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30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time
Memories make for a risky foundation: as events recede further and further into the past, the facts get distorted or augmented by entirely new details. So we have to keep ourselves in check! And there's a thread on Reddit that's perfect for that.
It started with the question "What historical inaccuracy is still taught often?" and people have been sending in their replies ever since it was posted. From famous people's lives to wars and government decisions, here are those that have received the most upvotes.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
That Mother Teresa was a saint but in reality she was a racist money loader. Information about this topic can be found even from the New York Times archives.
Alexia 2 years ago
She also let sick people suffer, convinced that they were suffering for their sins and pain would give them redemption.
Id row 2 years ago
She was sadistic. She would deny patients any kind of pain relief because 'their suffering brought them closer to god'. No, she enjoyed watching them suffer unnecessarily. That's it. She's just evil.
Some guy 2 years ago
They would boil and re-use hypodermic needles. Not only unsanitary and potentially toxic (depending on what the needle had been used for previously), but the needles would get more dull and PAINFUL!! each time they were used.
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Terri Johnson 2 years ago
For more background and details on what a heinous person Mother Teresa was, check out Christopher Hitchens's book 'The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice'. Below is a link to the Wiki info about the book. RIP, Hitch, you are much missed! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missionary_Position:_Mother_Teresa_in_Theory_and_Practice
Bewarethere@gmail.com 2 years ago
Wiki anything is NOT reliable info 4 f***s sake !!!
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RELATED:
#2
Tuskegee experiment.
The government did not inject men with syphilis, they took men who already had syphilis, and pretended to treat them so they could study how it ravaged the body over time left untreated.
Still just as cruel though.
Claire Bear 2 years ago
Please make this clear it was the US government. Other countries and governments are available. Literally dozens of them
Alecto76 2 years ago
Science didn't use to have much conscience. Its at least a little better now. However, I always direct people's attention to the absolute, hands down most important person and the unsung savior of the world, Henrietta Lacks. A poor African American woman who died of cervical cancer in the 50s. She had unusual, immortal cells (He-La cells). Unfortunately she didn't survive. But her cells made almost everything we have in modern medicine possible, as well as many other break-throughs. The doctors took her cells and...billions + were made on them. I sympathize with her family and how all the greedy companies made so much off of her without comp to her kin. But for me, most of all, we should all know her name and who she was. This poor farm wife never knew that she was one of the most important people to have ever lived. But we should.
Astrophile 2 years ago
Very cool, love the Henrietta Lacks story and her legacy! However I don’t think we should skip over how atrocious the Tuskegee experiments were and how much we owe the poor victims of these terrible people
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#3
That the loss of the American colonies was a devastating blow to the British. As an American, I was taught this multiple times. In reality, the loss of the Revolutionary War was a minor blip in British history. The loss of India and Singapore after WW2 was a devastating blow. But the British didn’t and still don’t care about the loss of the 13 colonies.
Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
The general view in Britain of the American colonies at the time of the Revolution seems to have bee that yes, they have their uses, but they really are becoming a dreadful nuisance. If the Americans had been prepared to wait 15 - 25 years, Britain would have probably gladly let them go, no fighting necessary.
Michael Largey 2 years ago
One of the major reasons that white southerners supported the America Revolution was that they could see that Britain was going in the direction of abolishing slavery (which it did).
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Emma S 2 years ago
As a Brit I can tell you it isn't something we spend any time thinking or talking about.
Nice Beast Ludo 2 years ago
Its all we seem to learn about. I never understood history class. If you start with Columbus and end with the colonies every single year, how are you ever going to learn ANYTHING else that's actually important?
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Little but Fierce 2 years ago
Most Brits have either never heard of this, or have vaguely heard of it but don't care. It's not taught in Britain at all.
Gavin Johnson 2 years ago
For the U.S.it’s a huge deal, of course it is, the beginnings of a nation, the victory, the foundation stones being laid, this, quite rightly, is a big deal for Americans. For us Brits it’s all meh, we’ve got such a wealth of history that is more important to us that the negative of that loss is just not that important. Two sides of the same coin.
Mental Liberals 2 years ago
British held much of the world after the Romans...All their trading companies bought and sold everything!
Skip62 2 years ago
I would love to read a book about the American Revolution from the perspective of the British.
Carrie Laughs 2 years ago
Can't help you there! Though most people grow up in Britain with the values of post-World-War-II Britain rather than those of the eighteenth century. There is a firm belief in the importance of democracy, of representation, of the right to the freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. The collapse of the British Empire after World War II was resisted, but not on anything like the scale it might have been. There were exceptions, of course, but the British mainly saw that having fought two world wars to preserve democracy and ruling over an empire were hard things to reconcile. That's very much that attitude that History is taught with in British schools. No-one is ever taught that Britain was 'right' just facts of what happened and students are encouraged to form their own opinions and debate it. Though history is so vast, a lot is not covered.
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The Starsong Princess 2 years ago (edited)
Yes, the American colonies were expensive- that’s why the British were trying to tax them so they wouldn’t be a financial drain and to pay off debts from the French Indian War (a war that only benefited the colonists that the British taxpayer paid for). Of course, they didn’t want to lose them but ultimately it didn’t impact the growing British Empire much.
Dr Robert Neville 2 years ago
It's one of the things that the unions didn't understand and blame Thatcher for. We used to force the colonies to buy our c**p (mainly India) but when we gave them their independence our sub par products had no market so those industries needed to be scaled back hard. Successive governments didn't do it and instead there money at the problem because they didn't want the hate. Thatcher didn't care, scaled it back, unions and the North hated her. Someone had to do it, she went about it the wrong way imho but it was an untenable situation.
#4
Generally when it comes to the slave movement in the United States most people have the impression that slavers just went over and kidnapped the natives, which although did happen, wasn't the only way slaves were acquired. Quite a lot of slaves were actually bought from African chiefs, who'd sell their own and captured people to the Slavers.
Christopher Walkies 2 years ago
This is a historical fact. But it must be recognised as a minor detail. The important fact remains that Europeans operated a murderous slave trade on a near unimaginable scale and that trade forms the foundations of our modern world, economically and culturally. That's why we must not forget, deny or dilute it. Whenever people bring up that African Chiefs / Kings owned and sold slaves, it is an attempt to dilute the blame. It must not be diluted. It's a good thing that the British etc. were excellent book keepers or by now I believe many people would deny that this most shameful chapter of human history ever happened.
Ace 2 years ago
Well yes, but regardless of who's doing the kidnapping, the ultimate blame still lies with the final purchaser. The 'acquisition' part only existed because of the huge market for slaves, driven largely by European colonisation of the Americas.
Rinso the Red 2 years ago
Unfortunately, this bit of data is often used to make slavery in the US "not the white guy's fault". Which is, obviously, c**p. People were treated as chattel, there's no pushing the buck on that point.
Michael Largey 2 years ago
All were kidnapped into slavery. Some by the white slave traders, some by local leaders who sold them to the white traders. But all were kidnapped. There were no volunteers.
Mario Strada 2 years ago
While this is true, and pretty widely known, it is absolutely no justification of institutional slavery, and bringing it up is a weak argument.
Power puff scientist 2 years ago
people are so upset with slavery in the past but no one actually does anything about moddrn slavery like sweat shops. you buy your s**t and live your comfy lives without doing anything but condemn slavery from the past like that makes you a good human.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 2 years ago
In most African countries at the time, slaves had rights similar to those of sharecroppers. They had the right to approximately half of what their labor produced, they had the right to be fed and clothed properly, they even had the right to be removed from an abusive master. They also had the right to buy themselves out of slavery.
bbfa 2 years ago
If there were not greedy, dehumanizing, and cruel people to sell them to, there would not have been a slave trade in the first place.
#5
There's definitely this thought process that normal Germans (and Poles, Austrians, Hungarians, etc) didn't know about the camps at all during the holocaust that gets pushed as fact in schools, which is b******t. The concept of the goings on at a KZ was absolutely something people knew. When my grandfather was growing up it was normal to 'hire' people from Dachau satellite camps to build fences or work in fields or whatever. The industrialization process and scale of it was news to them, for sure, but if something happened to you and you were sent to a KZ, everyone knew it was a death sentence, and you were going to be forced into labor until you died. By the time 1944 rolled around they were pretty aware of the gas chambers too, though most people didn't believe it.
Jiminy 2 years ago (edited)
My grandma was a teen and young adult in Nazi Germany. She said "Everybody who says they didn't know is lying." Even though she agrees most didn't know about literal death camps, but they were aware that work camps were really really bad and most people died there.
Vix Spiderthrust 2 years ago
I've heard it said that people didn't know...and worked hard to make sure they didn't know.
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Becky Samuel 2 years ago
Americans were aware of Guantanomo Bay for literally years before it was closed. We all know full well that our coffee and chocolate are produced by child labor. None of us have clean hands.
Miss Frankfurter 2 years ago (edited)
When my dad was in the Canadian Army after the war, he was stationed at the base at Essen. Some were tasked with going to take down most of Bergen Belsen concentration camp, my dad being one, Some of the soldiers who were sent along with him had been at the camp very shortly after the liberation of the camp. My dad and everyone would go to town for lunch. The people knew why they were there. Everyone denied knowing anything. They were immediately confronted by those soldiers. How could they not know? The soldiers could smell the camp several km up the road before they reached the town. The camp was further on from there. The names of people who lived in the town were found on the camp payroll books because they worked there. My dad was disgusted. BTW. Off topic, but the 3 years he was there, he only met one German man who, having been in the German army during the war, would admit to fighting against Canadian soldiers. Everyone else he ever met were on the Russian Front, you know. What are the odds🤔
Bruce Strickland 2 years ago
I had a boss who was in the Army and spent time in postwar Germany. He was of German descent and spoke the language. While riding in a taxi he told the driver that of all the Germans he had met, he had never met a Nazi. "Well, you met one now."
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Petra Schaap 2 years ago
we werent taught that. We were taught "wir haben es nicht gewusst" was a lie.
Jerry Mathers 2 years ago
I think on some areas, it was true that people knew and in some area they didn't. Too much evidence exists of people "discovering" what was going on months or years after it started. 2 things people today overlook. One- communication was nothing back then. If it didn't make the papers, you only have word of mouth. And most folks didn't travel much. Two- If you or I heard a rumor now about the government is taking all Mexicans and gassing them to death and then burning their corpses, we would be skeptical. And we live in the Information Age where everyone has a phone, camera, and internet. Back then, it would just be a few folks talking about it. And you have a government that's always putting out propaganda. Again, we have this going on now and it's hard as hell to know what is true. Back then, it would be difficult beyond belief to know what is going on if you didn't see it.
Carl Roberts 2 years ago
And dozens of large German corporations {BMW, BASF, Audi, Mercedes, Bayer and even Ford) used Jewish slave labor to build their products.
Ace 2 years ago
Find me a school anywhere in the world that "pushes this as fact". Of course the reality, the extent of the knowledge was deeply embarrassing in the immediate post-war years so was not something often talked about, but it's equally wrong to suggest that education systems are trying to hide these facts.
David Andrews 2 years ago
I can't say if it's taught in schools anywhere or not, but you do notice it coming up on BP quite regularly when there is an article that has posts about nazi atrocities. Often there will be comments posted along the lines of "please remember not all Germans were Nazis, most normal people and people in the army had no idea what was being done", so it must be coming from somewhere
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Gabby Ghoul 2 years ago
There is also the myth of the German army being "clean" or uninvolved in atrocities during the Nazi era--a myth fabricated by the western allies as the cold war started.
Patrick Linnen 2 years ago
First I've heard of this 'myth'. Much of the German army/navy, officers and enlisted, were straight up sent to prison after the war as part of the German denazification.
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Jeannie Miller 2 years ago
Of course they knew. Do people believe they didn't? We know police are the worst humans. We know trump is a big fat liar. We know Biden is to old. We know Kamala is a rock star. We know everyone knew about the camps and what was going on
#6
That only Europeans were colonizers or imperialists.
solace in rage 2 years ago
People really should understand this one by now, and I think the majority actually do so, but the done thing is to pretend they have no idea what you are talking about. Take South Africa. The original inhabitants were largely peaceful. No, I'm not talking about the people who were segregated and underwent the horrors of apartheid. I'm talking about the tribes that the ancestors of the people who underwent apartheid killed. The original inhabitants were wiped out by the more warlike tribe of the Bantu which spread down the coast, killing and enslaving other tribes as they went. Then, the Europeans showed up with superior technology and weapons and did the same to them. Point this out though and you get called every type of bad person synonym in the book.
Ace 2 years ago
The only problem is if you "point this out" to justify brutal treatment in more modern times. Just because the ancestors of the folks you're treating like dirt did the same thing to the previous indigenous groups doesn't make it any less bad. This was a common argument in the Apartheid years to justify all sorts of inhumanity.
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Prince of Darkness 2 years ago
not even a little bit true. somebody's never heard of the japanese empire or genghis kahn or the ottoman or persian empires
WindySwede 2 years ago (edited)
title: "[...] Are Actually 100% Fake". So the statement in the header it false. edit: spelling
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ElCatrin61 2 years ago
Yup. My distant ancestors, the Aztecs, were a bunch of nasty warmongering slavers. The prisoners of their wars were disposed of as human sacrifices.
