a well known (and fake) legend about italian poet Gabriele d'Annunzio. He was a libertine, larger than life character -to get you the point, when he retired from public service he asked the Royal Navy to gift him a Cruiser, and had the ship stuck into the side of a mountain in his Villa. It's still there- that had a huge aura of legends, some spread by him some by his enemies. After the publication of "Il Piacere" (Pleasure) in the late 1880s, his first novel that cause an uproar among bigots and conservatives, his enemies started spreading the legend about the removed rib as well as him trying cannibalism, or his supposed revolting perverted escapades.
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Aileen Grist 6 months ago
The height between decks on The Trafalgar - Nelson's flagship - are around 5 feet 4 inches. There would have been enough room for men to run about them - so no-one was all that tall compared with today.
#11
That the Dark Ages refers to a period of ignorance and superstition in Medieval Europe.
It actually refers to a lack of written sources during that time period.
pelemele 6 months ago (edited)
This notion of Dark Age is primarily a British concept and does not exist in France, for example, where we speak of the High Middle Ages (5th - 11th) and the Low Middle Ages (11th - 15th), which refer to two different temporalities. The term Dark Age refers to a very violent Middle Ages, with few historical vestiges and therefore relatively little information compared to other European countries. Hence the term “Dark Age”.
Kira Okah 6 months ago (edited)
It didn't exist in Britain either, scholars and historians here are sick of the phrase. They are the Early, High, and Late Mediaeval Periods, with the specific bollox being the Early Mediaeval Period. I have done work with Early Mediaeval Anglo Saxon documents, they certainly exist, and though we don't know intricate day to day information, we know a lot.
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keyboardtek 6 months ago
All this time I thought it was the period between when Europeans forgot how to make fire and the invention of the lightbulb.
Enna Canda 6 months ago
One might add it was forbidden by death to read the bible. even much later people were burned for translating the bible into english.
#12
Mostly everything in The Bible?
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 6 months ago
I am not trying to upset believers, but I am not sure what part of the modern Bible can be considered "historic fact", per se. Even the real, documented events that are mentioned in it (the Crucifixion, the apostles, the tribes of Israel, the Exodus, etc.) were so heavily redacted, edited and interpreted over time that they bear little to no resemblance to the actual thing.
Sue User 6 months ago
Moreike a " based upon a true story" lifetime channel movie that a PBS documentary.
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Luke Branwen 6 months ago
I'm not a christian but I like random knowledge, and it seems that surprising amount of biblical events, even those that look supernatural at first, could plausibly happen. For example the Ten Plagues of Egypt could be a 100% scientifically plausible string of events triggered by a volcanic erruption. I'm not saying people should believe everything in the bible, but condescendingly brushing everything off as "fairytales" is equally stupid.
Becky Samuel 6 months ago
Even if the ten plagues did happen, why would you want to believe that your 'benevolent' and 'loving' god would do such things to innocent babies? Surely those are the actions of a psychopathic despot.
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persephone134 6 months ago
One of my professors used to refer to the Bible as "ancient travel literature".
T'Mar of Vulcan 6 months ago
Places from the Bible have been shown to exist. A lot of the events of the Old Testament cannot be shown to have happened, however. There are written records of the Assyrians removing certain people from Israel (the 10 tribes' land, not the country). There is evidence of a flood happening in the Middle East, and numerous flood stories. But yes, specific events mentioned in the Bible pre-700 B.C. have no other evidence.
turk 6 months ago
I read a Spiderman comic book where he swings around New York. Does that mean this comic book is evidence that Spiderman exists since we know that New York is real? I've seen apologists claim that since the Bible mentions real places, this is somehow evidence of its other more fantastical claims. It isn't.
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Hudswacker 6 months ago
It is hilarious that people put their hand on the Bible when swearing to tell the truth or taking an oath.
Lady Eowyn 6 months ago
I tend to view the Bible as a fictionalization, or "based on" some things that happened (and some that didn't), like some movies are "based on" things that might or might not as happened. I read it as I read the myths and legends of many cultures.
Sue 6 months ago
Christianity was so powerful because it didn't just threaten your life - it threatened your eternity.
Load More Replies... Peter Bear 6 months ago
Very few people actually try to pass off the Bible as historic fact, and those that do are zealots with no critical thinking skills. That being said, I do find it fascinating that Genesis gets the order of creation essentially correct despite not having any scientific data on the subject at the time.
UKGrandad 6 months ago (edited)
The creation has 'the heavens and the Earth' made first, then light, then the Sun (the source of light). Genesis got it completely wrong.
Load More Replies... #13
The one that drives me the craziest is any time you see a medieval fight scene in a movie, and they cut straight through metal armor like it isn't even there.
No! You can't cut through a car hood with a sword! It's called "armor" for a reason! You have to find a weak point between the plates, or you can hammer at it literally all day without getting through!
David Morgan 6 months ago
Yeah, if it didn't work, no one would be so stupid as to go to the expense of having armour made, and the effort of wearing it and maintaining it.
Krd 6 months ago (edited)
That's what Warhammers were for. You crushed the armor and shatter their ribs/chest. You also could use a piercing weopan, like the back side of those halbreds (the ones with the giant spike side). Axes, if sharp enough and not too wide of a ax blade, could also puncture plate armor. Although you ideally would wear some sort of thick undergarment (gambeson), where the tight fibers would catch a piercing weopan/arrow (similar to how Kevlar works).
Karl der Große 6 months ago
Sometimes they would hammer on an opponent's helmet with the "wrong end" of a sword to damage their hearing or crack their helmet. It is illustrated in "The Medieval Fight Book," and we recently have found numerous examples of helmets that had undergone this treatment.
Lady Eowyn 6 months ago
Although a blow with a war hammer or axe could dent the armor to the point it was driven into the body of the man wearing it.
john doe 6 months ago
Or how swords can cut an arm or a leg or a head clean off, bone will stop a blade pretty quick.
#14
Blackbeard's pirate ship, Queen Anne's Revenge, wasn't a spectacularly huge Galleon, but actually a light and nimble frigate.
The Queen Anne's Revenge was really maneuverable and fast. Just like how Somalian pirates use dinghies against cargo ships.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 6 months ago
Props for BP to illustrate this with the real thing instead of a random stock image. This is the actual model of the Queen Anne's Revenge at the North Carolina Museum of History.
Jrog 6 months ago (edited)
Pretty sure they got lucky and this was just the first image off Google Search.
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PeepPeep the duck 6 months ago
A lot of pirates preferred the schooners etc over a huge cargo ship we see on movies (that look awesome) but if you’re trying to get away from the law and keep on pirating you’re gonna pick the Ferrari over the tank.
