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History is the study of the past, but as we all know, not everyone remembers stories the same way. Accounts aren’t always documented accurately, and over time, tales can be exaggerated or changed through word of mouth and desires to make them sound more exciting or palatable. Governments can tweak history to place their own nations on the “right side” of it, and readers are prone to believing everything that’s written in a history book. 

Unfortunately, however, you can’t always trust the fun facts and stories you’ve been taught about the past. Sometimes, historical fallacies spread even more rapidly than the truth. One curious Reddit user started a conversation earlier this week about untrue parts of history that are widely considered to be facts, and many readers chimed in to dispel these rumors that you might have been taught as well.

Keep reading to also find an interview with Susan and Beckett, co-hosts of The History Chicks podcast, and be sure to upvote the responses that you would have appreciated hearing in history class. Then, if you’re interested in reading a Bored Panda article featuring fallacies that are widely believed, look no further than right here!

This post may include affiliate links.

#1

The idea that Vikings (Early Medieval Norsemen) were dirty barbarians with shaggy hair and wild beards, who wore leathers and furs.


In reality, Vikings were notorious for being very clean by medieval standards (bathing every day and washing their hair). They wore shoulder length, very well combed hair, which they sometimes lightly bleached with potash to accentuate the blond. They wore short, very neat beards and carefully trimmed stache. Later on in the Viking Age, some wore undercut/crewcut kind of a trim, but with longer bangs.


Instead of leathers, which they almost NEVER wore, they had woolen clothes in bright colours; with blues and pinks being particularily popular. They almost never wore actual fur, they sold it all, and instead wore "fake fur" made of pulled wool (basically fur rug trims).


Instead of crusty savages, they were fabulous, clean and neatly fashionable, to the point that the Church chronicles of England note tht this excessive dandiness was dangerous in itself, because it helped them lead Christian women astray.


(Still of course, they were quite often murderers, slavers, thieves and raiders. Just FABULOUS ones.)

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To learn more about some of the commonly spread historical myths, we reached out to two history buffs: Susan and Beckett, co-hosts of The History Chicks podcast, which shines a light on some of the most fascinating women in history. First, we wanted to hear what inspired these ladies to start The History Chicks and what they love most about studying history. "We launched the show in 2011 after Beckett realized there were not only no podcasts on a subject she wanted to learn about (Gilded Age Heiresses), but there were none about Women's History in general," the co-hosts told Bored Panda. "Uttering, 'How hard could it be?' she contacted Susan. 12 years later, we laugh because we knew the answer to her question was, 'Pretty darn hard, starting with a nearly vertical learning curve'."

"Our favorite part of studying history is discovering the interconnectivity of it all," Susan and Beckett shared. "That people in history aren't all that different from us, they just lived in different times and those times (and people) connect all the way through to modern-day in the most interesting ways."
#2

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake The Lady who sued McDonalds didn't do so frivolously. She received third degree burns from how hot that coffee was, and needed a skin graft. It was quickly found that that location was keeping the coffee well above the temperature you can legally serve a hot drink in a cup at. The fact that most people think this suit was over the temperature of the coffee, and not the debilitating burns that woman recieved, is one of the PR worlds greatest triumphs. You are not immune to propaganda.

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Nathaniel
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

McDonalds would rather spend money trashing her name than paying for the injuries she received. Now ask the question, are corporations ethical?

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#3

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake That when Europeans first arrived on the East Coast of what is now the US, the land was very sparsely populated and so there was a lot of free land to settle. (At least that's what I've been taught in school.)

In reality it turns out the coast was densely populated with Native settlements, to the point where Europeans couldn't even disembark because the Natives wouldn't allow them - they would keep them at the bay just to trade and then force them to turn back. It wasn't until European diseases spread through the continent that 95% of the indigenous population died, and that's when the first colonies began in the US, so that's why we now have the misconception of there always having been lots of open land.

In general there are tons of misconceptions about Native Americans and colonial history. I recommend the book 1491 by Charles C. Mann which clears up a lot of these misconceptions (it's where I got the above information from as well.)