Fillipe 2 years ago
Japan, a small country, could colonize almost all asia, and they almost won too, if not for america atomic bomb, after that literally almost all asia declare Indepence, that's in August 1945
Forrest Hobbs 2 years ago
Russia/USSR colonised far more of Asia than Japan ever managed, and Russia still controls huge chunks of the continent from its western border to the farthest points east; Japan never got hold of Soviet Asia - a huge region. Japan never controlled much of Chinese territory, none of India or its northern neighbours such as Tibet, or the Soviet central Asian SSRs, never got anywhere near Iran or Turkey. Asia is huge. The US dropped the atomic bombs not so that Japan could be defeated - defeat was inevitable - but with the intention of reducing total casualties before Japan surrendered, as was inevitable. Japan was and is a fairly large, populous, and industrious nation but: it did not and could not colonize anything but a tiny fraction of Asia, and large chunks of Asia remained under colonial control after its defeat. After all, the Russians are still in the far East of Asia, it wasn't until 1990 that the USSR collapsed and the Soviet Central Asian Republics gained independence.
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Mimi La Souris 2 years ago
slavers come from all continents, from all origins, from all times. whether in Africa or Asia, the 1st level of slavery is the neighboring tribe, not white foreigners.
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Alexa Gori 1 year ago
А зараз Росія вбиває українців. То є звичайна колоніальна війна рашистським імперіі.
#7
That Native Americans were one homogenous group who all agreed upon who could live on which bit of land and always had peaceful arrangements with one another before the Europeans arrived. In actuality, there was tribal warfare often. Culturally, there was so much variety. People should learn more about the Cahokians who were unique in that they built a city rather than just a village or being nomads.
kaycee14 2 years ago
?? I've never heard it said/taught that Native Americans were one big peaceful people group. Anyone who has even casually read N. American history knows there are many diverse tribes, and that they had conflicts with each other. But I live near the Cahokia Mounds and agree we should be actively researching the early N. American peoples like we do the Maya, Aztecs, and other early Central and S. Americans.
PlatinumThe8-BitCat 2 years ago
Yeah, we’ve been taught in class before about the amount of fighting and war between Native Americans many times, we’ve never been taught that they were all peaceful.
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Nila Griffin 2 years ago
I have never ever heard the former, that’s just weird. Who would believe that? Floridians and their patriotic brainwashing school curriculums?
PlatinumThe8-BitCat 2 years ago
I live in Florida and we’re taught about the Natives fighting and conflicts and I’ve never been taught that they were all peaceful
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David A Paterson 2 years ago (edited)
Australian aboriginal land rights are even worse. The peoples were all nomads, moved around so five different tribes would regularly use the same location on a rota basis. They had no interest whatever in land ownership, land had no meaning. The maps showing aboriginal land ownership in Australia have been completely redrawn three times, each time more ridiculous than the last and each time more stupid.
Michael Largey 2 years ago
the OP's claim that people believe this is ridiculous. No one believes that about North America any more than they believe it about Europe or Asia.
Jennifer Ness 2 years ago
I don't think many people have this misconception... maybe in countries outside America? I think everybody I know could rattle off the names of several local tribes and some of the most famous tribes.
Miss Frankfurter 2 years ago
Nation lands often overlapped. No clear border. Live happy together in those places? Nope. Some Nations had more of a reputation for waging war than others and were feared by others. Yes. So many different cultures and ways of living, depending on where they lived. Some tribes, especially those who endured long winters had longhouses. It’s called collective warmth and shelter from the bitter cold and everyone survived together. They were not nomads, obviously. Nomads had to have something light, easy to take down and put back up and be secure to settle for awhile. The plains. They hunted Buffalo. Those who weren’t and lived in longhouses it was about dear and fish. Then, the Pacific tribes are fascinating. Completely different.
#8
For some reason, people still seem to think that Marie Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake," when she said no such thing. History has not treated her well.
Phobrek 2 years ago
I was once forced to listen to right-wing blowhard Rush Limbaugh because a store I was in was blasting his show. He happened to comment on this exact quote, saying he didn't get what was so bad about it... "I mean, who doesn't love cake?!" he bellowed, perfectly reflecting the obliviousness and entitlement suggested by the quote. Which, as said, was likely never said by Antoinette. And the meaning, basically, is: rich person, hearing the poor have no bread to eat, suggesting they eat cake instead, oblivious to the fact that if you can't afford bread, you certainly won't be able to afford cake.
Jeffree Inferus 2 years ago
The usual presumption was the that the unnamed "great princess" who was said to have uttered the phrase "Let them eat brioche*" ( "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche.") when told that the peasants don't have bread to eat was Marie Antoinette, but there is no proof either way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake#Origins *brioche is like adding egg yolks to American "wonder white" bread recipe, so I guess could be described as "cake", like some people call your bread.
Andy Frobig 2 years ago
However, it is true that when Louis XVI was told the peasants were revolting, he said, "Whew, you said it! They stink on ice!"
Load More Replies... Laura Williams 2 years ago
Never thought she did. To me it seemed unlikely she said it she was sacrificed to stop the revolution.
Nimitz 2 years ago
How terrible that one of the richest people was treated poorly by history. So terribly unfair that she went through a life of opulence and people were mean to her after she died...
Forrest Hobbs 2 years ago
History should be truthful about people and things, rich or poor or in the middle. But it's pretty much certain that she never suggested "Let them eat cake" for all sorts of sound reasons it's easy to look up on the internet.
Load More Replies... #9
My mother and all her siblings were taught at a Catholic school that men have one less rib than women and that's to origin of the Adam and Eve story. Completely untrue. Men and women have the same number of ribs.
Nora12 2 years ago (edited)
The reason that the Adam and Eve story is told that way even though all humans have the same number of ribs is that it was the cleaned up version of a nsfw myth that was around the Middle East at the time. This myth was meant to explain why certain rodents, dogs, monkeys, and other mammals have a bone in their penis (The baculum) but humans don’t. Where did this bone go? This myth was originally a way to explain it that later got cleaned up.
Christos Arvanitis 2 years ago
And that is why this was originally story of D**k and Eve...
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AnMadraRua🦊 2 years ago (edited)
An interesting theory that the rib thing is a cleaned up version, and Eve is actually meant to be from his d**k bone. But weird, but makes sense.
Jennifer Ness 2 years ago
I didn't see anybody say it was a mistranslation. It was a cleaned up version of a myth
Load More Replies... BoredPossum 2 years ago
I can't even... Catholic school? Religion and education doesn't mix. People believing fairy tale stories have no business teaching.
Gabriele Alfredo Pini 2 years ago
I'm a teacher of Catholic Religion in Italian public schools (IRC). I assure you that my lessons were more scientific than what many children were taught at home.
Load More Replies... Jerry Mathers 2 years ago
In the beginning, god created Adam. And as time went by, Adam realized he was lonely. So one day he calls up to god "God, I'm pretty lonely down here. Can you make me someone to help me tend Eden. Who is fun, who I can talk with and have meaningful and insightful conversations, and share all that the world has to offer?" God thinks about and calls to Adam "I can do that, Adam. But to do it, I would need to take the parts from you. An arm and an eye. An ear and a leg. Half of everything". Adam think it over and calls back up to god "Well what could I get for a rib?" :-). Totally worth the downvotes.
Mario Strada 2 years ago
Of course they do! Yet generations of homeschooled kids arrive at college believing this. Personally, I find it hilarious. Many also think that Jesus spoke English.
Plant Wizard 2 years ago (edited)
My mother taught me this when I was a child (about 7). I went around feeling the ribs and counting of all the kids in the neighbourhood and at school. Came to the conclusion this was totally wrong. Stopped believing everything my mother said and began growing the foundations for a career in science.
Not-a-Clue (she/her) 2 years ago
Years ago a friend of mine told me with absolute certainty she was pregnant with a boy, because she'd counted the ribs during her scan. 😬
Mermeow Overlord (they/them) 2 years ago
I am more worried about her baby's missing rib, is her baby missing one or is she just bad at math?
Load More Replies... #10
That Napoleon was very short. He was slightly taller than an average Frenchman of his time. Around 168-170 cm. It was English propaganda. He was also often surrounded by his Imperial Guard who used to be a lot taller. Still, alot shorter than average Europeans these days.
Ian Webling 2 years ago
Napoleon was 5'2" in FRENCH inches tall. This a equivalent to 5'7" in British (Imperial) inches.
Vix Spiderthrust 2 years ago
IIRC, he was actually slightly taller than Wellington
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Radek Suski 2 years ago
I’m pretty sure it was mostly caused in difference between French and English measurement units that had same names but different values
Michael Largey 2 years ago
Minimum height for the Imperial Guard was six feet, so he seemed a lot shorter when standing with them. I doubt that he cared because self confidence is something he never lacked.
Laura Mende (Human) 2 years ago
As you can see, he was balding. So he holds a comb in his inner pocket. And to not lose the comb, he holds it with his hand at all times... /j
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JK 2 years ago
It was also in part to the difference in measurements between England and France, so when word of Napoleon's height reached British ears, they assumed he was smaller than he actually was, this was then used to cement the propaganda to view Napoleon as a small (read "feeble") man, and bolster British troop morale when facing his armies.
Jeffree Inferus 2 years ago
The French measurement of a foot (pied du roi) was also longer (32.48 cm) than the British foot (30.48cm), so he would have seemed shorter if that wasn't taken into account. 170cm is 5'3" (pied du roi) or 5'7" (British foot)
#11
I don´t know if this is still up-to-date, but my history teacher always pointed out it was often falsely taught that the pyramids and temples of the ancient egyptian period were build by slaves. They were build by respected people that helped voluntrily.
Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
Yes, there was whole communities of skilled labourers, artisans, and 'technicians' involved. There's records from those times of how it was proper employment, like construction workers today.
The Scout 2 years ago
Only the conditions were better. Those builders had free healthcare, free food, free housing and entertainment...
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David A Paterson 2 years ago
This needs some clarification. By putting so much money into building his pyramid, Khufu bankrupted his country. With farm labourers being coopted as pyramid builders the fields weren't tended and famine ensued. I can't quite remember where I read this, but if I remember correctly, Egypt was driven into abject poverty for 30 years.
Edison Lima 2 years ago
Seems rather unlikely, because the entire rule of Quéops (Khufu) is covered in mystery. The only things known from his time is that he was a controversial pharaoh for some unexplained reason and that, centuries later, Greek and later Roman authors associated him - VERY posthumously - with vanity and insanity, because pyramids.
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glowworm2 2 years ago
I think that's mainly due to the Jewish holiday of Passover in which we celebrate our freedom from being slaves in Egypt. Most media depicting Moses liberating the Jews show them building pyramids.
Son of Philosoraptor 2 years ago
My hands and arms are stronger than you'd think. Back in my martial arts days, my good friend used to whap me on the shoulder and yell "pyramid builder!" and we'd laugh...
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Mary Kelly 2 years ago
to clarify...they were not volunteers...they were paid...they even had beer and bread rations...
Sean Sean 2 years ago (edited)
That's not entirely accurate. While the records show that many tradesmen were paid and not slaves, what it doesn't show is that many of the people that worked for those tradesmen were slaves.
demigod ruhee 2 years ago
No farmers were forced to help build the pyramids but they did get paid
BPisaddictive 2 years ago
I've read that pyramid workers were actually mostly farmers that could not attend the fields during the months of Nile flood
#12
I don't think it's taught but the general American seem to believe that cowboys were mostly White people. When in actuality it was Mexicans and even Black people after they were freed. It was considered a lowly position in the Wild West. If a cowboy was White, he was a very poor White. White people were on the frontier farming and such. Asians (the Chinese) did laundry and were cooks. That's where a lot of Chinese-American foods originated from. People also seem to forget that this time period, which was maybe only 30-50 years, had three pinnacle events unfold in US history—the Transcontinental Railroad was completed, The Chinese Exclusion Act went into law, and slavery was abolished. I may be wrong but I believe in that order too.
pep Ito 2 years ago
The cowboys were Mexicans who continued to do the same work they did before in the Mexican territories annexed by the United States.
keyboardtek 2 years ago
And the "wild west" was not daily gunfights. Not everyone owned a gun.
2WheelTravlr 2 years ago
Nearly everyone living in the west owned a gun, but most were rifles rather than handguns.
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Manatee 2 years ago
The "Wild West" also wasn't quite s "wild" as a pot of people think, as gunfights were quite rare
Shane Hussel 2 years ago
Many towns required one to surrender their weapons on entry.
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David 2 years ago
I suspect this was largely due to hollywood. When I was young western movies were fairly popular. Also TV shows like Bonanza and Gunsmoke. But back then hollywood used mostly white actors. So it could have been westerns or science fiction (Buck Rodgers) or pretty much anything - and you would have seen mostly white actors on screen. I believe this is what led to my personal belief at the time that many cowboys were white.
Dre Mosley 2 years ago
Yep. But hey, Hollywood made them out to be valiant, rough and tough, gun slinging, whisky drinking white men.
Jeannie Miller 2 years ago
I don't know if this is true. Do people really believe Hollywood? Maybe, some believed trumpy
Jennifer Ness 2 years ago
I think intellectually incurious people believe intriguing stories and don't bother to verify, especially if they like the story.
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Jennifer Ness 2 years ago
Not what it says. Says the era lasted 30-50 years
Load More Replies... #13
The myth of the Alamo and birth of Texas vs the real story of why Mexican army attacked. All the illegal immigrants from the US breaking laws on Mexican land (Texas), not paying taxes, and still pushing things like slavery even though it was against Mexican law.
Juan Something(downvotevictim) 2 years ago
They were trespassing on Mexican land, and were given multiple opportunities to vacate the Alamo but stayed until it was too late.