Michael Largey 6 months ago
Yes, Blackbeard's frigate was huge compared to most pirate vessels.
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Major Harris 6 months ago
also, his ship is one of two authenticated pirate ship wrecks to have been investigated by archeologists. while many interesting artifacts have been found on the "queen anne", no treasure. the other pirate wreck is the "whydah", captained by sam bellamy which did have a fair amount of gold and silver when she was excavated!
#15
The apple never hit Isaac Newton on the head. (He saw it fall and hit the ground.)
Galileo never dropped balls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa. (He rolled balls down ramps.).
G A 6 months ago
A lot of Newton's work was taken, uncredited from his hated rival, Hook. Newton even took a sideswipe by saying he stood on the shoulders of giants, as Hook was very short, and possibly slightly deformed.
John O'Donnell 6 months ago
No he didn’t. Newton did hate Hooke, and only bothered to split white light with a prism, and then recombine it, to prove him wrong. He didn’t steal differential calculus from Hooke or his equations on gravity however. As for the inverse square law? Nearly every scientist in the field says it was known about for years before hand. And the idea of gravity? That had been around for a while, it was Newton who proved it was universal. Hooke was an excellent scientist, but he had a habit of claiming for things he did not do, usually on the most tenuous of evidence. That’s probably why Newton hated him in the first place.
Load More Replies... #16
Polish Cavalry charged at German tanks with lances and sabres in 1939.
The Polish Cavalry was a very high-prestige part of Polish armed forces, and had a lot of history behind them - Napoleon's lancers, Winged Hussars and so on. By 1939, the Polish cavalry were highly mobile infantry units really, but were used in the same way as NATO planned to use jeep squads in the event of a Soviet invasion - set up an ambush with anti-tank weapons, knock out a couple of tanks, retire to the next position quickly and set up another ambush etc.
There were even examples of the Polish cavalry divisions bringing the Panzers to a dead stop, for example the Battle of Mokra.
The "charging tanks with cavalry" myth seems to have originated in a specific incident on the first day of the invasion, the Skirmish at Krojanty.
Although trained as mobile anti-tank/dragoon units, Polish cavalry retained the sabre, just in case. On 1 September, the 18th Pomeranian Uhlans were covering a retreat when they spotted a unit of German infantry resting in a clearing. Colonel Mastelarz decided to take them by surprise and ordered a sabre charge of about 250 cavalry. The charge was successful and the German infantry - who can't have been expecting cavalry with sabres charging them - dispersed into the trees with heavy casualties.
At that point, some German armoured cars appeared and laid into the cavalry, causing some casualties (including Col. Mastelarz) and driving the rest off.
In the aftermath, the German casualties were cleared away and the Poles left, and some neutral war correspondents were invited to come and see, and told that the cavalrymen had been k****d while charging at tanks with sabres.
The story circulated rapidly, not only among the German and sympathetic presses (to whom the moral of the story was supposed to be "Look how stupid and backward the Poles are - we're doing them a favour by bringing German civilisation"), but also in the British and French presses, who swallowed the story whole, but there the moral was "Look how suicidally brave the romantic Poles are - isn't this just the sort of people we should be supporting?"
Then, after the war, the Communist Polish government, eager to seize on anything that would make the pre-war government look bad, perpetuated the myth, with the moral now being "Look what the old capitalist government did for you - forcing soldiers to face Panzers with sword and lance!"
In other words the same, fake, story has been repeated by f*****t, democratic and communist sources each to serve their own narrative of the invasion if 1939.
Phantom Phoenix 6 months ago (edited)
It's apparently OK to use the labels communist or democratic, but not f*****t... showing a bias there BP. What's your problem with the identification of fascism? Edit: Huh! Fascism is OK even though făscıst isn't...
#17
How about that Treaty of Versailles? There are a whole bunch of ideas surrounding it that don't really match up to the facts:
1. **The war was basically no one's fault so trying to assign blame after the fact was "victor's justice"**. You can *kind of* make this arguement when it comes to Russia vs. Germany but Germany vs. France was a little more one sided. Germany declared war on France after they wouldn't immediately renounce their alliance with the Russians and agree not to call up their military. Saying they're both equally at fault is a bit like saying that a guy who gets mugged is at fault when he gets shot because he should have handed over his wallet quicker.
2. **Reparations were unreasonable "revenge" against a defeated foe.** France was on the winning side in WWI but had lost a huge number of men, run up a giant foreign debt, and had one of the most economically important parts of the country turned into a giant wasteland by the fighting. Germany had lost a bunch of guys, but its national debt was almost entirely owned by Germans (and so could be repudiated), and it had suffered almost no economic destruction as a result of the war. Without reparations the French would have been in the position of having won the war but lost the peace, and it's hardly unreasonable for them to want to avoid this situation.
3. **Reparations were some new thing.** All of the crying about how harsh and unreasonable Versailles was is kind of funny in light of the fact that the Germans had just signed the vastly more harsh treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Russians. Additionally, one of the reasons that the Germans had such a huge internal debt was that they didn't raise taxes during the war, expecting a repeat of the Franco Prussian war where they quickly won and then paid the costs of the war with French reparation money.
4. **The hyperinflation in Germany in the early 20s was caused by the treaty.** There's a bit of truth to this, but there was also a lot more going on. Germany's economy was in a shambles after the war but it was largely a shambles of its own making. When the hyperinflation really got off the ground the German government was sending money to miners in the Ruhr to support their efforts, and trying to pay off its wartime debts, and trying to pay the reparations all without raising taxes. Their policy of running the printing presses to manage their finances was very hard on the average German, but it had the effect of giving them a "free" source of money to pay these miners not to work and at the same time the resulting inflation made their wartime debts shrink tremendously in real terms. The terms of the reparations weren't denominated in paper money so the relationship of the hyperinflation to the reparations is somewhat more complex. ~~Economists like~~ Niall Ferguson argue that the whole hyperinflation episode was largely an intentional attempt to scare the s**t out of the internaitonal community and make them think Germany was on the verge of collapsing and being taken over by the reds. Of course he also seems to think that there was some kind of gay conspiricy between Keynes and the Germans so ????? on his ideas.
5. **The terms of the treaty were wild and unreasonable.** On paper they kind of were, but the actual terms of the treaty made this somewhat more complex. The civilian population on the winning side wanted the terms of the treaty to be as harsh as possible, but the people in charge kind of understood the problems with making the treaty too unreasonable and the treaty reflects this. The total amount "owed" in reparations was some huge figure but the actual repayments were broken down into 3 series of bonds. The A and B series actually had some kind of end date in mind while the C series (which was most of the total figure) was supposed to be negotiated after the A and B series were paid off. Since there wasn't any way to do binding arbitration in those negotiations this effectively meant that the C series was never going to be repaid. Also, since the whole issue of reparations was contingent on Germany being able to pay it created an incentive on the part of the winners to keep Germany's economy running. Germany recieved a tremendous amount of help with loans and economic aid and so on during the 1920s and some economists would even argue that Versailles was a net benefit to the German economy in the final analysis. In any event the actual amount repaid amounted to maybe 3% of their GDP which is significant but hardly ruinous.
