History used to be one of my favorite subjects back in school and I still have a soft spot for it to this very day—you can probably see that from the history books I’ve got in my personal library in-between my favorite fantasy novels. So I know just how weird the subject can get if you switch up your perspective even a tiny bit. That’s exactly what reporter and novelist Zack Budryk helped internet users do with his recent viral thread on Twitter.
Zack inspired his followers to share some mindblowing historical overlaps that might just make you see the world in an entirely different light... or give you a small existential crisis. My personal favorite? Hands down, the fact that a samurai could have technically sent a fax to US president Abraham Lincoln. Now that’s the kind of real-life lore that could lead to the creation of a mini-series about Lincoln fighting steampunk fax machines alongside his samurai allies. Netflix, I hope you’re taking notes!
We’ve collected some of the coolest tweets about history for you to enjoy, dear Pandas. Go on, have a read, upvote the posts that you found to be the most interesting, and let us know if you’ve got any unusual historical overlaps in mind as well.
Bored Panda reached out to Joseph M. Pierre, a professor of psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, as well as to the moderator team at the r/AskHistorians subreddit with a few questions about finding reliable information, why some time periods have far more conspiracy theories associated with them than others, as well as how to develop the critical thinking skills needed to sift through (un)trustworthy sources. They were kind enough to answer my queries.
"Unless you have a lot of spare time on your hands it’s not going to be possible to check every historical claim you see on the internet. Even then, a lot of knowledge is locked in academic libraries and behind paywalls, so can be impossible to access anyway. When looking at ‘mindblowing’ facts on the internet a healthy sense of skepticism is essential—as is looking at the source. Is this being claimed by Twitter user @fakefacts420 or a Professor of History at the University of Oxford? Are you reading this on a university website or an email your nan has forwarded you?" one of the moderators told Bored Panda.
They suggested that you start off by checking sites such as AskHistorians or Snopes when doing research about historical topics. "While you might not have time to chase down historical references in the archives, there are many sites who have detailed debunkings of common historical myths and misconceptions. Checking there is always a good start," the AskHistorians moderator said.
Image credits: BudrykZack
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My mother is the same. Born in 1937, her grandmother Mary was a slave and she voted for Barack Obama.
The redditor from the AskHistorians moderator team suggested that there is a direct correlation between the popularity of a time period and the number of conspiracy theories associated with them. "There are probably dozens of potential conspiracies surrounding Sumerian agriculture, but that topic isn’t in the public eye in the same way that something like the Second World War or the Roman Empire is," the AskHistorians moderator explained.
According to them, the most well-known historical conspiracy theories are weaponized by people who want to "exploit past events to push a political point in the present day." As such, you should always consider the potential motives of anyone trying to push through a conspiracy. The theories themselves can be anything, "whether this is people who want to fly the confederate flag arguing that the US civil war wasn't about slavery, right-wingers claiming that the Nazis were socialists or people with anti-immigration views trying to claim that the Roman Empire fell because of uncontrolled immigration."
I substitute teach in Oakland, CA and I've gone months without seeing a white kid in a public school. The schools sometimes claim to have about 2% white kids but these are actually Yemeni immigrants, considered "white" for statistical purposes. Oakland High is less than 1% white. The schools in the affluent Oakland Hills are overwhelmingly white, but the schools in the flats are not integrated. One school was down 6 teachers the whole year. This is 2021.
That is incorrect, she was first in a Jim Crow state, but not first overall. My Grandmother had 3 black kids in her class in the 1920s in New York.
I have a photo of my dad's 1st grade class of 1929 or 1930 in Buchanan, Michigan and he has one or two African American children in his class.
Load More Replies...It's so strange to me that I started school in 1971 and had NO IDEA that black children were not allowed in white schools until only 10 years earlier. (My neighbor and best friend was black and I just had no idea there was ever any fuss about after slavery ended.) I didn't hear about it or about "bussing" until I was into my 20s. (Well, I heard about "bussing", but had no idea what it meant.) I didn't know about Jim Crow until my 30s. It's ridiculous and shameful.