Michael Largey 2 years ago (edited)
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Load More Replies... Juan Something(downvotevictim) 2 years ago
Imagine if the U.S. were to open interior Alaska for colonization and, for whatever reason, thousands of Canadian settlers poured in, establishing their own towns, hockey rinks and Tim Hortons stores. When the U.S. insists they follow American laws and pay American taxes, they refuse. When the government tries to collect taxes, they shoot and kill American soldiers. When law enforcement goes after the killers, the colonists, backed by Canadian financing and mercenaries, take up arms in open revolt. - https://time.com/6072141/alamo-history-myths/
bbfa 2 years ago
This. They deify the undisputedly brave men who fought at the Alamo, but ignore the fact that they were interlopers who believed their superiority due to being American allowed them to take what they wanted. Sound familiar?.
Jennifer Ness 2 years ago
It does. Has happened thousands of times in thousands of places for thousands of years. It really seems like we shouldn't need to do this anymore. Unfortunately controlling people with big egos and personalities are frequently followed by masses of people eager to have enemies to blame for all their perceived woes.
Load More Replies... Amy Manning 2 years ago
And that the Alamo and the property on which it sits was used as a slave market. "Remember the Alamo" may very well be used as a racist dogwhistle. (I live in San Antonio and we've just started talking about this in the last few years. Even the park rangers at the Alamo are beginning to tell visitors this part of its history.)
Michael Largey 2 years ago
When Mexico abolished slavery, the slave owners in the Mexican province of Texas were given an extra two years to get rid of their slaves (presumably by taking them back to the US for sale). When the two years were up, instead of freeing their slaves they declared independence.
Michael D Bresnahan 2 years ago
The Mexican Army was sent to quell the rebellion taking hold in Texas. Mexico took The Alamo from Spain. The United States took it from Mexico. And more, about 1/3 of Mexico after the Mexican American War. It was part of the Manifest Destiny of the U.S. They may have lost the battle but they won the war.
hitex 2 years ago
Texas took it from Mexico, not the US. Texas was its own country
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actaeon cross 2 years ago
It is not as impressive looking as Texas history led me to believe
Load More Replies... Sharon Ingram 2 years ago
Not quite true. Germans had come and settled. Prince Solms from Braunfels Germany. And Canary Islanders were there before that. In fact they had ranches of cattle all over south central Texas and supplied cattle to the colonists during the American Revolution.
#14
"Only 8 percent of U.S. high school seniors can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War." So 92% of students are taught an inaccurate account of one of the most critical and defining parts of US history.
Fred L. 2 years ago
Considering the continued move against education and knowledge by both idiot parents and idiot party, as well as as topic-related pushes since at least the early 20th century, that is not surpising.
Susan Robinson-Collins 2 years ago
Some contend that the issue was States rights….the option to choose slavery or not. Such an interesting study…
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Michael MacKinnon 2 years ago
This again. The assemblies of the seceding states published statements of cause, saying that they were seceding in order to protect slavery. They even did this before Lincoln was inaugurated. In a number of seceding states local militias raided federal arsenals and forts, and in the case of South Carolina fired on a ship bringing supplies to Fort Sumter, again before Lincoln was inaugurated. Finally, even though Fort Sumter would have soon been evacuated due to a lack of food, Confederate troops in South Carolina fired on the fort itself. So much for the "War of *Northern* Aggression."
Jennifer Ness 2 years ago
Imagine if reading comprehension was still a goal of our education system
Load More Replies... Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
It wasn't slavery as such that was the cause. It was Lincoln's position that the United States had to be either ALL slave states, or ALL 'no-slavery' states. He could not tolerate the first, and the Southern states could not countenance the second. As Lincoln said, 'a house divided against itself cannot stand': there was no place for one country/two systems. Southerners would not accept something which threatened the underpinning of their economy, and so desired to secede. I'm Australian, and i learned that.
Tähtikarhu (he/him) 🇫🇮 2 years ago
So basically the cause is slavery with extra steps
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down quark 2 years ago
There’s a saying I like: Those who know nothing about the Civil War think it was about slavery. Those who know a little about the Civil War think it was about states’s rights. Those who know a lot about the Civil War think it was about slavery.
Scott Rackley 2 years ago
Here's a little history tip. Any time someone asks what the reason for any war was, the answer is always resources. Without fail. In this case, the resources were slaves.
Steve Robert 2 years ago
Seems like we have the most ill-informed citizens in the US compared to any "first world nations".
Jennifer Ness 2 years ago
It's a disgrace perpetuated by an unlikely coalition of Evangelicals and greedy sleazebags both focused on control. Stated in the 80s and has worked out very well for them.
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Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 2 years ago
That's not just bad, that's DANGEROUS. You know the old saying, "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it"? Not keen on repeating the Civil War.
Sand Ers 2 years ago
Unfortunately, the white nationalist party is determined to start one, regardless of what anybody else wants. They will likely use the (fingers crossed) impending incarceration of their leader as the pretext to start the shooting.
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RabidChild 2 years ago
US ugly history is made as pretty as possible in US schools. That's why we're a bunch of stooges and it's only getting worse.
Jennifer Ness 2 years ago
Where'd you go to school? I relayed my experience above. We weren't spared the ugly truth where I come from. We were allowed to take it in and and feel the heavy weight of of silence as we lost our blissful ignorance.
Load More Replies... #15
Christopher Columbus discovered America. That’s been bs for a long time and still gets taught in schools.
Nora12 2 years ago
The part of this myth I hate is that he is often given credit for figuring out that the world is round, when ancient scholars had known that for a long time and had actually calculated a fairly accurate circumference of the Earth. People in Europe didn’t sail West to get to Asian, not because they thought the world was flat and they would fall off, but because the journey was much too long and you wouldn’t know if you could restock clean water and food along the way. Columbus was willing to go because he had done his own calculations which included several math errors that meant he thought Earth was much smaller and that Asia would be right where the Americas actually are. https://www.history.com/news/christopher-columbus-never-set-out-to-prove-the-earth-was-round
David A Paterson 2 years ago
Some of the ancient Greeks, Eratosthenes, got the radius of the Earth right. But Ptolemy got it wrong, and it was Ptolemy's gazetteer of the world that survived to the time of Columbus. Ptolemy had a radius of the Earth that was too small by almost 50%. If Ptolemy had been correct, then the far East, China and Japan, would have been where Columbus thought it was. It would have been further east than the actual coast of America.
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Peggy 2 years ago
As a high school teacher I can say this is not being taught. Text books used in my school clearly show Columbus' voyages and that he never landed on North American soil.
John Dilligaf 2 years ago
So did the ones I had when I went through through high school in the 70s and 80s.
Load More Replies... David A Paterson 2 years ago
By the way, it's even less true that Captain Cook discovered Australia. He was not even the first British sea captain to discover Australia, but the fourth. After, if I remember correctly, Keeling, Brooke, and Dampier.
KDS 2 years ago
The other thing is Columbus never set foot on the Main Continent he landed in the Bahamas. And the Viking beat Columbus by 300 years.
Freya the Wanderer 2 years ago
The real discoverers of the Americas were the ancestors of the First Nations
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pep Ito 2 years ago
It was actually discovered for the then predominant non-American civilizations. We already know that it was discovered by migrations across the Bering Strait. Another question is whether the Native Americans themselves were aware of living on a continent.
The Scout 2 years ago (edited)
Not only was he not the first to discover it, he was not even the first European to discover it. The Vikings even had a settlement going there for years, interacting and trading with the indigenuous population.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 2 years ago
"America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up." - Oscar Wilde
#16
Corsets aren't meant to be painful and tight lacing was only practiced by a few people.
Corsets originated as "stays" or "a pair of bodies" (sometimes "bodice", though that word is used for other types of tops as well). They were originally basically like wearing a camisole with a built in bra. They were made of stiff canvas and has baleen (whale teeth) used to give them shape. I haven't worn any with whale teeth but I have worn some with the plastic alternative that is said to be very close to the baleen. If they're made correctly, they are snug but not tight. Your body heat will actually slightly melt the baleen or plastic into place and if you don't gain or lose too much weight they become like memory foam after a while.
The reason we think of corsets and tight lacing is because a few women did it in the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras (late 1800s/early 1900s). But for most of the time that corsets were popular, the goal wasn't to have a tiny waist, it was to have an hour glass figure. So you just padded out your bust and hips and bam! There were some women (and men) who hurt themselves achieving some impossible idea of beauty but a good modern equivalent would be: most women aren't out here trying to look like Kim Kardashian. If they are then most of them are using non-invasive ways to look like her (like make up, hair dye, clothing). Some women are getting plastic surgery to look like her (butt implants, etc). But the women getting surgery to look like her are the minority.
Strawberry Pizza 2 years ago
THANK you! I'm big into historical fashion and it always really irritates me when someone goes "corsets bad!!! Oppressive!!! They deformed women!!!". Like, it's true there was a very small minority of upper-class women who deliberately over-constricted their waists, but every other woman had custom-built and comfortable corsets which supported their bust better than a bra and formed the base shape for the fashions of the era. One historical fashion influencer to check out is Asta Darling; she's lovely, makes a lot of her own incredible cosplays and explains all the layers of her outfits. TLDR: corsets not bad.
David A Paterson 2 years ago
I've occasionally wondered if corsets were originally medical devices, to prevent or alleviate back pain in women that was caused by lifting babies.
Load More Replies... Edison Lima 2 years ago
Corsets are described as more comfortable than a bra and giving great back support by everyone who wears a historically accurate one, made to their own size rather than a wrong sized one bought as a prop.
Roxy Eastland 2 years ago
As someone that has worn a corset I can tell you that they are amazingly supportive, especially as you get tired. I can completely understand why women voluntarily wore them when they were on their feet all day, physically toiling.
Edison Lima 2 years ago
I remember watching a fashion historian super annoyed by this myth showing pictures of female farmers toiling the field and milking cows while wearing corsets and asking just HOW would anyone be capable of doing that if corsets were anywhere near as uncomfortable as people claim.
David 2 years ago
Just to clarify for anyone confused - baleen isn't exactly whale teeth. Though it is in their mouth. I've held it (my dad had a piece Alaskan natives gave him) and it is fairly flat and flexible. As opposed to an actual whale tooth from whales that have traditional teeth that is quite thick and hard. Here is a cut and paste on the basic difference: --- "There are two types of whale; baleen and toothed. The key difference between them is the way they feed and what they have inside their mouth. Baleen whales have baleen plates, or sheets, which sieve prey from seawater. Toothed whales have teeth and they actively hunt fish, squid and other sea creatures."
Edison Lima 2 years ago
In fact the reasons we think of corsets as uncomfortable are 2: 1) MEN in the late 19th Century and early 20th, without actually consulting any women, decided it was so and filled the press with that myth 2) because Hollywood will often create props WITHOUT measuring the actresses properly, leading to ill-fitting corsets and stays that are reused for many films by different actresses, who would, then, complain that they are uncomfortable for then because, well, of course, the industry is trying to put you in something that was not made for you and thight lacing you like you are Empress Sissy, who was (in)famous as the one woman in Europe who actually WAS thight-lacing like mad (although nowhere near as insanely as pop-culture thinks Victorian women did).
Auntriarch 2 years ago (edited)
A survey of existing antique corsets suggest that the vast majority were comfortable and sensible, and
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quentariel 2 years ago
Isn't it always those few people who take perfectly reasonable trend and turn it up to a over-excessive madness?
Cerridwn d'Wyse 2 years ago
And if you go even earlier in corsets back to the Renaissance they weren't even intended to give you a tiny waist because tiny wastes weren't considered attractive they were to give you a flat list and to support your boobies
Wallace Anderson 2 years ago
a corset is the best back brace i ever bought at ren fest mee-1-650d...9355eb.jpg 
#17
That Frankenstein is the monster, but in actuality Frankenstein is the doctor not the monster. The monster is actually called Frankenstein’s monster.
Tim Fawcett 2 years ago
I disagree - Frankenstein was the monster. The creature was as much victim as villain
Monstarr the Divisive 2 years ago
"Knowledge is knowing Frankenstein built the Monster. But wisdom ist seeing, that Frankenstein was the Monster."
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Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
Mary Shelley's original novel never gives the monster a name, although when speaking to his creator, Victor Frankenstein, the monster does say "I ought to be thy Adam".
glowworm2 2 years ago
He's usually referred to throughout the story as "the creature" rather than "the monster."
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quentariel 2 years ago
Obviously Frankenstein is the one who created the monster, hence it's called "Frankenstein's monster" not "Frankenstein the monster". Although Frankenstein was really the one who was monsterous in the novel.
Sleepy Panda 2 years ago
If you haven’t read Frankenstein yet, I implore you to! It’s a really good, albeit a bit sad, story!
BoredPossum 2 years ago
The Frankenstein people read nowadays is very different from the original. It was a love story, not a hoŕyr story.
El Cucuy 2 years ago
I have never seen any other version but Mary Shelley's. Are there other versions?
Load More Replies... #18
The Vietnam War started in the mid-sixties when it started in the fifties.
apocalypse_chow replied: And lasted into the 70s. Good God, that was a disaster
SHIELD_Agent_47 replied: Some misinformed people still teach that the USA did not lose the war (by using the red herring of a slow withdrawal) when in reality North Vietnam succeeded in their goal of kicking out the occupying foreigners and reunifying Vietnam.
Mycroft1967 2 years ago
Vietnam was a colony of France after WWII. But the French got their butts kicked at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. So the US said it would help in 1954. Initially just sending a few troops the number gradually increased over time. 1960- 900 US troops. 1964- 23,300. 1966- 385,300. Peak troop strength in Vietnam was 543,482, on 30 April 1969. So, while the war for US started in the 50s, most of the US involvement was in the late 60s and early 70s.
Gabby Ghoul 2 years ago
The US said it would help because de Gaulle suggested that if it didn't he would have to consider if the USSR might be a better ally.