6. **The victors write history.** This old saw gets trotted out a lot when it comes to WWI but the reality is almost the exact opposite. Once it became apparent that the war was lost the German state began a coordinated effort to both alter their own official records in order to remove embarassing material, and to spread this pro-German view of WWI and Versailles. The fact that their views are still so widely accepted, even in countries that were their enemies during WWI is proof of how good a job the losers did writing history in this case.
Welp, that's what I've got. This is a really complex topic and whole books can (and have) been written about it. My account involves signicant simplifiications (and more than likely a few outright mistakes). I've got to go to work now but if anyone wants sources or more information about specific points I'll probably be around later on.
Becky Samuel 6 months ago
Whereas the Americans turned up late, bragged about being fundamental to the victories, and put huge debts onto European countries. Eugenics was popular, and segregation was in full force. Nobody truly comes out of this era well.
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Original Kinkster 6 months ago
I'm wondering who's actually saying something like this. Yes, it was a thing back then and we hold some grudge and that the reason why France had to sign their capitulation in the very same train wagon but I didn't hear anything like this in the last 30 years.
Stannous Flouride 6 months ago
It's almost as if the guy with the Charlie Chaplin mustache was exaggerating and spreading misinformation to stoke fear and seize power. Whew! Sure glad THAT could never happen again. /s
TotallyNOTAFox 6 months ago
Sorry, but didn't we forgot to mention the french occupation of the Rhineland here?
The Darkest Timeline 6 months ago
And this is how we end up with people who don’t know anything but want to have an opinion about everything. Because, tl;dr.
Load More Replies... #18
The Aztecs did not believe Cortes and his men were gods nor was Cortes the return of the Toltec king Quetzalcoatl.
The Maya did not die out or collapse.
Syphilis is firmly a New World disease. The question about it is whether or not it existed in the Old World prior to the Columbian Exchange.
Bronze was not unknown to the Americas. The Tarascans made use of arsenic bronze for creating a variety of objects including bells, needles, tweezers, and axes.
Kirsten Kerkhof 6 months ago
Exactly. It was just not a very potent strain and mostly considered a childhood disease you went through and were then immune to. The New World strain was probably a much more potent version.
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William Teach 6 months ago
The Maya civilization did die out. Twice. The Classic and Pre-Classic. When the Spanish showed up the Maya were already abandoning their cities.
TotallyNOTAFox 6 months ago (edited)
It was also not Cortes and his men that brought down the Aztecs by themselves with superior technology - the majority of forces fighting the Aztecs were other communities that got oppressed by them and joined up in arms with Cortes
Fred L. 6 months ago
New technologies did have a role, as did horses. But native support indeed brought the mass numbers the Spanish didn't have, a common theme in colonialisation, together with illnesses.
Load More Replies... #19
Paul Revere never said "The British are coming! The British are coming!" as he himself and the defectors were all still considered British. He actually said "The regulars are coming! The regulars are coming!"...not quite the same ring to it.
Kira Okah 6 months ago
I recall reading that Revere was also just one of the runners, and not even the important one.
David 6 months ago
The alarm system would have 2-3 people at one place raise the first alarm, go to another place, where another 2-3 would head out plus the original people and so on, so it would raise the alarm. He was one of the original 3, and yes he was very important, as one of the original 3, and he road through a few towns, where their people spread out along the alarm trail. Why he was very important is that the British had a patrol in the area that stumbled across the alarm riders and could have shut down a huge chunk of the system. Revere, who was a Colonel in the Militia, allowed himself to be captured, to prevent this, and thus saved a huge chunk of the alarm system
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sofacushionfort 6 months ago
Too bad it’s not as engraved in the American consciousness. It would have made a great Ex-Lax ad
Don Adams 6 months ago
Only reason Revere has the noteriety for the ride is the poem written decades after - his name rhymes easily with "Listen my children, and you shall hear...."
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BookFanatic 6 months ago
Came down here specifically to see if anyone would!
Load More Replies... Laura Gillette 6 months ago
Sybil Ludington > Paul Revere https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=24115
Penelope Orange 6 months ago
I recall it being "The Redcoats are coming" but I don't think the exact phrase he used was actually recorded.
#20
There wasn't any "Apocalypse expectation" approaching the year 1000. This was basically made up by 1800s historians which cared for a "Dark Ages" idea of Middle-age.
Actually nobody was scared of that particular year and, mostly, people didn't even know what the date was!
G A 6 months ago
I have never heard of Y1K before-not like their manuscripts would tick over, is it?
XenoMurph 6 months ago (edited)
No they had overpaid technicians adding an extra "M" so they could continue being used. But the number of monks rising extra early before morning Psalms on January 1st to check if their vellum codexes were still usable was insane.
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Tucker Cahooter 6 months ago
And no doubt the pedants violently argued with anyone who tried to call it the "Millennium Apocalypse"
Auntriarch 6 months ago
Wasn't there a series about, Phil Jupitus, Alexander McGowan? Very funny as you'd expect
#21
Invention of perspective in art during the Renaissance when ancient Chinese an Greeks used it way before. All the medieval paintings were done that way due to that particular art style being favored at the time.
BeesEelsAndPups 6 months ago (edited)
I have degrees in Fine Arts, Art History, and Military History, does that work? What dude is talking about is the modern belief that renaissance artists "invented" perspective in painting, so as to make things look three dimensional. They did not. However, what they DID do was codify it into written works specifically those by Filippo Brunelleschi in the 15th century. While the ancients used perspective their works, it was primarily through the use of the Vanishing Vertical Axis (basically single point perspective). Brunelleschi's "Linear Perspective" was a codified mechanism to create perspective from whole cloth using 1, 2 and 3 vanishing points. Chinese artists actually used a process called Axonometry, rather than linear perspective, to achieve the illusion of 3 dimensions. It's a bit harder to explain this one, but it works by measuring diverging axises (what is the plural of axis in English??), and scaling those axises based upon distance from the observer.
Load More Replies... #22
The sinking of the Lusitania garnered immediate US public support for WWI, and the US entered WWI shortly after.
In fact, the ship was sunk 7 May 1915, and Wilson didn't request a declaration of war until 2 April 1917 -- nearly two years later.