I always want to cry for that little girl, surrounded by all that hate and she just wants to go to school with her cute dress, little shoes and socks, and her book bag. Leave Ruby ALONE!
Check out the absolutely awesome painting by Norman Rockwell on this.
She was the first to integrate in LA. There were other schools in USA that were not segregated. But yes, she was one brave little girl. There were 4 Black children chosen to integrate but the other 3 went to different schools and she was alone. Her story is amazing. Now she travels all over speaking about it, discouraging racism.
She looks so young!! Too young for being the poster Child for Segregational Education. Well done Ruby, you looked so fine in the day your Mum must of been so scared but you are both legends.
yes, it certainly does, meanwhile antisemitism keeps rearing its ugly slimey head, but we dare not Forget the holocaust and what a toll it took on the world, not just Jews. And all because Gitlers supposed Jewish grandmother was mean him when he was a child ugh....?there have been too many versions of holocaust even the so-called native Americans killed each other your dealing with the human element here, folks especially, when absolute power corrupts absolutely ugh....
she's only 1 year younger than me, and when I was in elementary school we had 1 black family, but they weren't around very long???
“So long ago”. Nope. Not long enough ago. Btw that little girl Ruby is adorable 🥰
The more important and relevant the event and time period, the more likely it is that someone will try to exploit it for their own gain. "Because these events and periods are seen as important for the formation of the modern world, people see it as important that history aligns to their worldview or political leanings—even when it does not—and seek to twist reality in order to achieve this," the AskHistorians moderator shared with Bored Panda.
I was interested to find out whether we should put a greater emphasis on teaching history in schools in the hope of fighting back against fake news, misinformation, and conspiracy theories. In the moderator's opinion, it's not so much that we ought to focus on history itself as on the underlying skills that history teaches us.
"As well as actual historical content, schools are increasingly incorporating skills into the curriculum, teaching children how to evaluate sources for bias and judge their trustworthiness—one good example of this is Stanford's Thinking/Reading Like a Historian project. No historical document is objective, and the skills gained from working out how a document is biased, and most importantly what can still be gained from reading it, are easily transferable to other areas of life," they said. This is true for other subjects as well, not just history.
"English and reading teachers are increasingly incorporating media literacy skills into their lessons, helping students understand how to selectively ignore things they see on the internet, the power of confirmation bias, and how to slow down and consider our emotional responses to things we see and read on the internet."
And there are still things like the incredibly high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women (more than 60% of known abductors/murderers are white men), birth alerts that have kids taken away from Indigenous mothers, and the wildly high rate of Indigenous children in foster care at a rate way higher than the percentage of the population they make up. And, no, it's not because they're bad parents. It's biased removal of children.
Joseph, from UCLA, told Bored Panda about the link between mistrust and false beliefs like conspiracy theories.
“Countering misinformation is a huge challenge and is often ineffective when it only amounts to presenting accurate information as an alternative to false beliefs,” he told me via email. “In my opinion, understanding conspiracy theories and other false beliefs is best understood as a byproduct of mistrust and misinformation. If people don’t trust authoritative sources of information, they aren’t going to replace their false beliefs with facts and we’re not going to be able to agree on what facts are. That’s where we often are these days.”
According to Joseph, so-called ‘inoculation strategies’ are some of the best evidence-based interventions that “beat misinformation to the punch.” However, in reality, it’s often misinformation “that’s beating accurate information to the punch.” Especially online.
“If we’re going to talk about education, what’s really needed is a retool from the bottom up, teaching people about analytical thinking, data reasoning, and media literacy starting in grade school. We’re 30 years into the internet now and I’ve never seen any evidence of this being part of education in America. It is in other countries,” he said.