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howdylee 2 years ago
My dad graduated high school in 1968. He and a few buddies figured they were going to be drafted anyways and decided to enlist and get it over with. After Basic, the air force asked if anyone wanted to volunteer to go to Vietnam. Dad & buddies again figured they'd get it over with so they volunteered when no one else did. Dad & buddies got sent to England, everyone else got sent to 'Nam. That's our military for ya. Dad doesn't personally know anyone killed in Vietnam because of this, and thankfully made it possible for me to be born :)
Sans Serif (Sans) 2 years ago
Very much exactly MY story, howdylee. With the impending fear of being drafted, I enlisted in the Air Force. After basic training they sent me to Madrid where I served four years as a communication technician maintaining the comm links between Southeast Asia and the US. Got me a wife while there but, no babies... 8-)
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CP 2 years ago
My dad used to tell me we didn't lose the Vietnam War. Other people claimed it wasn't a war but a police action. I never got that one.
Melissa Powell 2 years ago
My husband was an AF. Fighter pilot. Served one year. Two Silver Stars. He gave a brief description of what his job was. He loved to fly. Got some down time went to Hong Kong. Bought me a beautiful string of pearls.
Load More Replies... Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
The origins of the war go back to long before WW2, when the Vietnamese independence movement began. Ho Chi Minh went to Europe, and campaigned there for Vietnamese independence. Woodrow Wilson missed a golden opportunity in 1919 when Ho wanted to discuss the idea with him (which might have made Ho more pro-American), but Wilson rejected HO because of his socialist leanings. The independence movement remained active, and the Viet Minh resisted the Japanese in WW2 (and had some American help). They felt entitled to some say in the running of their country after WW2, but the French ignored them, leading to 'the French War' in Vietnam. So, the 'Vietnam War' goes right back to WW2.
pep Ito 2 years ago
No. You are describing the Indochinese war of independence against the French that led to the independence of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The Vietnam War was a war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam after independence from France in which the US participated as part of the so-called Cold War.
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Highball 2 years ago
To continue: (5) For two years there was relative peace, although the Vietcong and North continued a limited war. (The North spent these 2 years building up their heavy army, more like WWII motorized Cavalry (mostly from the USSR. Neglecting much of their other rebuilding and population.) (6) After two years they came over the border full force and most of the resistance was poor as we had trained the South to fight the VC gorillas. They soon overran Saigon. (7) The U.S. had promised intervention in the form of air support, but congress was too busy impeaching Nixon and did not respond. (8) three cheers for Congress, almost 60,000* good young men died for their politics, the cream of our youth.
Highball 2 years ago
Not losing the Vietnam war. We do get tired of repeating, we did not “lose” the war in Vietnam, but we fought a war with little to be proud of, our leaders and generals thought little about winning, why I don’t really know, many books have been written on their utter stupidity. Brief and incomplete order of events, as it is very complicated: (1) When Nixon was elected, he started to pull troops out and started more strategic bombing of the North, slower than he had promised. (2) His bombing eventually destroyed much of the North’s infrastructure and harbors. Much of their supplies (most from USSR) there after came overland. (3) The North then went to the bargaining table, The Paris Peace Accords, which up to that point they had refused to do. (4) They agreed to pull out if we pulled out and stopped fighting. We did and they kind of did. (5) For two years there was relative peace, although the Vietcong and North continued a limited war. (The North spent these 2 years
nancthetank@gmail.com 2 years ago
The Vietnamese leader went to the US for help kicking out the French & was rejected. Then he went to the Communists
Khall Khall 2 years ago
I think people conflate losing the war with losing the fight. The US didn't lose many fights. Like even if you assume a lot of non-combatants were falsely targeted and the numbers were padded to make careers...the losses from the Vietnamese side were around 10:1 of the US side. The official numbers put it somewhere between 100-1000:1. The 'loss' of the war was entirely political and on the public perception/image stage. It was a very complicated war in a very complicated time and very few of the veterans wanted to be there, they were all shadowed by it for the rest of their lives and felt a lot of guilt and shame for 'failing their country' but also for what their country did to the country of Vietnam. The south Vietnamese regime was super problematic, corrupt, and messed up...so was the northern regime. There were very few heroes or good men doing the right thing on any side that weren't infantry grunts and for every 'hearts and minds' feel good program any side has, including the US,
Khall Khall 2 years ago
They had 1-10 programs that were barbaric, self-defeating, political cluster fks or outright selfish political cynicisms. Or worse self-defeating circle jerks inspired by a bureaucratic committee. Idk. There were no good guys, not the French, not the US, not the arvn and not the nva/vc. Except the individuals who were just trying to do their best and go home safe, on all sides.
Load More Replies... #19
Albert Einstein didn't fail his classes.. He succeeded very well.
TerribleAttitude:
Sometimes it's repeated by adults trying to uplift younger kids who struggle in school. 3rd grader having trouble with long division and is crying because he thinks he's stupid? "Aw, don't worry, even Einstein failed math. Math is hard. You're smart you just need to keep at it." The "keep at it" part being the point (because in this legend, Einstein eventually stopped being bad at math)." But yes, that is something that older kids take and run with to argue that their crap grades are in fact evidence that they are brilliant geniuses, and it's the school's fault for not challenging their genius.
Monstarr the Divisive 2 years ago
And here's the story on how that wrong "fact" came to be: Einstein was born and raised in Germany first and moved to Switzerland later. Switzerland and Germany both have a Grade System, that gives grades between 1 and 6 (with halfs and sometimes quarter grades). The thing is, In Germany, 1 is the best Grade and 6 the worst - But in Switzerland, 6 is the best grade and 1 the worst. He aced Math, but it looked like he failed miserably, if one didn't catch that the Grade was from another country.
Ben. Just Ben. 2 years ago
I just learned the other day that Albert Einstein was a real person that actually lived!! I always thought he was a theoretical physicist....
CaptainDinosaur 2 years ago
"You know how Einstein got bad grades? Well mine are even worse!" - Calvin
DrBronxx 2 years ago
It’s similar to the “Michael Jordan was cut by his high school team” which, although technically true, is very misleading. To quote Ted Lasso: TED: Hey, Sam! Hey, look, I know this week ain't been easy on ya. (stammers) But don't forget, even the great Michael Jordan himself didn't make his high school varsity basketball team. Yeah? SAM: Yes, Coach. But wasn't that because he was only a 5'10" sophomore and the team was in need of height, so they sent him to the junior varsity with the hope that he would develop physically? Which he did, growing 5 inches the very next summer.”
Harry Koppers 2 years ago
Einstein was using tensor calculus in formulating his Special Theory, and was unsure óf his solution, so he asked for help. Basically he said, "Bey, did I do this right?"
Andy Frobig 2 years ago
I thought it was Michael Jordan who flunked math and Einstein who didn't make varsity
Michael Largey 2 years ago
This was just a false item in the "Ripley's Believe It or Not" newspaper feature. In this case, NOT.
#20
No so much inaccurate but heavily downplayed. The American labor movement from 1880 - 1920's was so bloody that my Anthropology professor referred to it as the second civil war.
InvertedReflexes:
The Battle of Blair Mountain, over 1,000,000 rounds were fired in a battle with workers who'd been fed up with 14 hour days in coal mines and living in tents and being brutalized by "private investigators," thugs hired the Capitalists." "Lots of good music came from it too. The IWW, communist Party, socialist party, and so on feature heavily here." "The National Guard was called in by the Capitalists, who shot or imprisoned anyone who didn't immediately get back in the mines."
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 2 years ago
You push workers hard enough they push back. Remember this is a time before Minimum Wage. Overtime wasn't a thing either. You were working 14hr/day at whatever base wage you signed up for. No Workman's Comp if you got hurt on the job and if you became disabled from this work, well, good luck, have fun begging in the street because Social Security didn't exist either. The New Deal gave us ALL these things and it's why I consider FDR the greatest president ever.
RabidChild 2 years ago
Almost everything that made the US "great" came as a result of the Labor Movement and the robber barons have never stopped fighting it back. They still are and the US government, left and right, are still on their side.
CP 2 years ago
bOThSides! The laziest lamest argument in all of politics. You could take a super quick gander at the politics of unions today and quickly discover how wrong your are.
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Alecto76 2 years ago
Labor Unions - my favorite thing to talk about with Trumpers that don't understand socialism. Blah blah socialism is communism - buddy, aren't you in a labor union? Let me explain a few things... One of the greatest novels of the rise of unions in the US - The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. This is about the Chicago stockyards. Highly recommend.
Lori w 2 years ago
Not sure why Americans think we're a "rich" nation. Most people needs 2 incomes to survive or more than 40 hours a week. We spend the most on healthcare. We're taxed going both ways. Makes me sad this isn't taught. Labor day to Americans just means a barbecue and maybe a day off if you work a desk job.
Alexa Gori 1 year ago
Держава, що служить капіталу ніколи не враховувала інтересів народу. А балачки про демократію - це для "лохторату" (noobs for elections). В багатьох країнах це так.
Temporary Dork 2 years ago
Never heard of this! I read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_States but a pointer to something more specific would be welcome.
#21
I always seem to see some school teachers talking about Pearl Harbor, and some of them say that thats how WW2 started, I remember when I corrected them once, then i got to sit in the timeout corner.
EingestricheneOktave:
Man, that must have been frustrating.
To be fair, that's how WW2 started for the americans, but yes, it was already in full swing in other parts of the world.
There's this ubiquitous photo of german soldiers removing the barrier that marked the german-polish border in 1939. It's everywhere. It's in documentaries, it's shown in schools, it's in history books etc. etc. and, correctly so, always in connection with the beginning of the war.
Almost every german has this photo drilled into their brain, and that it was taken in 1939, when the war started.
Tähtikarhu (he/him) 🇫🇮 2 years ago
1939 too is wrong and way too western-centric. The war started in 1937, when Japan attacked China. The invasion lasted until Japan surrendered (actually longer, as some soldiers refused to accept the surrender), and the allies did support China
John Dilligaf 2 years ago
possibly. But from 37 till 39 only China and Japan were at war. Two nations at war are hardly a "world war"......... I would say it may have started in 1937, but it didn't actually become a World War until 1941. Even after Germany invaded Poland, that was still just a European war of Germany vs Great Britain & France, unconnected to the Japanese-Chinese war. Italy joined in in June of 1940, and the USSR in June of 41. But after Pearl Harbor then Japan declared war on England, Germany & Italy declared war on the USA, the USA declared war on Germany, Italy & Japan. That's when it truly became a world wide war,
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Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
Many historians these days say that the Pacific War began in the early 1930s, when militaristic factions in Japan promoted the idea of taking over large parts of China and SE Asia to secure resources and 'space' for Japan and its population, not unlike Germany's idea of 'lebensraum' in the east. The Japanese actions throughout the 1930s were the cause of a lot of diplomatic and economic argy-bargy between the US and Japan through those years, and it was Japan's response, or unwillingness to respond, to American pressure that they felt 'pushed' them into aggression in Dec 1941.
Jerry Mathers 2 years ago
The aggressions against groups like the Jewish people, communists, and the mentally impaired started much earlier than that. And Germany was able to annex Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia without firing a shot. It was only when he tried to annex Poland using the same BS did Europe do anything. Hilter and Trump objectively have much in common. They both were able to get people riled up. They both could get people to accept ideas that seem insane. And, given the chance, there is no doubt in my mind that if Trump gets power again, he will try and keep it. The politicians of today are weak. The Republican Party is radicalized and will support this move. Or do you really think that, if elected, Trump would go away to face charges after 4 years? I see this election as a precursor to another civil war. If this nation is foolish enough to either elect Trump or stay home and let him get elected, it will be a problem.
Sand Ers 2 years ago
If he gets installed in office, the American experiment is over. If he gets defeated, or imprisoned before the election, his supporters will attempt to start a civil war. Either way, 2025 is going to be a very ugly year.
Load More Replies... Robert Trebor 2 years ago
I would actually say that 1918-1937 was a hiatus in the Great 20th Century World War.
Gabby Ghoul 2 years ago
You are not alone. At the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, French General Ferdinand Foch said "This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years".
Load More Replies... Roxy Eastland 2 years ago
Wait, what? Who's teaching children that WWII started with Pearl Harbour????
Jeffree Inferus 2 years ago
I would argue that the start of WW2 was when the League of Nations tried to appease Hitler by gifting Germany the Sudetenland on 22 September 1938, ripping a chunk off Czechoslovakia (without consulting the Czechoslovaks) to feed the Nazi monster and hope it didn't try to eat the rest of Europe. UK PM Neville Chamberlain was quite rightly remembered as a clown for claiming "Peace for our time" after this agreement was reached.
RabidChild 2 years ago
Every society/country/person measures the world, history, etc using their own banana. Every banana is different. The only way to get the actual truth is to analyze everyone's recordings.
Zelda McLink 2 years ago
My sister got into that same argument when she was on student exchange in the US.
#22
Cortes and 500 Spaniards conquered the Aztec empire. It's true that he only had a few hundred Spanish soldiers but he had tens of thousands indigenous allies who did most of the fighting.
XenoMurph 2 years ago
And tens of billions of little microbes that weakened the population, by killing the majority.
Highball 2 years ago
Far more responsible than his soldiers or those indigenous allies.
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Javelina Poppers 2 years ago
It's been said that the Aztecs were such vicious and horrible people that the other peoples willingly joined with the Spaniards to put an end to them.
Sara Wilson 2 years ago
People forget that they took slaves, human sacrifice, etc. I'm sure they were not overly well liked
Daniel Gómez 2 years ago
Although that protograph is a Mayan pyramid, in Chichen Itza. Also, they weren't actually called Aztecs, the real name was Mexica, there never was an Aztec empire.