Rachel Pelz 6 months ago
This is the first one that I actively remember being taught in the US history class (during a high school exchange year). Lusitania=US supporting allies during WW I.
Original Kinkster 6 months ago
I'm not sure about the details at the moment but supporting some in their war efforts is different to get engaged in a war. So maybe the Lusitania incident did indeed urge the US to support France and the UK but nothing more...
Load More Replies... #23
That technology shortens work hours. From hunter gatherers to the industrial revolution the amount of time people spent working greatly increased. It is estimated that a hunter gatherer would work six hours a day, while I am not sure of the exact average, if you were working class during the industrial revolution it is very likely you would be working 12-14 hours a day. This has of course decreased in the developed world due to socialism and unionism creating legal and economic pressures to decrease working hours.
elmortero 6 months ago
Technology does indeed not shorten working hours, for the longest time they have been 60 minutes each, and they still are :-)
General Anaesthesia 6 months ago
Technology can improve efficiency. Workers haven't profited from increased efficiency for many decades.
Michael Largey 6 months ago
Technology can enhance the profits resulting from exploiting and mistreating workers.
TotallyNOTAFox 6 months ago (edited)
Technology didn't shorten the worktime, it shortened the worktime per product - Back then 1 farmer could sustain 4 people, nowadays 1 farmer can sustain up to 20
Laura Gillette 6 months ago
According to anthropologist Elena Bridgers, who studies contemporary hunter-gatherers, the average is closer to 4 hours a day of work!
#24
No ancient source exists that says the Romans, under Scipio Aemilianus Africanus, plowed over and sowed the city of Carthage with salt after sacking it.
The salting of the earth at Carthage was invented in later stories strongly suggesting it never happened. Also, given that salt was a precious commodity during the Roman Republic/Empire it seems very unlikely that it would be used in such a way.
TotallyNOTAFox 6 months ago (edited)
I think it's more a metaphor for a "Scorched Earth" approach
Smeghead Tribble Down Under 6 months ago
There's also no evidence that Scipio defeated Hannibal at Zama, or that the Battle Of Zama even took place.
Scott Rackley 6 months ago
The could have easily had pack animals carry seawater and do it that way.
#25
There were only 300 Spartans at the Thermopylae, for each Spartan warrior there was about 8 Helots (Slaves) accompanying them, providing maintenance on equipment and acting as axillary. Also with them were several hundred Thespians and Thebans, the former chose to stay voluntarily with the Spartans whilst the latter were forced to stay as they were assumed traitors. So in all there were actually around 4000 Greeks left to fight the Persians in the final stand at Thermopylae, after the main Greek Force retreated.
Becky Samuel 6 months ago
Axillary means "of or pertaining to the armpit"!
Load More Replies... BeesEelsAndPups 6 months ago
Even this isn't exactly right. There were anywhere from 7-8 thousand Greeks at the battle of Thermopylae. At least according to Themistocles, the Thebans did indeed surrender en masse to the Persians. All of which being said, the Spartans and Thespians fought against a vastly superior foe. Exact numbers are debated, but anywhere from 100-300 thousand Persians. All that said, most of what we know about the Graeco-Persian wars we know from Herodotus, and it's hard to say how much, if at all, he may have exaggerated certain facts
#26
Actually, archers did use quivers, but they would stick the arrow in the ground during battle.
#27
The Spartans didn't fight for freedom and equality. they had slaves and they often used them as target practice.
Edit: As an aside, Xerxes the 1st, who is depicted as the villain in the movie '300' and his Jewish wife queen Esther, provided sanction and equal rights to jewish minorities in Persia (which was a zoroastrian empire at that time). Hence, you could go argue that he was far more tolerant of cultural diversity and freedom than the spartans.
XenoMurph 6 months ago
Xerxes Queen was Amestris, nor Esther. Conquered people's only had equal rights if they didn't cause trouble. If they did their temples were burned to disrupt their worship and break up their unity.
David 6 months ago
he had 7 or 8 wives that we know about. He had multiple queens. Further these queens we see going by multiple names based on if they were Persian records or local records. So the name in Persian, Assyrian, Bablylonian, etc, were different for the same people.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 6 months ago
The British Empire was very tolerant of Jews but still aggressively enslaved half the world. So Xerxes doesn't get a pass.
Enna Canda 6 months ago
But please, everyone had and still has slaves. look at the middle east, or africa.
John O'Donnell 6 months ago
None of the Spartans had jobs either, because the slaves did all the work. They weren’t professional warriors, they were layabouts.
nm 6 months ago
You're saying B.S. Spartans fought and won most of their battles.
Load More Replies... #28
George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter. The Aztecs were roasting peanuts before the colonists arrived and a Canadian guy was the first man to patent peanut butter.
G A 6 months ago
I always see this one as debunked but never saw it claimed in the first place.
Michael Largey 6 months ago
Carver was famous for inventing over 300 uses for the peanut. Over the years, people just assumed that peanut butter was one of them.
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Geoffrey Scott 6 months ago
True, but Carver DID use peanuts for far more than edible items. Henry Ford, if I remember correctly was WAY impressed using peanut oil for auto fuel and lubricant.
Lady Eowyn 6 months ago
I've never heard anyone say that George Washington Carcer invented peanut butter.
#29
European Settlers bought Manhattan NY for beads from the Indians.
Christopher Columbus Discovered America.
There is a good book called "Lies my Teacher told me", though it is USA Centric, It is still a good book.
CP 6 months ago
From a European perspective Columbus discovered America. I don't get why people push back on that idea. It isn't a lie.
BeesEelsAndPups 6 months ago
Define "America". If you mean the American continent, no he didn't. He never made it to the continent. If you mean he was the first European to reach the western hemisphere, nope, he didn't do that either, that was Vikings. If you mean the first European to map the western hemisphere, nope, that was Americo Vespuci. He DID discover the west indies. And he was the harbinger of permanent European colonization of the Americas.
Load More Replies... Original Kinkster 6 months ago
There's a really interesting documentary on YouTube which shows up the exact reason why the Dutch traded Manhattan to the British. I don't remember the exact title but the documentary is about the origin of nutmegs.
Inés Olabarria Smith 6 months ago
He didn’t discover it. But we are here because he did that trip.
#30
The circumstances under which the Church of England was founded during the English Reformation was much more complicated than and not as related to Henry VIII seeking divorce as people claim.
BrunoVI 6 months ago
He felt he needed to get a divorce in order to have a male heir. Unfortunately for him, precisely because his marriage was a bit irregular, he had made sure the Church had ruled absolutely air-tightly in declaring his marriage was licit and valid. There was, however, no reason he couldn't select a nephew or some such as heir. Indeed, King John, who funded the scholarly work Henry VIII's reformation relied upon, was not the heir of King Richard at all, but rather King Arthur (or Duke Arthur, from the perspective of the island-based Brits) was. King John had Arthur exiled to the half of what was then Britain which is now France and eventually m******d on the isle of Avalon in order to claim the throne.