Lee McIntyre from Boston University previously told me that repetition plays a very important role in getting us to believe certain historical facts. "Repetition is important in making us believe things, whether they are true or not. There is a cognitive bias called the 'illusory truth effect' which is when we are repeatedly exposed to false information over and over and, over time, it begins to seem more plausible," he said.
"Social psychologists have known since the 1960s that repetition works, for truth or falsity. In fact, this idea goes back to Plato who said that it didn't hurt to repeat a true thing. And of course, for falsehood, this was one of the main propaganda tactics in Nazi Germany, where Hitler's propaganda minister understood the 'repetition effect,'" Lee from Boston University told Bored Panda. He added that what we should focus on is finding reliable, trustworthy sources, instead of relying on double-checking every single fact we stumble across because of how time-consuming this is.
If Elon Musk dropped dead today, it would take 900 years to wipe the smile off my face
The green arc could be labeled “mass incarceration and economic limitation over petty drug laws.”
Zack is an environment and energy reporter at The Hill and is also a novelist in his spare time. His viral thread got more than 100k likes on Twitter in less than a week and so far has been retweeted over 13k times by fans of the topic.
However, Zack’s thread isn’t just entertaining, it also proves that we’re not really aware of how interconnected we all are. History, as we learn about it in school, might not put enough emphasis on how different cultures interacted with one another during the same time periods. A more holistic approach might be key here. I’d argue that ignorance about history makes us more susceptible to conspiracy theories, fake news, and misinformation.
Andrew Jackson was the first to wear trousers in his official portrait.
Earlier, I spoke with Joseph from UCLA about conspiracy theories and separating fact from fiction. He said that many conspiracy theories that had cropped up recently “have been fairly inconsequential without any largescale behavioral ramifications.” Theories like what happened to JFK and Princess Diana to 9/11 or the Flat Earth theory.
However, Joseph noted that conspiracies about climate change are having negative real-life consequences. Though that doesn’t mean that all of the debate about the topic is focused just on conspiracy theories themselves.
“In fact, the most conspiratorial claim about climate change may be that ‘big oil’ companies, like ‘big tobacco’ decades before, know that climate change is real and is caused by human CO2 production, but that they’re purposely claiming otherwise and putting out misinformation to the contrary that refutes what the vast majority of climate change scientists have stated in order to protect profits from the industry,” he told Bored Panda earlier.
“Those of us who believe that conspiracy theory (remembering that some conspiracy theories are true!) argue that real-life physical actions—more so on the part of industry than individuals per se—are necessary now.”
My Grandma saw many of these things during her 93 years on the earth. The change in technology has been amazing.
Also Sir David Attenborough has won an award for broadcasting in black and white, colour, and various digital formats
According to the professor, figuring out whether or not someone actually believes a conspiracy theory or is simply looking to drum up followers for attention and financial gain is very hard. “Determining if someone is lying isn’t easy and is complicated by the fact that we don’t really have a clear agreement of what it means to ‘believe’ something, much less genuinely,” he said.
People like Alex Jones have been called to answer about “belief conviction in various lawsuits,” according to the professor, but they’d always been able to get away without stating it bluntly whether or not their beliefs are real or if it’s all playing pretend for the show. “[He] has been able to skirt a firm account of whether he’s a huckster or true conspiracy theory believer,” Joseph gave an example.
I was in one of the first segregated classes in my city in the 1st grade.
And any woman that voted for trump should be ashamed. Your ancestors fought that hard for you to vote for a rapist misogynist?
Not that recent is it? The discovery I mean. I would have said it's been known for at least a decade, but if 1990-2021 is 7 years, I guess all bets are off.
To give a little bit more perspective, several countries are still using biplanes in a military capacity, partially because they fly too slowly for radar-guided missies to lock onto them.
I must have missed the part where the Lake Tokugawa people were shaping events all over the globe in a way even slightly close to much, good and bad, the British Empire was
Age alone is not fit to evaluate a person's ability to lead, and to do do would make you just as bad as the racists you are railing against.