#23
So many! The Titanic disaster has rooted itself firmly in pop culture as one of those things we think we know the general story of, but the history is quite different. A few- -Titanic wasn't speeding -The fourth funnel wasn't "fake" or "a dummy", it just served a different purpose than the other three. It was *not* purely aesthetic. -Titanic didn't go out with too little lifeboats... by 1912 standards. She actually had more than she was legally required to take, and was designed to take many, many more. The idea they were so sure of her reliability they cut on safety is very false. Also, no one ended up dying due to lack of boats, but lack of time. Titanic sank before she could launch all 20. While yes, it was inevitable that people would die due to lack of boats, they hadn't reached that point by the final moments. The idea of people trapped on board waiting to die with no way off isn't *quite* true. They were still trying to launch them within the last 5 minutes. -Third class were not purposefully locked below and certainly not because of classism. This one requires a bit of a lengthy response but the short version is, it seemed to be all simply a matter of confusion and/or miscommunication. There was no active attempt to hold back passengers according to ticket- in fact, it was the exact opposite. -There was no 300 foot gash. The damage was made along *roughly* 300 feet but it was a series of incredibly small indents and holes. -Lack of binoculars- There was no such thing as "no binoculars". They had plenty - I think we have three sets from the wreck alone. While it's true that a last minute staffing change didn't give the crows nest access to a pair, it's incredibly important to understand it didn't matter match. Binoculars were not favored especially high, and were not required. The closest thing we can get to blaming them is testimony that states that binoculars *maybe* would have been just enough to avoid the collision. Maybe- but certainly not for sure. Titanic was almost on top of the iceberg by the time it was sighted, binoculars would have done nothing to see it earlier. A reading of the testimony shows us wishful thinking and hypothesized hindsight, not blame or condemnation. All of these are centered around the theme that Titanic was the victim of hubris. The history, however, shows that that narrative is a consequence of post tragedy press and not reality. Titanic was an incredibly safe and advanced ship with some absolutely horrible luck. It's easy to nitpick to try and find reasons "why", but the reality is Titanic was very safe on a normal, boring (albeit famous) and over cautionary sailing. I've tried to hit some of the bigger, famous ones here. The more nerdy you get and down the rabbit hole you go, the more there is to unpack :)
Peter Trudell Jr 2 years ago
The purpose of lifeboats wasn't to be a way to get everyone off at once, but to ferry people between a ship in danger and a rescue ship. Multiple trips were expected to be made.
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Roxy Eastland 2 years ago
No one involved with the Titanic ever claimed it was unsinkable, none of them were that stupid. That was down to the press. Another point about the binoculars is that they are not used to scan the horizon looking for things. Anyone who has ever looked through a pair understands this. Something would be spotted by eye, and then the binoculars would be used to identify what it was and learn more, once the crew member knew where to look. My favourite Titanic artifact is in the City Museum in Southampton. A crew member that survived had a some hazelnuts in his pocket the entire time. When he got home he had one made into a pendant for his wife. I guess they must have thought it was lucky? I've seen the bell and many other artefacts, but that one touched me the most.
Andy Frobig 2 years ago
Someone should have engineered davits that would clear the hull of a severely listing ship
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Apatheist Account2 2 years ago
I saw a documentary on how the Titanic was held together. It was riveting.
nm 2 years ago
Riveting was the practice for all steel made vessels. What is your point?
Load More Replies... Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 2 years ago
"Titanic was an incredibly safe and advanced ship with some absolutely horrible luck." The problem with this is her sister ships had similar "bad luck". Olympic collided with a Navy Cruiser less than a year after her first voyage and Britannic struck a mine during the First World War and suffered similar casualties to Titanic. The Olympic class had major design defects.
Juan Something(downvotevictim) 2 years ago
300 ft gash is the name of my Kardashian tribute band.
Sarah Mezei 2 years ago
If there had an "Active Attempt to hold back passengers based on ticket" no one was going to admit to it willingly.
Sans Serif (Sans) 2 years ago
At first I was thinking your comment was snarky. But in spite of the thought provoking information presented (refuting many common misconceptions) you're absolutely correct, sbj -- the Titanic hit an iceberg, took on water and sank! Everything else is just screenplay...
Load More Replies... Javelina Poppers 2 years ago
Joseph Bruce Ismay was an English businessman who served as chairman and managing director of the White Star Line was aboard the Titanic when it sunk. In 1912, he came to international attention as the highest-ranking White Star official to survive the sinking of the company's new flagship RMS Titanic, for which he was subject to severe criticism after the captain and most of the crew went down with their ship.
charles folger 2 years ago
It seems there was a fire in one of the coal bunkers that couldn't be put out and weakened the area that hit the berg. If you look at various photos, you can see a patch near the waterline that is a different color. It looks like aging of the prints but it appears in the same place in all the photos of the ship before it sailed.I might be wrong in this but others have put this forth.
Neil Califano 2 years ago
Not unusual ships sailed with coal bunker fires.
Load More Replies... #24
r/askhistorians can teach you a lot more about these, but one thing that seems to be kind of implicitly taught is that since medieval Europeans were white, therefore they never saw or interacted with anyone who wasn't. I'm not saying there were a *lot* of people of colour in Europe at the time (there weren't) but Europeans did travel to other continents and had contact with Africans and Asians going back to the classical era and before. Also foreigners did travel to Europe sometimes and there were the Romani people (who are from India) living all over Europe. The Mongols invaded Europe in the 13th century or so, and the Arabs once colonized Spain. So a work about the Vikings or something that has a few people of colour in it wouldn't necessarily be inaccurate.
CaptainDinosaur 2 years ago
'A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome' by Alberto Angela is a great read. Imperial Rome was for centuries a very metropolitan and diverse city. Give it a look if you're a history nerd.
Roxy Eastland 2 years ago
There's a book called Black Tudors (Miranda Kaufman) about the records of black people all over the UK, which is fascinating (and very readable). This is *before* the slave trade, and these black people are only found through marriage records, wills, court records and other normal documents. It is entirely apparent that they ended up living in the UK (men and women), were just seen as any other person, married, owned property, started businesses, had children, the whole kit and caboodle. Don't let anyone tell you that racism is as old as time.
Vix Spiderthrust 2 years ago
It's hardly surprising that England, a maritime nation, had a mix of races living in it. All ports are cosmopolitan places, by virtue of their function.
Load More Replies... Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 2 years ago
"The Arabs once colonized Spain" The very offhand way to describe a period of about 500 years.
Michael Largey 2 years ago
And a strange word to use to describe a conquest.
Load More Replies... Kim 2 years ago
Spain and scandinavia is not close, and stories about vikings having poc are not remotely accurate in fact most viking were not blond and blueeyed but ranging from strawberry blonde to copper red and had bluegreen eyes.
GFSTaylor 2 years ago
The Vikings travelled across Europe to Turkey and beyond. They met, fought and traded with non-whites, so it's a fair bet that the mixing went both ways.
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Paul Brown 2 years ago (edited)
My great grandmother came from Ireland and had never seen a black man. When she saw one on the boats he was on she freaked out and actually thought he was the devil.
PostState Globe 2 years ago (edited)
The Arabs did not "colonize" Spain (Spain did not even exist). First, it was the Amazighs (Berbers), and the Arabs came later. The Roman empire had already "colonized" the Iberian peninsula...but I doubt "colonize" is the word in the case of the Berbers, unless one believes the Al-andalus Berber-Arab-Christian-Jewish coexistence is a form of colonization...
Dr Robert Neville 2 years ago
The Vikings used to trade with the Moors. The Northern Mediterranean had loads of African and Middle Eastern people in it.
PeepPeep the duck 2 years ago (edited)
I know our history but for some reason our people don’t like hearing that we originate from India 😆 hilarious paradox in our culture. (I like history a lot so I’m chill with it).
Claudia Stieble 2 years ago
The Northmen did trade with ancient egypt since amber found in ancient burial sites was found out to be from the Baltic Sea. There were also trade routes from what today it Northern Germany, Denmark and Sweden down to the Black Sea. And don't forget the Chinese explorers like Zeng He or (almost 900 years before) Zhang Quian both travelled to the Middle East and Zeng He actually travelled to South Africa and maybe even further. A lot of people back in the 90s were up in arms about Morgan Freeman playing a Nubian friend to R´Kevin Costner's Robin Hood, but it might have been accurate, because Muslims were known in Europe in Medieval times and it was not a big stretch of imagination that a crusader might have befriended a fellow warrior after the fighting was done.
#25
The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776. No, it was signed on July 2, it wasn't announced until July 4 but regardless even Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and others, wrote that they expected July 2 would be the date that would be celebrated with great festivities. That got lost to history.
sbj 2 years ago
From now on I'm starting celebrating on the 2nd through till the end of the 4th
SincerelyMeesh 2 years ago
I remember reading the final signature wasn't collected till some time in August too. So just like all other modern holidays, the actual date is arbitrary.
CanadianaKa 2 years ago
THIS. Was just coming to say that - it actually took WEEKS to get it signed by everyone!
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 2 years ago
Jefferson and Adams also died on July the 4th - exactly fifty years later.
Masen Penland 2 years ago
Met my wife July 2nd so we did June 30th as our wedding. MY independence day from being alone forever, lol
Imagineer 2 years ago
My middle school nieces and nephews, when asked what the 4th of July celebrated, didn't have a clue. This was several years ago. They still don't know.
Kraneia The Dancing Dryad 2 years ago
And people continued to sign the document for months afterward.
SarCaustic 2 years ago
It seems it was signed over a period of a month - https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-the-declaration-of-independence-is-officially-signed
#26
In New Zealand, they sometimes seem to be taught that they had the highest casualty rate in both World Wars. I worked with a New Zealander who got genuinely angry when I said that it wasn't even close to being true. I put it down to him being misinformed, but then I saw another NZer making the same claim on the Guardian website.
CookinFrenchToast4ya
They got confused.. They had the highest rate of deaths per 1 million people in the commonwealth (not the world). "Post-war calculations indicated that New Zealand's ratio of killed per million of population (at 6684) was the highest in the Commonwealth (with Britain at 5123 and Australia, 3232)."
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 2 years ago
More because they got tossed in the the meat grinder at Gallipolis. The ANZACS fought hard and gallantly but the Turks were too dug in and the technology just wasn't there to pull off a landing operation on that scale.
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DeVille 2 years ago
Um, no, we are taught the correct information, it’s more likely some people just misremember what they were taught. The irony is this is how false information starts, you meet 1 person out of a 5mil. Population and based off one comment you take that as a given some schools teach incorrectly. Then some website like BP mines the forum you make that statement in and post it as fact.
Jennifer Ness 2 years ago
Such good points. Several of the "facts" posted here are quite flawed
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Lauren Caswell 2 years ago
Really? I've never heard this. I know that PER CAPITA yes, but anyone you met who claimed we had the 'most kiled' is either not being clear (per capita), or they are ridiculously ignorant. They don't teach us that at school. I esn our whole population is a fraction of a Northern Hemisphere country's
Jiminy 2 years ago
Per capita is also wrong. Ever looked at Poland? About one fifth of the population died between 1939 and 1945.
Load More Replies... nancthetank@gmail.com 2 years ago
Didn’t the Russians lose the most people? By absolute numbers? Or was it the Chinese?
Alexander 2 years ago
Please go and ask a german, yugoslavian or russian guy for their death tolls
Forrest Hobbs 2 years ago
Serbia suffered by far the worst death rate per capita in World War I. Persia, despite being neutral, probably suffered a higher World War I death rate due to the war causing a devastating famine. The Ottoman empire, Albania, and Romania also suffered horrendous losses per capita. Russia got off relatively lightly in that war compared to France, for example: about the same number killed, but from a larger population. The whole nasty business looks like organized mass murder from where I'm sat.
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Lauren Caswell 2 years ago
Canada is 3652 per million. Data below "In all, some 1.1 million Canadians served in the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air Force, out of a population that as of the 1941 Census had 11,506,655 people, and in forces across the empire, with approximately 42,000 killed and another 55,000 wounded.[3] During the war, Canada was subject to direct attack in the Battle of the St. Lawrence, and in the shelling of a lighthouse at Estevan Point on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.[4]"
Load More Replies... #27
That William Wallace was a poor uneducated farmer that grew up in some small village and not a literal nobleman and that Robert the Bruce betrayed him. See tbh a lot of braveheart is complete hollywood b******t which is sad since we don't get taught much of our own history in scotland my only memory of studying it in school was literally being made to watch that stupid movie and take notes.
Ace 2 years ago
I think Braveheart the movie did a good job of actually bringing some of the real historical facts to public attention, simply by getting so much so glaringly obviously wrong.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 2 years ago
Yeah the short kilts were from a century later and the blue face paint was from multiple centuries earlier. Did Mel Gibson just throw all the Scottish/Irish/Celtic tropes into a basket and pull them out one at a time?
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Gavin Johnson 2 years ago
The War of Independence is taught as a battles of Scots v English and it’s not true….. The division of participants in the Wars was not as simple as Scottish against English, but more accurately Scots-supporting and English-supporting (which often included Scots) with Irish also on both sides. In the post-Bannockburn period, there are Irish fighting Irish, English fighting English, and Scots fighting against Bruce because they support the English Plantagenet kings. People often took sides for different reasons – some to settle old scores, while some were motivated by who they thought would ultimately win and the benefits they would accrue, such as land or titles.
Michael Largey 2 years ago
If Gibson's "The Passion" was as historically inaccurate as his "Braveheart", then Jesus would have been an Eskimo construction worker who was sentenced to community service.