Bailey 6 months ago
I think the problem with nominating an heir would be that the Tudor dynasty was still very young, with a drought of male heirs. His father, who took the throne and established the line, had no brothers. Henry VIII had no living brothers when he was king, and from his sister's the only living adult male nephew was the king of Scotland. To try and find someone further out in the family tree would risk destabilising the ligitimacy of the Tudor line, and potentially trigger civil war again.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 6 months ago
Henry cut off a relationship whenever it suited him. Just ask his wives.
#31
The Royal Air Force apparently made their incredible strides in destroying German planes at night because of all the carrots they ate...(methinks it was the radar, not the carrots)
Most people where I live are convinced this is true because 'it's historically proven to work' and so they eat a lot of carrots. Nothing wrong with eating veggies of course.
BrunoVI 6 months ago
Ha! OP doesn't even know the real story! The carrots were a deliberately planted myth, so that Germans would attribute the remarkable ability of the British to see their planes to carrots, instead of to RADAR.
Becky Samuel 6 months ago
Also, the carrot harvest just so happened to be a bumper one that year, and food was hard to come by, so people had to be encouraged to use up the crop before it rotted.
Load More Replies... Renno Lillemets 6 months ago (edited)
True. The British had invented the first basic radar tec, and when asked how can they beat Axis planes at night so well, rumour was spreaded, that eating lots and lots of carrots will improve your eyesight. In modern times parents still use this lie to get kids eating carrots. Fun fact: carrotine the vitamin A in carrots is fat dissolvable, so if you eat a plain carrot your body wont get that vitamine, you need to consume it with some fats or oils to get that carrotine in your body.
BookFanatic 6 months ago
Are you telling me that all the raw carrots I ate as a kid so I could see in the dark and spot Santa Claus didn't do anything?!
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G A 6 months ago
Because they were easy to grow for extra home grown food during wartime, as well
Load More Replies... #32
Rome burned while Nero fiddled. It's technically true so it doesn't fit the OPs question. However, most people seem to think Bero did that because he was crazy because ... Well Nero was cray-to-the-zee crazy. But the reality on this particular occasion is *much* more nuanced. Nero was already playing the fiddle when he heard the news of the fire in the tenements of Rome. This is important for a few reasons
*1. The tenements were housing the poor or the plebes as tge Romans referred to them. And like all powerful people in history Nero cared considerably less for the poor than the rich.
*2. The fire was in the tenements. Nero had been imploring people NOT to expand the tenements so much because the Romans had such a habit of expansion that it was fairly typical for the tops of buildings to be wider than the base because after all you can only expand so much at ground level before you run into the road. But three or four stories up its a different story and the owners of the tenements would often add more living quarters to the tops of the building to get more people in their buildings. As a result some tenements were sharing walls on the third and fourth floors with neighbors that were separated by N entire road. This led to more than a few collapses. That in turn prompted Nero to start trying to rally support from the other elite senators about town to outlaw such building practices. Right as that was going on the fire breaks out. In Neros mind the fire is yet another reason why the tenements are being built dangerously. And so he didn't react with shock because he'd been arguing for a little while that the tenements were dangerous.
Lastly. People say he fiddled while Romee burned implying that he did nothing. But the reality is that professional firefighting brigades didn't really come about until the early 20th century. Prior to that in say roman times fires got put out by volunteers who made ends meet by robbing the homes they were helping deal with fires. So even If Nero thought something needed to be done there was no force he could assign to combat the fire.
As a result Nero just kept on with his practice because there wasn't anything he could really do AND even if there was he wouldn't have wanted to because he felt the fire proved his point about the tenements being poorly constructed. NOT because he was crazy...for once.
Pedro 6 months ago
Also, the fiddle didn't exist before the early 16th century. A lyre, perchance?
BeesEelsAndPups 6 months ago
He played the Cithara (pronounced kee-TAR-ah). It is a 7-stringed version of the Lyre, and from where the modern word "guitar" comes from.
Load More Replies... David 6 months ago
Nero was also in Greece at the time and not in Rome. Further this person is incorrect about fire brigades, as they well existed in ancient Rome, and even had a Patron God, and Nero did spend a lot of money on them. But also there were many fired in ancient Rome, and many bigger than that one, Nero was unpopular, so after death it was easier to make him a villain of this story
Ace 6 months ago
This sounds like a high-schooler's attempt at an essay, basically it's no more factual than the 'fact' it's trying to counter.
Becky Samuel 6 months ago
It could certainly have used a quick proofread, or even spellcheck.
Load More Replies... G A 6 months ago
It's not meant to be literal. Nero was an unpopular leader and stories of his reign greatly exaggerated hundres of years after his time. The fire service back then was like the Mafia, you had to pay protection money and they would turn up and try and gouge the desperate homeowner, sometimes buying the land while the house burned.
#33
Napoleon was a warmonger (he never started a war, the monarchies of Europe simply didn't like the idea of a Republic), the Sphinx's nose was shot off by Napoleon (it was pried off for not being muslimy enough in the 14th century). There are very few mysteries involving the pyramids of Egypt, and those that do exist surround Sneferu's not the famous pyramids at Giza. Swords weren't heavy, they were about 3 lbs on average (perhaps heavy for urbanite redditors). European martial arts were every bit as refined and advanced as Asian examples.
Ace 6 months ago (edited)
This one contains much that could be labelled 'misinformation'. Napoleon was far from innocent in provoking the wars that ravaged Europe for nearly two decades.And there have been so many different types of swords through history it's ridiculous to make such a sweeping generalisation.
Michael Largey 6 months ago
But it is true that the monarchies of Europe weren't about to let the French Revolution succeed. There would have been constant wars if the French had done nothing.
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troufaki13 6 months ago
When I was in England, I visited the Warwick Castle where you could see and touch all the gear of a knight. The sword is pretty heavy.
Jrog 6 months ago (edited)
The sword one is only true-ish. A longsword would weight about 1,3 kg (3 pounds), but broadswords were heavier (about 2 kg, over 4 pounds) and the massive Zweihanders were well over 3 kg (6 pounds), while the larger Scottish claymores for heavy infantry could easily be in the 5 kg range. There were some outliers, like the Grutte Pier's and Wijerd Jelckama's swords (two famous dutch pirates) that were well above 6 kg in weight.