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Somebodys grandmother
Somebodys grandmother
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well the Vikings arrived in what we know call Canada around the year 1000. So "the europeans" were far behind.... Read about "Leif den lykkelige"

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We also asked Susan and Beckett if they could share some of the most widely spread fallacies that they were taught or have heard. "For starters people who did Big Things, usually didn't do them alone," they noted. "Paul Revere, for example, wasn't the only one traveling with a message that night (and he didn't shout 'the British are coming' because people would have just thought he was coming from a pub since everyone in the Colonies was British.)"

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"Sybil Ludington did a similar ride in Connecticut, truly alone, all on a horse, and remained uncaptured, and she was only a teenager at the time," Susan and Beckett told Bored Panda. "It's a way cooler story, but history often only remembers the people with the sizzle, or the louder mouths or, like in Paul's case, their names rhyme with enough words for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to write a poem about him nearly 100 years after the fact."
#4

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake The Irish famine wasn’t just a natural disaster - there was plenty of food in Ireland, it was just exported to Britain

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Pedantic Panda
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Very true. Only the potato crop failed which also happened in many other countries, however it was the only crop the native Irish had access to, all more valuable crops were under the control of British landlords or their agents who continued to export.

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#5

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake That historically people, especially the 'peasant class' of medieval Europe, stank. This is born of two factoids: firstly that people very rarely if ever had baths, and secondly that people rarely if ever washed their clothes. Both are kind of true but misleading and with massive caveats.

First, bathing. Think of the amount of work involved in preparing a bath in the days before hot running water. You go to the well, get a bucket of water, lug it back across the village to your house, put it in a pan over the fire to heat it up. That's one bucket. You'd have to do that half a dozen times at least. Even if you've got servants to do all the actual work, it would take a lot of servants a lot of time to get you a bath ready. But that doesn't mean people didn't wash! Most people washed daily - using a basin of water and a cloth, basically a sponge bath. Soap made of animal fat and ash has been around for thousands of years and is pretty effective at lifting dirt off the skin. As any one of us who's had to sponge bathe for a while (e.g. After a surgery) will know, it may not be ideal, but it gets the job done. Films generally portray "peasant" with smudges of dirt all over the face but that's just lazy costuming.

And now the clothes. True, the outer layers - the layers that we see - were very rarely washed becausd most people only owned one set and they could be very difficult to wash effectively, but you have to remember people, even peasants, wore a *lot* of layers, so that the layer we see was really the equivalent of a coat, and was never really against the wearer's skin gathering sweat. How often do you wash your outer coat? For people in roles where external dirt was very likely to get onto the clothes, aprons and other easily removable garments were used. The layers worn right against the skin - a full dress-like smock for women and a long shirt for men (long enough to tuck around the genitals and butt and also do the job of underpants) - *were* changed and washed as often as possible, because they were the layers that got the body sweat etc on them. They were made more simply and usually of cheap, hardy fabrics specifically designed for easy laundering.

Tl;dr medieval peasant were not filthy and stinking. They washed their clothes and bodies as best they could.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

THIS! There is a lot of imagery showing people in public baths, and washed undergarments drying on lines or spread out on the ground. We sometimes seem to think that people in earlier times didn't understand hygiene - it wouldn't stand up to today's standards, but people kept themselves and their clothes and homes clean.

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"Sometimes embellished (or truly fake) stories are remembered because they are convenient or romantic, and telling them sweetly and simply allows people to accept the behavior," the co-hosts explained. "It makes the story less messy, and also, less true, like the story of Pocahontas. There was no romance with John Smith. He was a scoundrel, for starters, and she was a kid when their paths crossed. She also was later kidnapped by the British, forced to change her identity, ignore her Powhatan heritage, and marry a white man, but those facts are often omitted."