Rtblast66 2 years ago
We were taught English history at my primary school in Scotland, 1066, fire of London. No Scottish history.
#28
This one is actually a common one: England’s king Ethelred was not nicknamed “Ethelred the Unready” because he wasn’t ready for a viking attack. His nickname was “Ethelred Unred”. Unred translates to ill-advised, while his name means well-advised. Nice one. It was mistranslated by some historians and stuck around.
Paul C. 2 years ago
Also King Canute didn't go to the sea shore and try to turn back the tide, because he thought he was godlike. He did it to prove to his adoring subjects that he was just a normal man like them and wouldn't be able to do it.
censorshipsucks 2 years ago
Danish spelling of Canute is Knut, meaning Knot. It was customary to name your last child "knot" with a supersittion that it would prevent further pregnancies.
Load More Replies... WindySwede 2 years ago
same historians as the ones saying "They where really good friends!" /s
Neil Califano 2 years ago
However, Ethelred was unready for Sven Forkbeard who took his kingdom from him.
censorshipsucks 2 years ago
Aethel- means something like German Edel = noble, well. Red = Raed = Germanic Raad (advice, knowledge). Modern english Read. Means more like Noble-advice Unadvised.
#29
Marsha P Johnson did not throw the first brick at the Stonewall riots. You’ll often hear variations of “a black trans woman started Stonewall/pride” and while she was a prolific activist, she did not start it, she came later. That’s not to diminish her accomplishments and role in the riots, she was still there just not the one who started it, she came later when she heard people were rioting.
Deeelite 2 years ago
I. Was told it was a parking meter thrown through the window - not a brick?
Juan Something(downvotevictim) 2 years ago
From what I gather, there were coins and beer cans/bottles being thrown before the actual riot started. It took until 2019 for the NYPD to apologize for the officer's actions.
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Claire Artisine 2 years ago
This is something TERFs sometimes trot out as a denialist argument against trans history, so I have a hard time believing it.
#30
Watch any kind of medieval docco or book on brewing and they will likely trot out that the people drank small ale because the water was not safe.
This idea was printed in some woman's book published in the 70's and everyone just kept repeating it and still do, it was never true.
Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
Actually, it is true. People didn't know WHY drinking water from most sources made you sick, and drinking something fermented or distilled (even a weak brew) meant you didn't get sick, but they knew that that's how it worked. So, that's what they did, most often 'small beer', which these days we'd call 'lite' or 'extra lite'.
Easily Excitable Panda 2 years ago
Farm workers usually drank about 8 pints of small beer during the day for hydration, and got regular beer at the evening meal. And thank you for correcting this!
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1410c 2 years ago
"in some woman's book published in the 70's" ... flawless research on your part there, love your sources. As far as I could find the myth originated in the late victorian era and the earliest written source is "One Hundred Years of Brewing" from 1901 by H.S. Rich & Company, picked up on heavily in Louis Francis Salzmann's "English Industries of the Middle Ages" from 1913. It also quite suites the victorian thinking of "we are superior to all that came before us" and the tinting of history to make everyone look a bit worse and dumber than them. So just to point out ... it wasn't "some woman", and it wasn't "in the 70's", but it definitely is a myth.
digitalin 2 years ago
I'm still confused as to why this is a myth. Brewing beer does make iffy water potable, because of the boiling, and hops for preservation. So why is it a myth that it was preferred for these reasons?
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hwatinternation 2 years ago
It's also worth noting that alcohol back then would mostly have been much weaker than the same types brewed today.
Tiffany Wilson 2 years ago
Probably because they were s******g in their drinking water. It didn't occur to them how unsanitary that was.
Laura Williams 2 years ago
It's a pretty excuse. People like to have a reason why they drank. See the water was bad. That's why I got drunk.
#31
The US "won" the Space Race. The USSR actually outclassed the US in every category except going to the moon: first satellite in space, first woman in space, first animal in space, first probe to reach another planet, etc. That's not to say that getting to the moon wasn't a major accomplishment, but a) it was after the USSR had outdone us repeatedly in every way for over a decade leading up to it, and b) it wasn't an "American" accomplishment, but a *human* one. Space and the moon belongs to everyone.
HappyShannon 2 years ago
Then that means that the USSR's space accomplishments weren't just "Soviet" accomplishments either. They were *human* ones
Vix Spiderthrust 2 years ago (edited)
Well, b) it was in large part a Nazi accomplishment. As Tom Lehrer said, "We accomplished it by good old American know-how, as provided by good old Americans like Werner von Braun".
Stephanie Barr 2 years ago
Not to pick a winner, but Americans definitely underestimate the accomplishments of the Soviets, even if I'm less impressed with the first animal in space given they sent the dog up to die (by design). But they did amazing work and have some amazing accomplishments many folks have no clue about, like that the Russians had functioning space stations (that could be left unmanned for months/years) and still be viable continuously from the 1960's to until Mir fell out of the sky. They had terrific unmanned successful rovers on the moon that no one seems to know about it. Arguably, the Buran was more capable and flexible than the Space Shuttle but was killed largely by politics. And the Soviet moon shot was arguably killed by topography since the multi-engine N1 rocket (30 engines!) had to be transported to launch site by train in pieces (rather than barge which we could use for the fully assembled Saturn V segments) so it was tested, disassembled, transported, then reassembled.
Daniel Atkins 2 years ago
a lot of the lack of knowledge is due to the cold war. Both sides kept the other from know what was going on. There was talk prior to the moon landing of joining together for space exploration but it didn't happen until after the moon landing. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/50-years-ago-the-united-states-and-the-soviet-union-sign-a-space-cooperation-agreement
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Christof Irran 2 years ago
The Russians were first in the space race because they captured Obert of V1 and V2 fame, whereas the Americans had to make due with Wernher von Braun. Obert had developed his own algorithm for rocket propulsion and rocket trajectories, and was thus able to lop rockets on London at will which later benefited the Russians in their own quest for space.
Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
Gosh, i hope that the Chinese feel that way about the Moon. But, i wouldn't be surprised...
DC 2 years ago (edited)
... and, tbh, I'd have expected the Soviets to win the race to the moon also, but as Sergej Korolyov died during a minor surgery, the removal of his gallbladder, he was missing from then on, and his successors weren't really up to him. Andy Warhol died by the same procedure, and I ... I'm not that important. I just got chronic pain that I still seek treatment for that lasts - all doctors up to now either don't take it seriously, or prescribe one round of sufficient analgetics and then refuse to continue, because they fear that the insurance company might object to the strength. Which wouldn't be necessary, had I not been dismissed as "not enough of a case" and similarly sad excuses of an excuse. Eff it, we're elsewhere here - Korolyov was a genius, freed from a Gulag due to his abilities and knowledge about aircrafts and rocketry. Would he have survived, he'd been the head of aerospace in the USSR for years to come, the exact years the journey to the moon was accomplished.
Michael Largey 2 years ago
Who wins a race depends on what finishing line is agreed on. Here the agreed on finishing line was landing a man on the moon and bringing him back safely. Perhaps a shallow form of measuring victory, but that was the focus of the competition.
iseefractals 2 years ago
the whole basis of the "space race" was getting to the moon. Which is why once that goal was achieved, human manned space exploration went mostly dormant for the better part of 50 years until a few billionaires decided to take up the mantel. But you don't get to paint the russian achievements as russian wins, while saying getting to the moon is a "human" achievement. And for that matter, what was really achieved? Playing out a d**k measuring contest by two world superpowers? That goal, or at least America achieving it was the worst thing that could have happened for humanity at large. All the tech that was created in service of getting to the moon...changed the course of human history. But it fell very short, and "For All mankind" on Apple TV has spent the past few years playing out that point depressingly well. Everyone set their sights too close. We should have spent the past 50 years striving for the next milestone, and pushing technology ever further to meet them.
#32
Growing up in America, we're taught that George Washington free all the slaves working for him when he died. Not exactly. He owned less than half the slaves working for him; others were owned by his wife or in the possession of his wife but to be given to her son upon her death. Even those slaves Washington did own, they were not freed upon his death. His will only said they should be freed after *his wife's* death. The slaves were freed before her death though, but only because the wife, Martha, was scared they would kill her for their freedom. Also, most the people enslaved at Washington's plantation continued to be enslaved.
Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
'...Martha, was scared they would kill her for their freedom.' Always a worry with a slave-labour system: the distinct lack of gratitude.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 2 years ago
But according to some people on certain "news" channels, slavery taught the slaves useful skills and trades. I can't type the words I would use to describe this view on this website so use your imagination.
Load More Replies... #33
I don't know if it's still taught, but I know that a commonly held belief is that the whole world thought that the Earth was flat except for Columbus. In actuality it was well known that the Earth was round as early as the 6th century BC.
Muroid:
Yep. Columbus's actual big innovation was that he believed the circumference of the Earth was smaller than was generally believed at the time." It turned out that he was absolutely wrong about that, but luckily for him he ran into a whole unexpected continent that was sitting right in the middle of his route, because otherwise his miscalculation would have meant he was super screwed.
David A Paterson 2 years ago
The miscalculation was not Columbus's error. That needs to be made clear. The miscalculation was made by Ptolemy in his Geography book, a gazetteer of the world written in or near AD150. Although Eratosthenes had got the correct radius of the Earth earlier, Ptolemy had it much too small, putting the far East, China and Japan, just across the Atlantic from Europe. Ptolemy's Geography survived the fall of Rome and was the basis of world maps in Medieval Europe. Columbus was working off the best information available, which said that the far East was only a short distance from Europe.
David A Paterson 2 years ago
Another, less serious, mistake of Ptolemy was to mistake magnetic north for the north pole. So that the whole map was tilted. Britain was given too high a latitude and Japan too low a latitude.
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#34
The people affected by the mass hysteria of The Salem witch trial were Christians and people were horrified during and after it. It ended in 1693 and the first apology and day of fast was issued in 1696.
TheMightyGoatMan:
Also, no one was burnt at the stake at Salem.
In fact comparatively few 'witches' were ever burnt - the standard punishment for witchcraft all through the witch hysteria in Europe was hanging. Burning at the stake was mostly reserved for heretics.
Jiminy 2 years ago (edited)
"Burning at the stake was mostly reserved for heretics." No. This is only true for English-speaking countries. In Germany for example they were indeed mostly burned at stake.
John O'Donnell 2 years ago
They burnt them in Scotland too, I believe. I think it was only in England they hanged them, being burnt at the stake was for women convicted of treason.
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Robert Trebor 2 years ago
My ancestress Mary Barnes was the last woman hanged as a witch in Connecticut. Her husband paid the fine levied on him, and immediately remarried. This may actually have been a quicky divorce.
Tess 2 years ago
I'm guessing that there's suspicion that he was the one to instigate the initial accusations?
Load More Replies... PeepPeep the duck 2 years ago
What boggles me is you can still be put to death for this in Saudi. I love that country but their laws intimidate me
Temporary Dork 2 years ago
I know nothing about Saudi Arabia. What is there to love?
Load More Replies... Tim Fawcett 2 years ago
Under English law, witchcraft was a civil offence rather than a religious offence. More on a par with assault
Ace 2 years ago
Three were still people being tried under witchcraft laws well into the twentieth century - not for being witches, but for falsely claiming to be psychics and spiritual mediums. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Duncan
Load More Replies... #35
The one that really chaps my a*s is how "ridiculous" old times warfare was. To be fair, parts of it were ridiculous, like the wigs, the duels, the weird sense of chivalry between aristocrats who had just condemned hundreds of "lower class" human beings to painful inglorious death, that part is ridiculous for sure. However, especially in American classrooms, we hear that battles were set with agreed upon locations and times (very very rare), we hear that the Birts fought in straight lines only because it was the gentlemanly way (and not, say, the easiest way to order, maneuver and direct a horde of armed, drunken murderers), that American minutemen won because we didn't engage in their old fashion ways by hiding behind rocks and trees (which works a treat as long as everyone remains within shouting distance of the one guy in charge and also if the enemy doesn't have cavalry because if they do you are *f****d*), s**t like that. We are raised to believe that wars were fought in certain ways because it was traditional and backwards, not because controlling an army is extremely difficult and pre-modern/trench/linear/pike and shot/medieval/ancient warfare methods were dumb and stupid even for their day. Ancient generals and leaders on the whole weren't stupid, but merely making the best with what they had. Pike formations crawling slowly across battlefields seem silly until you consider what terrible things happen to infantry caught in the open by cavalry. Lining ships up side-by-side for broadsides seems dumb until you realize that it's actually a hard tactic to beat until you can make ironclad warships with turrets for less money than exists in all the world. Having soldiers dress in bright uniforms that offer no camouflage seems idiotic until you realize that being able to recognize friends is much more important than hiding from the enemy in this era before long range communication and easy access to officers that could think, walk and listen all at the same time.
David A Paterson 2 years ago
Modern warfare still is ridiculous in exactly the same way. It takes only a cursory knowledge of how America lost the Vietnam war to realise that.
Michael Largey 2 years ago
That war was lost before the first GI arrived.
Load More Replies... Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
British soldiers were not habitually drunk any more than were other soldiers, or general population of their time. Being drunk while in ranks was a serious offence, and they would have been punished for it. Ships would try to avoid the side-by-side thing. The ideal was 'crossing the T' (look it up), or sailing across the enemy's stern and 'raking' their ship (look that up, too). You're right about the uniform colours. Once it came to close quarters fighting with bayonets and swords (no chance to reload then), it was important to recognise friend from foe amid all the smoke and confusion.
Mario Strada 2 years ago
I was an officer in the army. Once your job is to move 100 soldiers from one place to another, you start appreciating the wisdom of marching and drilling a lot more.