Jrog 6 months ago
Also, Napoleon definitely started some wars. Just off the top of my mind, he invaded Portugal starting the Peninsular War. The Spanish War of Independence started with Napoleon illegally forcing the king of Spain and the legitimate heir to abdicate in his favor. The war of the Third Coalition also started with Napoleon annexing duchies in Italy and forming an army specifically to invade Britain, with the first military maneuvers of the war being an attack by the French on the Austrian army.
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#34
That the residents of people's temple committed s*****e by drinking poisoned Kool Aid. Whether or not they committed s*****e, it was flavor-aid.
Khavrinen 6 months ago
Too much of a cheap-skate to spring for the name brand stuff, even though he wasn't exactly going to be saving his money for "later"...
Load More Replies... Peter Bear 6 months ago
I bet you blow your nose with cellucotton tissue, and not kleenex, right?
TotallyNOTAFox 6 months ago
I learned that from an anime parody on Youtube (Hellsing Abriged, Episode 9)
#35
That cinco de mayo is the Mexican independence day.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 6 months ago (edited)
Mexican here. This is a myth in US. It is the celebration of the Battle of Puebla, a Mexican victory over the French Army in 1862. The French were not driven out, though: they retreated, attacked again and won the war, establishing the Second Mexican Empire under Maximilan I, that lasted until 1867. It is also not that widely celebrated in Mexico outside Puebla. It is a national holiday, for sure, but you are not going to find people partying in the streets. The celebration of Mexican Independence starts midnight, September 16th.
Stannous Flouride 6 months ago
I wear the Doliente de Hidalgo t-shirt I bought at the Chapultepec castle gift shop every May 5th. I know it's from a different war but only Mexicans seem to know that and they still smile when they catch it.
Load More Replies... CD King 6 months ago
Cinco de mayo is celebrating the Mexican driving the French out. Not independence from Spain
BeesEelsAndPups 6 months ago
They didn't drive out the French, they lost the war. It is celebrating a single victory in the war. But Napoleon III did eventually win the war and imposed Maximilian I as Emperor of Mexico and briefly turned Mexico into a vassal state. Of course Maximilian didn't get to be emperor very long. He lived only 3 years on the throne, because the republican forces re-took control of the country and executed him by firing squad. Fun times where had.
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Michael Largey 6 months ago
Look for all those people wearing Star Wars costumes. Then wait 24 hours.
Load More Replies... #36
The first shots of the Civil War were not during the Siege of Fort Sumter, but rather many days before that when a battery along the shore approach to Charleston harbor, manned by Citadel cadets, opened fire on the Union steamer Star of the West, which had been dispatched to provide supplies and reinforcements to Fort Sumter. The cannonfire hit the ship but did no signicant damge, however the steamer turned and retreated. It's possible that if the ship had continued, it would have been fired on further, or if it had completed its mission, the Union soldiers in the Fort might have attempted to hold out for more time, which might have resulted in casualties on both sides. In reality, there were zero casualties during the fight and the fort was turned over to the South with a complete ceremony.
#37
Contrary to popular belief, the US never imposed an oil embargo against Japan prior to Pearl Harbor.
FDR was under a lot of pressure to apply an embargo. In a July 1941 cabinet meeting, he worried about how to explain oil rationing in California while still supplying Japan with oil. He insisted on this course of action, because he foresaw that an oil embargo could only lead to war. (The League of Nations had ruled that an oil embargo was a valid *cassus belli* when several nations tried to apply one against Italy for her invasion of Abyssinia/Ethiopia.)
What the US did instead was insist that Japan pay for her oil with "new" money, rather than from Imperial accounts which had been frozen. This demand seemed to confuse Japan, but they sent a single ship to test this new arrangement. The *Tatuta Maru* had been promised that it could come to the US without fear of seizure.
Once the *Tatuta Maru* docked, private parties filed suit in US courts, claiming ownership of her cargo. They filed a lien against the ship, holding it in harbor.
Japan released the cargo, and the ship was allowed to sail. But Japan never attempted to purchase any further oil from the US.
Becky Samuel 6 months ago
Russia still makes more from fossil fuel exports to Europe and the UK than the Ukraine has recieved in financial aid. In fact, more than twice as much.
#38
JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" does not mean "I am a doughnut" any more than Angela Merkel saying "I am a New Yorker" would mean "I am a magazine".
Kira Okah 6 months ago
The term "berliner" for that particular type of jam doughnut is not used in Berlin, it's a pfannkuchen. The misconception rumour originated in a fiction novel in the 1980s, 20 years later, that some newspaper seems to have taken as a fact.
Ace 6 months ago
If you think about it it should be obvious that the place a particular food originates (if indeed it did) would not use their own name to reference it. The French do not call their chips French Fries, the English don't eat English Muffins, etc. Berliner is, however, commonly used for a jam doughnut in other German-speaking places, including Switzerland.
Load More Replies... TotallyNOTAFox 6 months ago
People really believe that? I always thought it's just a joke here in Germany
J.R. P. 6 months ago
Actually, it's more complicated: First, ppl got what Kennedy meant and it is grammatically fine, just less common. Second, Berliner (the doughnut without a hole) have different names in different regions of Germany. Finally, "Ich bin ein Hamburger" would be "I am a Hamburger" while "Ich bin Hamburger" would mean "I am from Hamburg" at least in Hamburg. No adult would ever say "I am a Hamburger" unless he really believed to be a burger due to mental problems and ppl would laugh at me as a kid in Hamburg when I made that mistake. Germans are not good with double meanings (or any form of ambiguity). Finally, while you could say: "Ich bin stolz ein Deutscher zu sein..." (at least before 1945, you can't say it since) which means "I am proud to be a German...") but again "Ich bin ein Deutscher" would sound a little weird to many native speakers (who would use "Ich bin Deutscher") but not all.
Kira Okah 6 months ago
It's not complicated. No one misinterpreted Kennedy's speech, the idea that it did came from a fiction novel 20 years later that a newspaper cited as real.
Load More Replies... #39
Gladiators didn't fight each other to death in the Colosseum.
BrunoVI 6 months ago (edited)
It's a misunderstanding. The lion that ate the lady was gladiator. Seriously, gladiators didn't ALWAYS fight to the death, but they sure as hell did fight to the death. I don't know where BP got this from, but accounts of gladiators dying in battle in ancient Rome come from all sources, Roman or Barbarian, Christian or Pagan, Imperial or paeon, historical or legendary, pro or con.
Peter Bear 6 months ago
Well since you want to be pedantic about it... most professional gladiators did not fight to the death. Slaves and animals did, regularly, but a professional gladiator took years to train, and that was expensive. An investment, and one not to be thrown away lightly in death matches. Professional gladiatorial matches were most commonly fought to either first blood, or until one combatant yielded. Death was always a risk, true, but on balance most professional gladiators were in no more danger than a modern professional football player.