"Sometimes propaganda justifies mistreatment," Susan and Beckett pointed out. "By making someone sound of worse character than they actually were, it lets us think, 'They deserved what they had coming.' Dismissing them with a catchy, oft-repeated, and fabricated phrase like, 'Let them eat cake,' which Marie Antoinette never said, is very effective in reshaping history to fit a purpose."
#6

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake Jesus being white

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Jrog
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well, Jesus existing at all is disputed. There are no contemporary accounts, and the only reference to his existence outside of the Bible is in a document -Flavius Josephus "Antiquities on the Jews"- dated a century later, but preserved only with IV, IX and XI century modifications, and the few words about Jesus are never referenced in any commentary before the XII century. Mind that in the decades around year 30 a lot of the most famous latin historians were alive, active and documenting even minor political events... but not a major kerfuffle in Galilee? The gospels have been proven to be written over nine decades after the "facts", and are contradictory so cannot be taken as a witnesses accounts. The geographical names are not accurate for the names used at the times, and the documents about Herod Antipas' reign make no mention of him.

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#7

A women's place has always been in the home.

For thousands of years women did basically whatever her husband did whether that be farming, baking, brewing alcohol, sewing clothes, or selling things in the market, sometimes the man would take the stuff to the market while the woman stayed on the farm to tend to the animals or crops and vise versa. The only professions women did not take part in were, law, politics, and military work, and even this was only kind of true as women influenced their husbands politics, and were expected to help during sieges (which happened a lot.)



The idea that a women's place is taking care of the house and not working is a 19th century idea that came about after the industrial revolution.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

An even then you are only talking about certain cultures. That stereotype doesn't exist everywhere.

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So why is it important to learn history accurately? "It's important so that we don't perpetuate half-truths, misconceptions, and downright lies," the History Chicks told Bored Panda. "To understand history, we have to see the whole story, not just the soundbites of history. If we just repeat an oversimplified version lacking perspective and context, we only think we know the whole story, but we're not even close. And here's a riddle: Can history repeat itself if the history we're repeating is wrong and incomplete?"
#8

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake So many people completely misunderstond pre-industrial lifespans. The average age of death was 30 not because our bodies wore out faster, but because of how averages are calculated. A lot of people died as children. A much larger chunk of the population died in wars. If you got in an accident, healingb without modern medicine was difficult.

But for people who reached adulthood, and then avoided violence, injury, and plague, living to be 60 or 70 was pretty normal.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

For people "who avoided violence inury or plague", so people who lived to 60 or 70 because other causes hadnt killed them.... that's the same in any society. It's the prevalence of violence injury or plague/illness that reduces the life expectancy. Life expectancy for a ten yr old in 1850s was about 55. Much less if you were a man, and a manual worker.

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#9

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake Einstein never failed math, the rumor started from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and Einstein actually responded to them saying “I never failed in mathematics. Before I was 15 I had mastered differential and integral calculus.” He wasn’t very good at the non-science related classes though and did fail French.

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And if you're looking to further your history studies and correct any false tales you've been taught, Susan and Beckett say that, "The greatest resource available to anyone is a library card. It gives you access to passionate advocates for knowledge (commonly known as 'librarians') and to apps like, Libby, which are packed with digital resources you can access from any place you have an internet connection."

"We think a great place to start learning history is small: with one person," the co-hosts shared. "Learn about that person, and you will understand their times, their limitations, their societal challenges, their geography... Their world. Learning about that world will always lead you to another."

If you'd like to learn stories about some of the world's most fascinating women (who you might have never even heard of!), be sure to check out Susan and Beckett's podcast The History Chicks right here.
#10

Ghandi wasn’t as good as he was made out to be.

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#11

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake General public not being aware that classical Greece and Rome had colored paints all over those statues, much less colored dyes in their clothes.

Edit: point being, we tend to believe that there was a *lot* of white in the Classical period, which isn't actually the case.

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Pedantic Panda
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Surely all was in black and white before for TV was invented? Edit; Sorry before colour TV was invented.

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#12

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake The image of Roman gladiators fighting to the death. While there were many exhibition fights in the arenas where the goal was death, these were not gladiator contests. Prisoners, and the condemned, were thrown out to fight to the death, but not real gladiators.Training a gladiator was an expensive, and lengthy, investment and having them die constantly would be bad for business.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Having gladiators fight to the death was expensive, and their owners had to be compensated. It was generally for special occasions only.

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#13

Whatever the f**k is on the History Channel nowadays.

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#14

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake Paul Revere did not run around Massachusetts shouting "The British are coming" because if he did everyone would look at him like he'd lost his mind. ALMOST EVERYONE IN THE COLONIES WAS BRITISH!