RabidChild 2 years ago
All war is asinine and usually happens because of one sumbitch's greed or ego.
Apatheist Account2 2 years ago
They did used to agree what time to start, and they formed squares rather than straight lines to upset the opposition cavalry. Most things look daft when innovations come in.
#36
The British who conducted the dambusters missions(Operation Chastise) who dropped the bouncing bombs on German dams. There is a massive misconception that the bombs were spherical in shape which I was taught in school, they were actually barrel shape. This is because in the dambusters film they were spherical as at the time of making in 1955 any details on the actual bomb were still highly classified.
David A Paterson 2 years ago
Dam it I should have known that. One secret that the British had that other countries didn't was the backspin imparted to the bomb on release. A barrel shape minimises the stresses on a spinning bomb when it hits the water by maximising the contact area, stops it from disintegrating.
Gavin Johnson 2 years ago
The bomb was made available to attack both capital warships AND the dams. The bouncing effect would have skipped over the torpedo nets that were laid around the largest German warships whilst they were in the fjords. Once it was used against the dams the element of surprise was lost and the use against warships was dropped.
Mario Strada 2 years ago
They were also rotated backwards before being dropped to exploit the Magnus effect and give them stability.
Apatheist Account2 2 years ago
Not spherical, they made it look more like a crown green bowls wood.
#37
That Napoleon's invasion of Russia failed because of the Russian winter.
The invasion started in the summer and most of the French casualties happened before winter set in. The winter finished them off as they retreated, but they lost long before that.
Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
The failure was contributed to by the Russian decision to burn Moscow, a largely wooden city at the time. This meant that the French had no worthwhile winter quarters, and could not remain to continue campaigning in the following season.
Michael MacKinnon 2 years ago
This. It's world-famous in the field of visual data displays. Probably the most critical thing was that Napoleon's army contracted out logistical support, rather than having professional military troops doing it, and contracted...far less than what was needed.
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Michael Largey 2 years ago
A major factor was that Napoleon defeated the Russian army at Borodino but did not destroy it. If he had eliminated it, he could have left Russia much sooner.
#38
An American professor taught that King Henry only had 5 wives. The thing is that my family are British so we knew that wasn’t right. But he wouldn’t hear otherwise. Prat is probably still teaching that he only had 5 wives.
Adam Belaire 2 years ago
Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. Which one did the professor leave out? Not like you you can say those he divorced didn't count because he'd still have four. Same with beheaded.
Vix Spiderthrust 2 years ago
The second divorce wasn't a divorce, it was an annulment on the grounds the marriage was never consummated.
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Upstaged75 2 years ago
He had 6: Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Catherine, Catherine. It must have been confusing for everyone when there were so few names to choose from. ;)
Apatheist Account2 2 years ago
In theory, he's right. Either the first marriage wasn't lawful, allowing for the annulment and second marriage; or it was, in which case the second was bigamous. Technically they can't both be valid.
glowworm2 2 years ago
I think the more prominent myth was that most of us initially thought he killed all his wives like some sort of British Bluebeard.
Swoo 2 years ago
Was he not the inspiration for Bluebeard? Or is it another wildly believed untrue fact?
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afia kooma 2 years ago
According to q.i math he had 0 wifes, because each was eighter "cancelled"out, deemed illegit or anulled by one or another.
John O'Donnell 2 years ago
He was the King, legally he could do what he wanted. A Bill of Attainment was all he needed. Maybe The Pope didn’t think it was legal, but that mattered nowt.
Load More Replies... Roxy Eastland 2 years ago
That man would be no one in history if it wasn't for his wives. He was a big sulky spoilt baby (he wasn't raised to be king, his older brother, who was a much better human being, tragically died not long after marrying Kathryn of Aragon), reminding me more than anything of a certain ex-president of the USA. He achieved very little. Those women were the making of him.
Just a ray of f'ing sunshine 2 years ago
Not true. One of the things he did was break the country away from the catholic church. Although he did it for selfish reasons, that had a huge effect on their history.
Load More Replies... #39
The pilgrims and thanksgiving in the United States. Especially in elementary school.
Adam Belaire 2 years ago
Probably the whole natives invited the pilgrims and everyone was happy and cheerful and it was a big feast whereas in reality, the pilgrims were starving to death and the natives took pity on them and gave them some food while the pilgrims were actively killing them and dealing in bad faith with them. IE giving them blankets filled with diseases.
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#40
It might be stupid to y'all, but in schools teachers pretty often try to brush off the fact that Russian Empire decided to support the future US to fight the Brits and Russia even sent their navy fleet in order to support americans.
Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
In 1863, the Tsarist state dispatched part of its fleet to the ports of New York and San Francisco with visits to Boston and Washington. Grand parades and elaborate balls were held in their honor. Indeed, the Union interpreted the Russian presence as a sign that Petersburg would intervene on their behalf if Britain and France chose to side with the Confederacy. However, the motivation for Russia’s action was not limited to a desire to support the Union alone. Fearing a possible British or French attack, Petersburg also sought to remove its ships from home waters and station them in Union ports. So, it was (a) just a 'symbolic' gesture, (b) a rather jolly chance for Russian officers to party, party, party away from home, (c) a bit of a dodge to comparative safety for some of the Russian fleet.
Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
And it was in the 1860s, not during the American Revolution. No 'future US' about it.
Load More Replies... CaptainDinosaur 2 years ago
If I recall, George III asked his cousin Catherine the Great for a regiment of Cossacks to send to a America to help fight the rebels. She politely declined.
#41
Not entirely an inaccuracy, but most people associate Shakespeare with Elizabeth I when he was actually more of a Jacobean writer than an Elizabethan one. Shakespeare *began* his career during the reign of Elizabeth I but she was quite old by then and he did most of his writing during the reign of her successor King James.
Stardust she/her 2 years ago
I did a project on him so I can say that I know a bit more than normal people would about Shakespeare
#42
In Egypt, people are taught that Egypt won the Yum Kippur war, and that Egypt got Sinai after militarily wrestling it away from Israeli control. Usually war recounts and reenactments focus on the first day, when Egypt really did defeat Israel in combat and made it all the way to Gaza, but it conveniently ignores what happened in the following 2 days of the war, how Israel retaliated, or the real reasons why the war ended and Camp David agreement ended up the way it is. I guess you could technically see it as an Egyptian victory since the goal was to get Sinai in the first place. But it's more of a strategic/political victory, and certainly wasn't a military one.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 2 years ago
: At the starting of the week : At summit talks you'll hear them speak : It's only Monday : Negotiations breaking down : See those leaders start to frown : It's sword and gun day
Michael Largey 2 years ago
One of the main purposes of calling it a victory was that Sadat could be seen by his people as making peace with Israel from the position of being a winner.
iseefractals 2 years ago
Just watched Golda the other night....i wouldn't call either side of that a "winner"
Christof Irran 2 years ago
No winners, but certainly millions of losers: the American automobile owners. The Arabian oil-producing nations shut down exports of oil to the U.S. because of their support of Israel. Gasoline couldn't be had at any price at gas stations all over the country - there simply wasn't any.
Load More Replies... #43
Men have not always had the enforced right to vote. At the time of the American Revolution, it was given to white, male property owners—about 6% of the population (150,000 people). A century later, all men were given it but, of course, it wasn’t enforced for male minorities. In 1919, women got it, but same deal with female minorities. With the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, everyone was (supposedly) given the *right* to vote. However, this is still not true of all men today. In some states, Selective Service registration is still a prerequisite. Thus, if you’re a man, you still don’t necessarily have the *right* to vote in America; it may actually be a privilege for you. TL;DR: All women have had the enforced right to vote for 56 years this year; there has not been one point where all men have.
Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world in which all women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections; from 1893. The colony of South Australia allowed women to both vote and stand for election in 1894. The Australian Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 enabled women to vote at federal elections and also permitted women to stand for election to the Australian Parliament, making the newly-federated country of Australia the first in the modern world to do so, (although some states excluded indigenous Australians, not a point of pride, that).
Tess 2 years ago (edited)
We are having a referendum this year to vote on whether, or not, we will acknowledge that the first nations people are the traditional owners of this land in our constitution. It will also allow them self elected representatives to propose legislation, and vote on policies in the interests of those first nations people in parliament itself. Giving them a voice in government for the first time in our nation's history. It's a national referendum. One of the most important in our nation's history. Yet the majority of the country seems entirely unaware that it is even happening. If they do happen to know that we're having a referendum, they have no idea what it's even about. Sadly, the lack of awareness coincides directly with the sort of representation they are currently afforded in parliament as it stands now.
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whiterabbit 2 years ago
This doesn't even make sense. All US men have to enter into the selective service registration in case of a draft, it's not exclusive to specific states. All men and women adults who are US citizens have equal right to vote in the US.
David A Paterson 2 years ago (edited)
The right of people to vote is and has always been, based on their economic contribution. Back in ancient Greece, only the rich had the right to vote. And since then, the right to be vote has been granted to taxpayers. It's the right of taxpayer's to have a say in how their tax dollars are spent. The suffragettes had no influence on women getting the vote, that came when women became financially independent and started paying taxes. Teenagers still have no right to vote because they aren't significant sources of taxable income. The above is well known. What is less known is that votes for women had no effect. In a study by Manning Clarke, the split of votes between parties in the first election in which women voted was exactly the same as the split of votes between parties in the last vote before women voted.
#44
That the Wright Brothers were first in flight.
Kira Okah 2 years ago (edited)
Richard Pearse, who actually denied this, stating that he didn't do anything practical with aviation until 1904 (https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CL19091130.2.28) and "The honor of inventing the aeroplane cannot be wholly assigned to one man; like most inventions, is the product of many minds. After all, there is nothing that succeeds more than success, and for this reason pre-eminence will undoubtedly be given to the Wright brothers, of America, when the history of the aeroplane is written, as they were actually the first to make successful flights with a motor-driven aeroplane." (https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19150510.2.9.1)
Load More Replies... Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
Not by a long way. But they were the first in powered and controlled flight.
Kira Okah 2 years ago
The first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight, so what is known in modern terms as an aeroplane.
Load More Replies... CaptainDinosaur 2 years ago
Urban legend. In Pearse's own words he didn't even attempt a flight until 1904.
Gavin Johnson 2 years ago
The area they flew is now called Kill Devil Hills, Kittyhawk is just the nearest town. Kill Devil Hills is way more badass!
Ólafur Unnar Jóhannsson 2 years ago
Who was the first to fly controlled flight in a machine heavier than air?
#45
George Washington chopping down the cherry tree with the hatchet he received for his birthday. This is generally believed to be anecdotal at best nowadays, but is still often taught in lower grades.
Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
Always puzzled me, that one. You give a kid an axe (an axe, of all things!) for his birthday, and what do you think that he/she will do next? Like giving them a drum kit, and thinking that they won't be a nuisanceto the neighbours.
ConstantlyJon 2 years ago
I can just imagine the disgust of his parents... you did WHAT with the axe we gave you?! You cut down a tree??? We gave that to you to kill natives with!
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 2 years ago
But teeth that provide their own toothpick is a great idea.
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Jeroen de Wijn 2 years ago
Surely nobody believes that really happened. What's next, people looking for the gingerbread house?
David A Paterson 2 years ago
What's next will be treasure hunters looking for the silver dollar he threw across the Potomac River.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 2 years ago
This was something that Parson Weems made up for his biography of Washington. (Washington would have hated every page, paragraph, and sentence of that book.)
Bookworm 2 years ago
It's such an odd story to make up for a biography. I mean, aside from the fact that real-life stories don't usually come packaged with convenient moral lessons... Washington came from a prominent and wealthy Virginia family that owned slaves. He wasn't going to be out chopping his own wood. What would he need an axe for, aside from a symbolic gesture?
Load More Replies... #46
That the Soviet Pepsi trade happened and made Pepsi the 6th largest navy in the world (17 submarines,1 frigate, 1 cruiser and 1 destroyer). It would have made Pepsi the 6th largest submarine navy but not even in the top 30 worldwide. And the trade never happened, it was a suggestion but it never happened.
SarCaustic 2 years ago
In a bizarre agreement, Russia sold Pepsi 17 submarines, a frigate, a cruiser, and a destroyer in 1989 to keep soda flowing into its citizens’ mouths. With all this firepower, Pepsi indirectly became the sixth largest naval fleet in the world, before they sold the fleet to a Swedish company for scrap recycling - https://www.businessinsider.com/how-pepsi-briefly-became-the-6th-largest-military-in-the-world-2018-7
David A Paterson 2 years ago
Hold on. I only learnt that this was true last week. And now you're telling me that it's false?
SarCaustic 2 years ago
keep soda flowing into its citizens’ mouths. With all this firepower, Pepsi indirectly became the sixth largest naval fleet in the world, before they sold the fleet to a Swedish company for scrap recycling - https://www.businessinsider.com/how-pepsi-briefly-became-the-6th-largest-military-in-the-world-2018-7
Load More Replies... #47
Stalin said “one death is a tragedy but a million deaths is a statistic”
Michael None 2 years ago
My favorite Stalin quote "Death solves all problems, no man no problem" It's evil as shite but he isn't wrong.
Michael Largey 2 years ago
He's wrong when the problem isn't that person, or any person.