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Rosie Hamilton 6 months ago
Gladiators in the Colosseum didn’t always fight to the death, but it was common. Most matches were governed by rules and a referee (summa rudis), with outcomes often decided by the crowd or the event’s sponsor (editor). A defeated gladiator could surrender by raising a finger or dropping their weapon, and the editor or crowd would decide their fate—spare or k**l. Evidence from Roman sources, like the historian Suetonius, suggests that skilled or popular gladiators were often spared due to their value as entertainers and the high cost of training them. However, condemned criminals (noxii) or those in special executions faced near-certain death, often in brutal displays. Archaeological finds, like gladiator graves with signs of fatal wounds, confirm deaths happened, but estimates suggest only about 10-20% of professional gladiator bouts ended in death, depending on the period and context. Fights were more about spectacle than slaughter.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 6 months ago
They did, but not that often. They had to wait for the sign of the Emperor, or the organizer of the games, for life or death. Also, you had to remember that the sign was not a suggestion but a command. A gladiator sparing an enemy he was ordered to k¡ll or worst, k¡lling one who was already been given mercy was defying the Emperor. However, people sentenced to death (not gladiators) *were* forced to fight each other to death, and others, the beastiari, did fight wild animals.
JenC 6 months ago
Gladiators were highly trained athletes. It would be a waste of money and years of training just to have them fight to the death. t was about the show, they were like pro wrestlers. Popular gladiators were like celebrities, they even had action figures, and their sweat was sometimes sold as an aphrodisiac. Animals and slaves were killed, but not commonly gladiators, at least not on purpose.
Rachel Pelz 6 months ago
That's what they teach German kids in high school these days.
Load More Replies... #40
Truman didn't specifically approve the bombing of Nagasaki, and when he found out about it, he halted further bombings on Japan to allow the country time to process the damage and offer a surrender.
In other words, the second bombing came simply because the b**b was ready to go. It was an automatic decision made by the military.
BrunoVI 6 months ago
A second bombing had been authorized. The location, however, was influenced by the weather.
Michael Largey 6 months ago
A second bombing had always been planned in part to demonstrate to the Japanese (and the Soviets) the we could produce the bombs in quantity.
Load More Replies... David 6 months ago
This is false, it was fully authorized after Japan did not surrender by the deadline. He authorized a second one to show them the US had more (Only 2 more actually) to force the surrender. If that had failed, they planned a 3 million soldier, 9 atomic bomb invasion for September
Peter Bear 6 months ago
Americans tend to also gloss over the fact that both of the nuclear bombs we used were used against civilian population centers, making it a war crime. Twice. Intentionally.
David 6 months ago
It was not a war crime at the time. We killed far more in the firebombing of Tokyo in one raid for example. We bombed to the ground Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, etc, and all legal under the law at the time.
Load More Replies... #41
Germany starting World War 1. This was caused by man factors. First being the assassination of the Austrian-Hungary empire. After this happened Austria demanded reparations from Serbia as it was believe it was government sponsored. When Serbia refused Austria declared war. After this point it was a domino effect of rapid militarization.
Michael Largey 6 months ago
Part of the problem was entangling alliances. If country A goes to war with country B, then C must be at war with A, which requires D to be at war with C and E to be with B, etc...
TotallyNOTAFox 6 months ago
It was also the embassador of Austria pushing Germany into holding their alliance despite the case not being part of the treaty. Wilhelm II. basically promised support without checking the circumstances first
Huddo's sister 6 months ago
Who thinks Germany started it? I was taught very clearly about the different political factors and the assassination (far too many years in a row for my liking). Is this another failure of American education system?
Gavin Johnson 6 months ago
No one mention the attempts by the Germans to build a railway to the Middle East eh? Most large nations had access to oil from across their empires, the Germans didn’t have large reserves or ways to boost their oil production. They started a push to control access across Europe and through to the oil reserves, they were opposed for obvious reasons and the war was almost inevitable.
Michael Largey 6 months ago
Easy access to oil would have greatly strengthened Germany's military, partcularly the large navy it was building.
Load More Replies... #42
How George Washington was our first president when in fact our first president was John Hanson. Washington was our first under our current constitution. Hanson was the first president of the Continental Congress following the ratification of the Articles of Confederation.
Michael Largey 6 months ago (edited)
Being president of a legislative body (the Continental Congress) is different from being president of the country (which is an executive position). The Senate has a president - Juvenile Delinquent Vance - but he is not President of the United States.
The Darkest Timeline 6 months ago
Because they don’t really matter except as a point of reference for why they scrapped what came prior to the Constitution
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#43
Moses was not found in the bullrushes.
Egyptian Kingship had most of the Pharaohs associated with being found in bullrushes.
The significance lies in the Nile association and the bringing of crop prosperity, water, fecundity etc.
CD King 6 months ago
I think that is only one of many not so true historic tales from the bible. Most scholars don’t think Moses existed.
David 6 months ago (edited)
Actually most scholars are sure he existed, because no religion or culture has ever had a figure that central to their identity that wasnt a real person. Its near universally accepted the ancient Israelites had a leader named Moses who was a lawgiver, as to the rest, those are the details for debate. However the Ancient Egyptians had their own version of events, as recorded in Manetho (a Egyptian Priest and the first writer of Egyptian History) in the 3th Century BCE, that there was a rogue priest names Moses who led a group of slaves in the Desert following a wandering donkey for 40 years in the desert and went to Canaan and became the Israelites.
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#44
That the 'Peace of Westphalia' was a period of long term peace and religious tolerance.
#45
That DDay was the largest invasion in history.
That's actually Operation Barbarossa.
Gavin Johnson 6 months ago
It was the largest seaborne invasion, folk forget the seaborne bit, that’s why people think it’s the largest invasion. Plus the victors like to big up their achievements so why would they correct the error? Barbarossa was those pesky Axis forces invading the Soviet Union, a move that ultimately failed (obviously).
CP 6 months ago
Okinawa was a bigger sea invasion in many respects. D-Day has better PR.
Load More Replies... #46
I wouldn't say it's a fact but people believing in a real, long Atlantis, when it was actually part of a story by Platos.
TotallyNOTAFox 6 months ago
The myth of a city lost at sea can be found in many different cultures around the globe - most likely reason is that there were a lot of cities lost to the sea at some point around the globe
Ravenkbh 6 months ago
It's well known that Atlantis is at the bottom of a a lake in North Dakota. https://www.straightdope.com/21342239/is-the-lost-city-of-atlantis-at-the-bottom-of-a-lake-in-north-dakota
nottheactualphoto 6 months ago
Cecil is an esteemed scholar, a sage of our times. Kudos to you for the citation.