He actually said, "The Regulars are coming"

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#15

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake Ninjas dressed in all black to stay stealthy in the night or something like that. Ninjas dressed like normal people to blend in, the all black look stemmed from Japanese theatre to make it more obvious to the audience who the ninjas were.

If they wore all black it'd be quite obvious and they'd stick out like a sore thumb

EDIT: most of you pointed out it also came from stagehands, that makes a lot of sense too

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Doctor Strange
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In Japanese theater many of the stagehands were, in fact, on stage during the action dressed in all black 'costumes'. They'd manipulate scenery and props, etc. People would very quickly learn to ignore them, and they became 'invisible'. When plays about ninjas came out and wanted to portray them as invisible, super human killers, they'd dress them basically as stage hands. They'd disappear from the audience's perception, and thus it would be very startling when they suddenly directly interacted with the play. The modern idea of the 'ninja' is the equivalent of thinking that James Bond is an accurate representation of British spies.

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#16

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake A stegosaurus fighting a t rex. They lived millions of years apart . Stegosaurus 144 lived million years ago T rex 65 million years ago.

Insane difference. Still almost most every dinosaur related media places them together.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When T-Rex roamed, there were Stegosaurus fossils already 60+ million years old. When Stegosaurus lived, there were already dinosaurs fossils 60+ million years old.

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#17

Corsets were not typically tight laced. They were only tight laced by the highly fashionable women, and usually only for particular events or portraits. Corsets were designed to be comfortable. Women wore a cotton layer underneath the corset, so it didn't rub against the skin. The corset was more like a bra, bit instead of using the shoulders to support it used the whole torso. Some people claim they are much more comfortable than modern bras. The intense proportions of the past were achieved with Corsets AND padding. Tight lacing was uncommon, but layers of petticoats or hoops or bum rolls or whatever else at the time was very common to give women the trendy body shape at the time.

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mandy the capibara
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Bernadette Banner and Karolina Zebrowska (amongst others) have some entertaining videos on this point, where they debunk the myths around corset-wearing.

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#18

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake Lemmings just run off a cliff to their deaths every year... Thanks for that one, Disney!

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It might not be true but it made for a brilliant video game in the nineties.

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#19

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake There is a joke saying that Austria’s greatest success is making everyone believe that Mozart was Austrian and Hitler was German.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Historian from Austria here: Yes, Salzburg wasn't part of Austria (or what is now known as Austria). Salzburg was an independent territory, which means it wasn't part of Bavaria as well. And while he lived most of his live in "Austria", he always said he was a "Salzburger" (person from Salzburg). But, funfact: The joke is also told with Beethoven, who was born in what is now Germany. Beethoven lived - just like Mozart - in Vienna for a long time. Both died there, though only Beethoven's grave is still known. So one can argue, that they spent so many years there - did it really matter where they were born? TIL: Neither Beethoven or Mozart were born in Austria, but lived there for a very long time and died in Vienna.

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#20

That everything in Australia is trying to kill you.

Everything here CAN kill you, but most likely won’t because killing you is an awful lot of effort and aussies are generally just too laid back to put in that much effort.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Interesting. I mean, Steve Irwin professionally irritated crocodiles for many years and never got seriously bitten, so there's that. My only other source of information is Crocodile Dundee, and Mick and Sue got into quite a few wildlife-related scrapes, but neither died. In fact, they lived happily ever after. So based purely on that information, there seems to be little chance of you being killed and a pretty good chance of you meeting an attractive and witty life partner. So, book me a flight, I guess.

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#21

That the past was some idyllic wholesome time. Any nostalgia really. I grew up in the 80s and loved it. I have happy memories of my youth. And like many would love to go back to those days. But I also am very cognizant of how memory is vastly unreliable and inaccurate. And that we romanticize and cleanse our nostalgic recollections. And in many many cases, fabricate memories that never even occurred.

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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was born in 1971 and I remember me being happy most of the time during my childhood. But - in retrospective my youth was full terrible things. Terrorism, the Chernobyl desaster, air-pollution, acid rain, the cold war, my homeland (Germany) still seperated ... and the list goes on.