Okay, but now that you've mentioned Lincoln, I'm obligated to tell about that one time, a year or two prior to the infamous assassination, that John Wilkes Booth's older brother Edwin saved the life of Robert Lincoln, Abraham's oldest child.
This was a touching story. She married him when she was 17 and he was 93 because he wanted her to benefit from his pension after his death, as a way to thank and repay her for helping him. The marriage was kept a secret and she never applied for his pension. She never remarried after his death.
Does anyone remember which vaccination we received on a sugar cube in the 70s?
I don't suppose the person who tweeted this will see it, but if they do - y'all tell Aunt Mildred Good Evening from us!
I think they meant to say T Rex lived closer to humans than TO the Stego. But seeing as all estimates of millions of years are somewhat inaccurate that might not be the case. T Rex died out some 66 million years ago, while the T Rex and Stegos also lived approximately 66 million years apart.
That great actress and lady was 89 when she voiced a character in Family Guy. She passed away the next year
Have a chat with those who had no rights in 2000. Same sex marriage not allowed until 2014 in England, Scotland & Wales, 2020 in Northern Ireland. 2015 in the U.S. It took until 2011 for LGBTQ to be permitted to serve in the U.S. military although you can bet your last dollar that they laid down their lives through history for their country long before then, they just weren’t allowed to be openly LGBTQ. 2018 ban lifted on women driving in Saudi Arabia. Human rights acts for Indigenous People, Disabled People plus many more. These are just the first that spring to mind, if you’ve not seen much change it’s because you already had those rights and didn’t notice those who were still fighting for equal rights. The fight is still going on.
His Most Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain, gave a lot of loot to the Vatican. There’s a good chance that a Cellini masterpiece was made from a melted-down Incan masterpiece.
Though Thomas Jefferson was obsessed with finding fossils, they were animal fossils only. In 1842, after years of finding unusual bones, they were able to piece together bones of an extinct species. Jefferson died in 1809. It's possible that some bones could have been from dinosaurs in his life, they didn't know about dinosaurs in his lifetime. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/when-were-dinosaurs-discovered.html
Mr. Samuel J. Seymour, the last living eyewitness to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. was the mystery guest on the February 8, 1956 episode of the I've Got a Secret game show. Mr. Seymour (March 28, 1860 – April 12, 1956) was actually 95 years of age at the time of this appearance instead of 96. Host: Garry Moore Panelists from left to right: Bill Cullen, Jayne Meadows, Henry Morgan, Lucile Ball https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4&ab_channel=HistoryFlicks4u
I wish more of them were still alive so they could give a proper scolding to those who treat this pandemic like it's a joke!
The biggest takeaway here is that change has happened far faster than we realize, especially since the Industrial Revolution.
They stopped using chariots because of changing tactics. They were still used long past their tactical usefulness though, as the Romans Chariot races attests.
And I'm so old that I could (theoretically) meet silent film star Lillian Gish. She was starring in the Birth of a nation in 1915.
Dred Scott decision? Is this more American history that we're all supposed to know?
What? Am I missing something? What's strange about the fact that Mozart was born before Washington and died before him?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Woolson 1956. Albert Woolson was a drummer boy at 14-15 y.o., and lived to be 106.
My house is older that the United States of America. Built in 1513 my house was build 21 years after Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Americas, and had already stood for 263 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed.
You could ship it to the UK and open a reasonably new pub.
Load More Replies...My grandfather was five years old when the Wright brothers made their historic flight at Kill Devil Hills (not Kitty Hawk as is commonly believed). At seventy-one, he watched a man walk on the moon. And for what it's worth, Wyatt Earp and Emmett Dalton were still alive when my parents were kids.
Why has Kitty Hawk been allowed to steal the thunder from Kill Devil Hills? A fantastic name for some hills btw. I assume Kitty Hawk is the nearest town so they inserted themselves into the history books, it’s time Kill Devil Hills received the honour they richly deserve imho. No hill, no flight.