Load More Replies... DC 2 years ago
... it sounds like him, though... I mean ... if we add up the victims of his cleansings, among his own people, we're in the millions already. The hunger in Ukraine, after selling off crops in order to speed up industrialization, adds another few millions. Stalin is rightfully considered one of the worst dictators of the 20th century, but ... as this certainly is true, we often tend to forget that earlier dictators didn't have the means that were accessible in 20th century and that pre-industrial population was way lower, and they, at least partially therefore, failed in outnumbering the body counts modern day dictators have accompished. A similar quote often attributed to Mao: "I don't care if three million Chinese would die in a war - there's enough of them, still!". True that he said so? I don't know, but it sounds like him just as this sounds like Stalin.
#48
That the Me262 was the first jet aircraft ever produced. In reality it was the Heinkel He178 was the first jet and it flew aleardy in 1939. Not that big of a deal and most probably don't care, nevertheless it always was something that bothered me
DC 2 years ago
That, and the first in actual operation. The He-178 wasn't meant to be operational at all, but a prove-of-concept, a prototype that was made for research and development. That, it did ... of course, such a plane has to be built and flewn prior to production in greater series, and prior to any operational machinery. Introducing jet engines was a big deal then, because it not just exchanged one machine for another doing the same (like, if you'd replace a regular stroke-engine by a rotary engine like a Wankel, or a large NA by a smaller compressor or even turbo engine, ....), but it changed the basic layout of the planes equipped therewith. R & D ... always to come first. And it kind of sucks in which political system, for what purposes, jet aircraft were invented. Although the 262 does have a nice look to it and stuff ...
Load More Replies... Christof Irran 2 years ago
Also, the first ME262 to see combat had Dornier engines. That was not the plan, though, just an emergency improvisation. BMW had the contract to build the engines for the ME 262 but during the first take-off during a test they both exploded simultaneously. A post-mortem clearly indicated sabotage, and BMW's entire (slave-) labor force was executed. Dornier and Heinkel were hastily tasked with the manufacture of these engines until BMW established and trained a new work force. And then the war ended.
Gabby Ghoul 2 years ago
The Me262 was the first operational (i.e. deployed for combat) jet fighter but not the first jet aircraft.
Vix Spiderthrust 2 years ago
The me262 was the first aircraft to stand up against sexual harassment
#49
Canada won the war of 1812, because we stopped manifest destiny, although this is subjective. The truth is more complicated. My history teacher said it was the greatest war of all time because every side thinks they won….except the First Nations.
David A Paterson 2 years ago
The 1812 war. Russia's successful defeat of the French invaders? Sorry, wrong war.
Arthur Waite 2 years ago
A small item, but fun: The reason the American White House is white, is because Canadian troops set fire to the capital building when they invaded Washington, and afterwards, the Yanks painted the semi-burned remains white, just for show.
Michael Largey 2 years ago
It was British troops, not Canadian. There were no Canadian troops serving under the command of Major General Robert Ross, who lead the troops attacking Washington. All Canadian units in the War of 1812 were militia (darn good ones, too) and never left Canadian soil.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 2 years ago (edited)
Canada couldn't win any war in that period because it was not a country. (It's like saying Wales won World War II.) The possessor of Canada, the United Kingdom, fought an inconclusive war with the US in that period. The UK was successful on some fronts, like the Canadian one, and unsuccessful on others such as New Orleans.
#50
In Canada, they still teach that Roy Brown killed the Red Baron, when in fact it was a gunner on the ground that got the lucky shot.
Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
An Australian machine-gunner. Not just 'lucky', either. He was quite an experienced soldier, and knew just how to 'lead' a target like that.
Elladine DesIsles 2 years ago
I'm Canadian with a fully-Canadian education, and no one with any sort of teaching qualification has ever attempted to teach me anything about the Red Baron at all. The only thing that immediately comes to mind with that name is a Tori Amos song! (I am quite well-read and reasonably well-educated, I swear - though admitedly not terribly interested in military history specifically.)
CaptainDinosaur 2 years ago (edited)
More books! 'Gunning for the Red Baron' by Leon Bennett. A little dry, but really informative if you're interested in Von Richthofen and the early days of air-to-air combat.
Christof Irran 2 years ago (edited)
According to somewhat different accounts, i.e. "historic" accounts *not* written by the victorious, it was far more likely, and has been testified to, that he simply crashed without "outside help." But since these findings do not glorify the great and god-like winners of WW1, they cannot be, and have never been, publicized in the west.
#51
The official narrative of the Son of Sam murders as well as the Manson Family Tate/LaBianca murders doesn’t fit the latest findings. It is highly likely the Son of Sam wasn’t just Berkowitz but rather a few people. The Netflix documentary Sons of Sam covers this pretty well. Also the Helter Skelter motive being the reason for the Tate/LaBianca murders as told by Vincent Bugliosi. The Journalist Tom O‘Neill researched the case since 1999 and published the book Chaos 20 years later in 2019. What he discovered is just mind blowing and there seems to be a lot more to it than just Helter Skelter.
David Andrews 2 years ago
I haven't read it in a while, but I'm sure in his book, Bugliosi explains that the helter skelter motive he presented at the trial was a sort of "Manson family beliefs for beginners" version in order to have something which would be understandable to the jury. In reality it was a story he stole off someone else, which he was able to use to help control and isolate his followers. He was p*ssed off with Terry Melcher and that whole set in LA, bitter about being rejected, and wanted to lash out at the world. So told what he needed to to get people to do what he wanted, based on the previous stories he had told as part of building his cult. If they had bought into Helter Skelter, then the killings were to kick start the race war. If they didn't really believe that, then it was needed to try and get Robert Boselei out of prison by copying Hinman. If he didn't think they would follow either, they were left out of the murders completely and only found out what has happened after.
Der Kommissar 2 years ago
The most informative book about Manson that I have read was by Ed Sanders, a member of The Fugs.
#52
That the Philippines was discovered by Magellan.
Michael Largey 2 years ago
The Phiippinos were discovered by Magellan. He met them right there on the beach. They did not end up friends.
#53
That the reason Americans even have summer vacation is because families that owned farms needed extra help in the summer. This isn't true at all. Farmers don't really do much in the summer. The real reason summer vacation exists at all is because air conditioning didn't exist, and classrooms would get so incredibly hot that rich families would pull their kids out of school for months and take them to the countryside
Herbie S. 2 years ago
Oh gosh. I can tell you from experience that summer is when you harvest all the food for the cows for the year. Winter is when there is less to do.
Daniel Atkins 2 years ago (edited)
Wheat grown in the United States is mainly winter Wheat which means it is planted in the fall and harvested in the summer. Plus all the hay as the above poster mentioned. Also they would be harvesting the food grown in their gardens and preserving it for winter.
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Annik Perrot 2 years ago
Summer is harvest time. All hands were needed in the fields. When education was made compulsory in France, the lawmakers realized they had to leave at least July and August free, or the schools would have been empty then anyway.
Hannahar 2 years ago
In the UK in June most crop farmers will start haymaking and this definitely needs hands. There is ongoing silaging and the start of the market for livestock sale. July usually the start of combine harvesting, although otherwise perhaps a slightly less busy time. However it all depends on the weather to a certain extent which can be a blessing or a curse. Either way, every farmer I've ever known is someone who works incredibly hard for increasingly lower reward (financially, at least).
ConstantlyJon 2 years ago
would you believe if I told you..... different foods are planted and harvested at different times? especially in different climates.
LuciBelle 2 years ago (edited)
As a farm kid now married to a farmer, this is total BS. 16-18 hours a day in the summer is common. Planting crops, cutting, baling, and hauling hay, harvesting grain and other crops. When the crops are ready you harvest, or if the hay is down and a storm is coming, even if you’re on a tractor all day and night, and it’s all hands on deck. I was driving a tractor and herding milk cows when I was 5. Granted, I wasn’t operating the heavy machinery that early, I drove a tractor pulling a wagon while dad walked along and threw the hay bales on the wagon. Mom was either on a tractor or canning the fruit and vegetables she raised. Pretty hard to do all that in the winter when the ground is frozen and snow covered. Winter is the time you catch your breath and recover. There are still animals to be fed and cared for, and milked if you have dairy cows, which is no fun in the cold, but isn’t an all day process.
kath morgan 2 years ago
It depends what you’re harvesting , surely? Lots of stuff is ready in the summer.
#54
It does seem to still be often believed by people that the medieval Catholic Church was anti-reason. That’s the same Enlightenment bs that said the Middle Ages were a dark age, which thankfully much has been done in recent decades to present a realistic picture
David A Paterson 2 years ago
Um, don't know about the medieval Catholic Church. But the dark ages really existed throughout western Europe. Population crashed to a level of only a few percent of pre-Roman population. Incessant small wars and lawlessness everywhere. It's really dark, we still know next to nothing about that time.
Easily Excitable Panda 2 years ago
The medieval church was very conservative, even by today’s standards. Whether or not it was ‘anti reason’ is an interpretive argument. We know quite a lot about the Middle Ages; literacy didn’t die out. Lawlessness was not rampant everywhere, and Western Europe was constantly plagued by incessant wars both before and after. You’re absolutely right about the population crash; it was between 30 and 70 percent, varying by region.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 2 years ago
Galileo didn't live in the medieval era or the dark ages. He lived during the Renaissance.
Load More Replies... #55
That the Wright brothers first took off in North Carolina, which is actually where the first landed, the started in Dayton, Ohio.
Gustav Gallifrey 2 years ago
That's rather poorly worded, but i expect that by 'took off' you mean 'started their business'. The first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, with Orville at the controls, lasted just 12 seconds, traveled 120 feet/36.5 metres, and reached a top speed of 6.8 mph/ 11kmh. There's no way that they took off in Ohio and landed in Virginia on THAT flight.
Juan Something(downvotevictim) 2 years ago
Ohio and North Carolina were a lot closer back then.
Load More Replies... Daniel Atkins 2 years ago
What they trying but failing to say is that the Wright Brothers were originally from Ohio they just went to North Carolina to fly the plane.
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What do you think ?
David A Paterson 2 years ago
I'll add one. The Australian history books all say that the Japanese bombed Darwin on a particular day. Some may say that Darwin was bombed twice or three times. Darwin was actually bombed by the Japanese every day for at least 300 days straight. It was as bad as the blitz in London.
Vix Spiderthrust 2 years ago
I had no idea the Japanese were such vociferous Creationists /j
Load More Replies... Emma S 2 years ago (edited)
At no point in the Jules Verne book Around the World in 80 days does Phileas Fogg travel in a hot air balloon. That came from a 1950's film adaptation. I read it for the first time a few years ago and kept thinking 'when does he get in the hot air balloon?'
Kim 2 years ago
That Vlad Tepes was a blood loving madman who impaled people at random. Romania was at war with The Ottoman Empire (Turky) and Vlad was taught the impaling method from them as he was sent there as a child. The Ottoman Empire wanted to turn Europe muslim and Vlad along with a few people pledged to stop that. So he impaled ottoman soldiers to show that they were up against a worthy foe. His nickname, Dracul, means dragon and it was the symbol used by the noblemen fighting against the empire.
Temporary Dork 2 years ago
I just love the collective wisdom of Pandas that accumulates on posts like these.
Huddo's sister 2 years ago
I never learned about 95% of these things in school. We learned about the World Wars, the first fleet and a tiny bit of Egyptian and Chinese history (like 4 weeks worth!). Mostly because the Prime Minister when I was in primary school decided 'scrap world history, we need to learn about Aussie history first and foremost' while ignoring almost all Aboriginal history (we did briefly talk about basket weaving and eating witchety grubs). Then in high school it was basically a 'pick your own adventure' as far as what history teachers wanted to teach.
David A Paterson 2 years ago
I can add a lot about myths associated with slavery. But I'd better not.
Steve Hall 2 years ago
Never believe that movies are factual, they are for entertainment, not history class.
Eric Tapril 2 years ago (edited)
Not sure about that, but THIS post makes you sound like a proper c*nt.
Load More Replies... David A Paterson 2 years ago
I'll add one. The Australian history books all say that the Japanese bombed Darwin on a particular day. Some may say that Darwin was bombed twice or three times. Darwin was actually bombed by the Japanese every day for at least 300 days straight. It was as bad as the blitz in London.
Vix Spiderthrust 2 years ago
I had no idea the Japanese were such vociferous Creationists /j
Load More Replies... Emma S 2 years ago (edited)
At no point in the Jules Verne book Around the World in 80 days does Phileas Fogg travel in a hot air balloon. That came from a 1950's film adaptation. I read it for the first time a few years ago and kept thinking 'when does he get in the hot air balloon?'
Kim 2 years ago
That Vlad Tepes was a blood loving madman who impaled people at random. Romania was at war with The Ottoman Empire (Turky) and Vlad was taught the impaling method from them as he was sent there as a child. The Ottoman Empire wanted to turn Europe muslim and Vlad along with a few people pledged to stop that. So he impaled ottoman soldiers to show that they were up against a worthy foe. His nickname, Dracul, means dragon and it was the symbol used by the noblemen fighting against the empire.
Temporary Dork 2 years ago
I just love the collective wisdom of Pandas that accumulates on posts like these.
Huddo's sister 2 years ago
I never learned about 95% of these things in school. We learned about the World Wars, the first fleet and a tiny bit of Egyptian and Chinese history (like 4 weeks worth!). Mostly because the Prime Minister when I was in primary school decided 'scrap world history, we need to learn about Aussie history first and foremost' while ignoring almost all Aboriginal history (we did briefly talk about basket weaving and eating witchety grubs). Then in high school it was basically a 'pick your own adventure' as far as what history teachers wanted to teach.
David A Paterson 2 years ago
I can add a lot about myths associated with slavery. But I'd better not.
Steve Hall 2 years ago
Never believe that movies are factual, they are for entertainment, not history class.
Eric Tapril 2 years ago (edited)
Not sure about that, but THIS post makes you sound like a proper c*nt.
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