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#22

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake “Under God” was not in the original version of the [Pledge of Allegiance.](https://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm). The Pledge was written in 1892. It wasn’t until 1954 that President Eisenhower added “under God” in response to fear of communism during WW2. Also - when first implemented, during the pledge people raised their right arm forward so the hand was level with their eyes (directed at the flag) however this was changed during WW2 because it resembled the Nazi salute. The procedure was changed to place the right hand over the heart.

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Jan Rosier
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Ok, I am not a US citizen, but still... isn't it time to throw out this 'under God'?

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#23

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake Carrots are good for eye health, but won't improve your eyesight. Nevertheless, people have been telling me all my life I should eat carrots to see better. The reason people think that is during WW2 the Royal Air Force had this new Radar system and they didn't want the Germans to know about it, so they spread the rumor that the reason their pilots could find their planes so fast was that they ate carrots.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well, that and the fact that there was a huge push to eat more carrots, as they were one of the few things readily available and not rationed. And sweet, in a time when sugar was heavily rationed.

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#24

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake Not sure if quite at the level you're asking for, but it seems to be common knowledge that people didn't fight back against Germans in WW2 and it's because they didn't have guns or were cowards.

They fought back a lot. The largest was likely https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising. It just turns out that normal people fighting against a military tend to do poorly.

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Iampenny
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I have never heard of this, in fact, it's common knowledge that A LOT of people fought back (not enough, but definitely a lot)

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#25

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake Almost everything about the medieval times. Our image of it is highly influenced by Hollywood.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

TBF much of the chivalric myth was actually invented during mediaeval times, when it was already thought of as old, fake-traditional, based on Arthurian and similar legends.

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#26

Pretty much most of the common public image of the "stone age".

Paleolithic peoples didn't primarily live in caves. They were used for habitation sometimes, but tents or even relatively permanent huts were probably far more common. "Art caves" like those found in France and Spain often show no signs of habitation at all.

They weren't stupid, brutish "ape people". Anatomically modern humans emerged at least ~~70-100k~~ 200k years ago (thanks to several comments who pointed out my mistake) and there's nothing to suggest they would have been intellectually inferior to us. Even Neanderthals probably were relatively close to us and it's questionable if you'd even realize it wasn't a Homo sapiens if you met one. H. sapeins *definitely* and Neanderthals probably wore ornaments of various kinds. *Even* H. erectus likely was broadly human in appearance and behaviour. You have to go back in time a *long* way before you'd consider early hominids more animal than human.

Generally, even imagining "*the* Stone Age" as some sort of coherent period of human history is misleading. It's a periodisation based on materials used. Even though there is sometimes a remarkable cultural uniformity over long periods of time and large distances in Stone Age Europe, even single "cultures" span many thousands of years. World views and even life styles must have changed many times even during periods we now consider "uniform".

In fact, even the name "Stone Age" is misleading. A lot of tools were made from flint or similar material, if available, but that's just the material that preserves the best. Wood, bone, clay, plant fibres, furs, etc. were also used, they just usually didn't survive long enough for us to find. It's likely that South East Asian pre-metallic cultures even used bamboo in a similar way flint and bone was used in Europe.

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Katie Lutesinger
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I was watching "Walking With Beasts" and humans showed up in one of the last episodes, I actually cheered. The episode showed our ancestors living in tents propped up by mammoth tusks and using good old human cunning and team-work to hunt, and the final shot of the final episode is modern day humans looking at mammoth skeletons in a museum. I actually felt some honest to goodness species pride and said to my pet rat who was snuggling with me in front of the screen, "Look that's my ancestors! We've come a long way, baby."

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#27

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake Marie Antoinette saying “let them eat cake”

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Kat Nt
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

As Marie Antoinette ascended the stairs to the scaffold, she accidentally trod on the foot of her executioner. A lady to the very end, she apologized to him; her final words were “I did not do it on purpose.” (https://www.thecollector.com/marie-antoinette-death/)

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#28

That George Washington had wooden teeth. He had false teeth, yes. But they were made of ivory. He never had wooden teeth.