Load More Replies...My boyfriend is a second generation American (third generation on his dad's side). His maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather came to America from Poland after WWII. His grandma was in a Nazi work camp, his grandpa was in Auschwitz. His grandpa died from alcoholism when his mom was young. He's shown me the old documents his mom holds on to, and in our house is a photo of his young grandma with a "P" patch sewn on her dress. My boyfriend is only 33... One of the worst atrocities ever committed by humans against humans was really not that long ago when we stop to think about it... Always very sobering to think about. Especially when I see his grandma's portrait. Unfortunately she passed away a few years before I met my boyfriend, I would've loved to meet her. My boyfriend said when he went to visit her in Chicago over his childhood summers her small city backyard was always lush with vegetable gardens; gardening skills she learned in the work camp. Not so long ago at all....
Sometimes small personal things bring it home. I'm writing this in my small Suffolk cottage built before 1600 (no one knows exactly when). That's before the first English colony in America and before the crowns of England and Scotland were united, as well as before the English Civil War, the Great Plague, the Great Fire of London and St Paul's Cathedral. It's amazing to think of all the people before me hearing the news as they went about their lives. It has seen the reigns of both Elizabeths.
The digital age "comercially" started 50 years ago this month and yet I still know people who say they don't understand these new fangled computers. :D Intel_C400...feb5f8.jpg
Yes. While we're completely computer literate and cautiously comfortable with building and programming our computers, husband's dad couldn't figure out how a mouse worked, never used a computer, but worked until 10 years ago. But he could record things on reel to reel tape, and had "modern" electronics up through the 80s!
Load More Replies...Barack Obama was president for eight years while the confederacy lasted for only four years.
The civil war was a peak of stupidity while Obama was preceded and succeeded by peaks of stupidity.
Load More Replies...10th US president John Tyler was born in 1790. He took office in 1841, after William Henry Harrison died. And he had a grandchild until Oct 2020, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. The grandson of someone born in 1790 was alive until last year. The custom in that family is for the men to marry late in life and continue having children as late as possible. He was not the great-great-great-grandchild. Lyon Tyler's dad was President Tyler’s son. And President Tyler still has one living grandchild: Harrison Ruffin Tyler. Sort of puts it in perspective that for this family, only three generations separate us from the US revolution. For you millennials out there, three generations only separate you from WW2. Interesting.
I just leared that "Somebody that I used to know" was released and 2014???? I thought it was from the 1990's??? Am I just stupid?
When my grandmother was well into her nursing career she wasn’t allowed to touch a stethoscope and giving injections was so rare they would spend weeks after giving them scanning obituaries in case they “accidentally injected an air bubble and killed someone”. My bff is a nurse of of a similar age, now, and is in charge of running ECMO machines (heart-lung machines) on small babies on interstate transfers.
My great-grandma turned 100 in 2019 and was 13-ish when Snow White was originally released
These are all fascinating, but some need to be fact checked. Harriet Tubman was born in 1820 and passed away in 1913. Woodrow Wilson was President. Reagan wasn't President until 1981.
While all of these are fascinating, some need to be fact checked. Harriet Tubman (born 1820) died in 1913. Woodrow Wilson was President. Reagan was president in 1981.
The modern graphite pencil was invented by a scientist in Napoleon's Army.
Henry the 8th's 1st wife was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who paid Christopher Columbus to get to India.
Articles like this really drive home the fact that the non-us citizens on this site have precious few personality traits besides bitching about other people’s countries.
My house is older that the United States of America. Built in 1513 my house was build 21 years after Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Americas, and had already stood for 263 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed.
You could ship it to the UK and open a reasonably new pub.