Load More Replies... Luis Hernandez Dauajare 6 months ago
Plato was known for inventing whole civilizations as thought experiments, metaphors or examples of his ideas. The perception that it was historical fact comes from one of his students, Crantor. Later Christian also used it as a metaphor, though. It was not until the XIX century that the idea of a "real" Atlantis took shape.
Lady Eowyn 6 months ago
Plato. But an area of Santorini does fit all the geographical clues given in Plato.
#47
The Crusades were not an unprovoked attack on peaceful Muslims by greedy and intolerant Christians, as some like to think. Rather they were, at least in part, a direct response to Muslim expansion and aggression over the immediately preceding centuries.
sofacushionfort 6 months ago
It was the Byzantines asking a dog to protect them from a wolf, only to learn that dogs get just as hungry
Michael Largey 6 months ago (edited)
By the time the First Crusaders reached the Holy Land, the invaders had been repelled by the local Muslims (who were friendly to Christianity) and things had already been restored to the conditions the pope sent them to create. They did not just march back home, but it could be argued that they stayed to make sure no future invasions succeeded. (They never actually said that.) But the first person the criticize the Crusaders was in fact the pope who sent them. He denounced them for their "arrogant" disregard for human life. Later on, Pope Innocent III, who had launched the Fourth Crusde, excommunicated every noble, knight, and soldier on it because all they were doing was cruising around southern Europe sacking Christian cities (to raise money for the actual c*****e, they said). So being anti-C*****e is not being anti-Christian, at least according to two popes involved.
#48
The weirdest one I've seen absolutely *everywhere* was that the Roman emperor's title is Caesar. It was Augustus; Caesar was the title for the prince, or the junior emperor.
Renno Lillemets 6 months ago
And Caesar is always pronounced wrong, it should be more like "Kaisar"
kim 6 months ago
And Cicero should be Kikero, though it feels funny in my mouth
Load More Replies... Ace 6 months ago
Someone is confused. Augustus (aka Octavian) was the first Emperor, cos the Empire had only just come into existence, and he adopted the name Caesar to validate his familial links with Uncle Julius, and the practice continued and Caesar became the de-facto dynastic name. Augustus, though, was never used as a title, which would have been Imperator.
Noltha 6 months ago (edited)
He was adopted by Julius, so Caesar WAS (a part of) his name.
Load More Replies... #49
Classical music.
The term classical was just tacked on because there was a revolution in architecture and visual art that took great influence from the 'classical' time period: Ancient Greece and Rome. We had absolutely no way of recreating what Ancient Greek or Roman music sounded like, and so the 'classical' part of classical music is quite a classic misnomer - classical composers took no influence from the classical period, unlike their architectural and visual art counterparts.
Classical music, as distinguished from baroque music, has its own markedly different revolution, having nothing to do with ancient Greece or Rome.
Michael Largey 6 months ago
Well, he might pomp up his wardrobe under the right circumstance.
Load More Replies... #50
Antonio Meucci likely invented the first telephone, not Alexander Graham Bell.
CP 6 months ago
You mean filed the patent first. The more I learn about patents the more useless they become.
Load More Replies... #51
George Washington's cannot tell a lie story.
Michael Largey 6 months ago
George Washington couldn't tell a lie. Richard Nixon couldn't tell the truth. Todays politicians can't tell the difference.
#52
Not only was it not the Canadians who fought the US in the war of 1812 (Almost all British troops), but there was no clear victor. A treaty was signed ending the conflict that gave fairly equal concessions to all parties involved.
CP 6 months ago
They were all British subjects. Canada didn't even technically exist at that point. This one has bad logic.
geezeronthehill 6 months ago
Canada was recognized and named as a region.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 6 months ago
Quite untrue. Canadian troops (highly trained and well equipped militia) were extensively involved in the fighting when the US attempted to invade Canada during the War of 1812. Those Canadian troops stayed in Canada to defend the border. They were not used in British operations inside the US and for instance played no role in the capture of Washington DC.
Brody Garrard 6 months ago
Some people say that the US benefitted because they survived Britain again
John O'Donnell 6 months ago
On the other hand, you could say the British benefited, because once they had burnt down the White House, all that manifest destiny bollocks about Canada stopped real quick.
Load More Replies... #53
I have been taught more than once in class rooms that Andrew Jackson said "Chief Justice Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it" in response to the decision of Worcester v. Georgia, which found that the Cherokee eviction was unlawful. This never happened.
Michael Largey 6 months ago
America in the 1830s, Germany in the 1930s, and as the 2030s approach ...
Load More Replies... #54
Washington chopped down a cherry tree....WRONG!
Michael Largey 6 months ago (edited)
He had one of his slaves do for him - like everything else.
#55
That Rome was divided into 2 different empires and that the western part was the "real" empire. It was one empire with 2 or more emperors at the same time to make it easier to administrate. The Roman Empire didn't fall until it was conquered by the Ottoman turks at the end of the fifteenth century.
David Morgan 6 months ago
You are conflating two sets of events - Rome did indeed have two co-Emperors at certain times, and sometimes they were allied and sometimes bitter enemies. Much later on, the Empire did seperate into two 'halves', and the the Western half gradually morphed into the various kingdoms and countries of Western Europe. A LONG time later, the 'Eastern Roman Empire' (which was an empire, but Roman only in name) was defeated by the Turks as you said.
Hiram's Friend 6 months ago
And the word is "administer", not "administrate". From a grammar nurd. :)
Load More Replies... What do you think ?
Historyherstory (old guy) 6 months ago
Love reading these and everyone's responses. Arguments in the recollection of history are far more interesting to me than much of the BP articles. Moreover, truly some knowledgeable people who contribute here. Upvote from me.
Powerful Katrinka 6 months ago
I really enjoyed this. Except for the last few entries, these responses were not only accurate, but well written (unusual for BP).
Dirk Daring 6 months ago
The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. Talk amongst yourselves.
Eduardo 6 months ago
Native Americans were enslaving each other way before white peoples arrived.
Sue 6 months ago
Everyone was. The Southern US just held onto it after they should have known better.
Load More Replies... Historyherstory (old guy) 6 months ago
Love reading these and everyone's responses. Arguments in the recollection of history are far more interesting to me than much of the BP articles. Moreover, truly some knowledgeable people who contribute here. Upvote from me.
Powerful Katrinka 6 months ago
I really enjoyed this. Except for the last few entries, these responses were not only accurate, but well written (unusual for BP).
Dirk Daring 6 months ago
The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. Talk amongst yourselves.
Eduardo 6 months ago
Native Americans were enslaving each other way before white peoples arrived.
Sue 6 months ago
Everyone was. The Southern US just held onto it after they should have known better.
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