Load More Replies...My grandfather was five years old when the Wright brothers made their historic flight at Kill Devil Hills (not Kitty Hawk as is commonly believed). At seventy-one, he watched a man walk on the moon. And for what it's worth, Wyatt Earp and Emmett Dalton were still alive when my parents were kids.
Why has Kitty Hawk been allowed to steal the thunder from Kill Devil Hills? A fantastic name for some hills btw. I assume Kitty Hawk is the nearest town so they inserted themselves into the history books, it’s time Kill Devil Hills received the honour they richly deserve imho. No hill, no flight.
Load More Replies...My boyfriend is a second generation American (third generation on his dad's side). His maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather came to America from Poland after WWII. His grandma was in a Nazi work camp, his grandpa was in Auschwitz. His grandpa died from alcoholism when his mom was young. He's shown me the old documents his mom holds on to, and in our house is a photo of his young grandma with a "P" patch sewn on her dress. My boyfriend is only 33... One of the worst atrocities ever committed by humans against humans was really not that long ago when we stop to think about it... Always very sobering to think about. Especially when I see his grandma's portrait. Unfortunately she passed away a few years before I met my boyfriend, I would've loved to meet her. My boyfriend said when he went to visit her in Chicago over his childhood summers her small city backyard was always lush with vegetable gardens; gardening skills she learned in the work camp. Not so long ago at all....
Sometimes small personal things bring it home. I'm writing this in my small Suffolk cottage built before 1600 (no one knows exactly when). That's before the first English colony in America and before the crowns of England and Scotland were united, as well as before the English Civil War, the Great Plague, the Great Fire of London and St Paul's Cathedral. It's amazing to think of all the people before me hearing the news as they went about their lives. It has seen the reigns of both Elizabeths.
The digital age "comercially" started 50 years ago this month and yet I still know people who say they don't understand these new fangled computers. :D Intel_C400...feb5f8.jpg
Yes. While we're completely computer literate and cautiously comfortable with building and programming our computers, husband's dad couldn't figure out how a mouse worked, never used a computer, but worked until 10 years ago. But he could record things on reel to reel tape, and had "modern" electronics up through the 80s!
Load More Replies...Barack Obama was president for eight years while the confederacy lasted for only four years.
The civil war was a peak of stupidity while Obama was preceded and succeeded by peaks of stupidity.
Load More Replies...10th US president John Tyler was born in 1790. He took office in 1841, after William Henry Harrison died. And he had a grandchild until Oct 2020, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. The grandson of someone born in 1790 was alive until last year. The custom in that family is for the men to marry late in life and continue having children as late as possible. He was not the great-great-great-grandchild. Lyon Tyler's dad was President Tyler’s son. And President Tyler still has one living grandchild: Harrison Ruffin Tyler. Sort of puts it in perspective that for this family, only three generations separate us from the US revolution. For you millennials out there, three generations only separate you from WW2. Interesting.
I just leared that "Somebody that I used to know" was released and 2014???? I thought it was from the 1990's??? Am I just stupid?
When my grandmother was well into her nursing career she wasn’t allowed to touch a stethoscope and giving injections was so rare they would spend weeks after giving them scanning obituaries in case they “accidentally injected an air bubble and killed someone”. My bff is a nurse of of a similar age, now, and is in charge of running ECMO machines (heart-lung machines) on small babies on interstate transfers.
My great-grandma turned 100 in 2019 and was 13-ish when Snow White was originally released
These are all fascinating, but some need to be fact checked. Harriet Tubman was born in 1820 and passed away in 1913. Woodrow Wilson was President. Reagan wasn't President until 1981.
While all of these are fascinating, some need to be fact checked. Harriet Tubman (born 1820) died in 1913. Woodrow Wilson was President. Reagan was president in 1981.
The modern graphite pencil was invented by a scientist in Napoleon's Army.
Henry the 8th's 1st wife was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who paid Christopher Columbus to get to India.
Articles like this really drive home the fact that the non-us citizens on this site have precious few personality traits besides bitching about other people’s countries.