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sofacushionfort
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There’s an entry in his ledger for the purchase of slaves’ teeth

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#29

Bill Clinton did in fact have sex with that woman.

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#30

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake "Romans indulged in food so much they had a special place to go and vomit so they could eat more"


Maybe that has been dispelled by now but many still believe it.

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Not-a-Clue-What-to-Call-Myself
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It comes from a misunderstanding of the meaning of the word 'vomitorium' which was a sort of exit passage. I was taught it was for throwing up in.

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#31

How Spartans suited up for battle and fought against Xerxes. Contrary to what the movie 300 showed:

- They wore heavy bronze armor. Not battle thongs and boots
- Shields had a red Lambda painted on them
- Only high-level officers had red plumes on them. S**t's expensive guys...not everyone can have them
- At Thermopylae, the movie shows only 300 Spartans. There were actually about 1000-1200 allies that helped and rotated in and out of battle.
- The battle was to stall the Persian advance to build up forces at Salamis
- They rarely ever broke formation, like never. They maintained the phalanx discipline. In the movie you see them breaking formation a lot, especially in that slow-mo scene where Leonidas kills like 10 in a row
- They were not ripped dudes. More disciplined and athletic, but not every single one was jacked.

Edit:
- bronze armor, not brass armor

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Walter Bravenboer
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It has to be said that '300' is based on a comic, not really meant as a real historic story. I do love the way they use their spears, not everything is wrong.

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#32

The drought that preceded the 1930s Dustbowl was entirely to blame.

Actually, it was the fault of the farmers (struggling with the Great Depression) who were trying to increase their crop yields by replanting mature crops into the deeper soil, then planting younger crops on top. The soil turned to dust because there the crops sucked out all of the soil's nutrients faster than it could be replenished, even with fertilizers.

Had there been normal rainfall, the soil would have lasted a one year, maybe two. The drought just made the Dustbowl happen sooner, but it was going to happen anyway because of poor farming practices.

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Powerful Katrinka
Powerful Katrinka
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And it could easily happen again. Big Ag has absolutely destroyed the soil in the Midwest. That, combined with monoculture farming has made the whole ecosystem incredibly fragile.

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#33

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake That people used swords and axes all the time.

Spears. Its spears, most of human history has been spears. Vikings used spears, samurai and knights used spears.

Hell, bayonets exist because people felt you always need a spear, even with a rifle in your hand.

William Blake said, "When the stars threw down their spears, / and watered heaven with their tears..."

Which is stupid. No one throws down their spear. Spears are great for poking people to death.

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Jrog
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Eh, not really. Spears were dominant in the middle ages for the lower rungs of the army, that made up the numbers but not the "firepower". They were cheap to make and easy to train, quite effective against cavalry but cumbersome and required preparation plus a tight formation to use properly. Axes were as easy to come by, as easy to train, and extremely effective against infantry, with the advantage of being fast to deploy, with high mobility, and they doubled as useful tools around the camp. Swords were reserved for heavy infantry and mounted troops (as a secondary weapon, primary was usually a mace or hammer). They required lots of training, but were unparalleled in mobility, protection (proper technique allowed very effective use shield) and sheer lethality. While field combat was mostly spears, and pikes (oh, and bows, lot of bows), assaults, sieges and woodland combat was mostly axes and swords.

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#34

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake Vikings wore horned helmets. They didn’t, sorry.

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#35

That the Indians and the Pilgrims sat down at a big table at Thanksgiving and shared a big happy meal

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#36

For most “historical” things: “that’s just how people were then!”

Columbus was *known* and criticized for being excessively cruel.

There have been slavery abolitionists in every era.

Etc., etc.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yeah, relativism gets to me. How would we feel if 200 years from now, people said, "Well, people like Bezos and Putin were just products of their time. Nobody knew any better back then." That would completely erase the huge numbers of people who are fighting back. There have always been people critical of oppression. Those who side with the oppressors are responsible for their own views, unless they're truly cognitively disabled or have no access to education.

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#37

Not fake, but the Boston Massacre was not “evil redcoats shooting peaceful American protesters”. That protest was anything but peaceful. It was basically a riot. They were throwing rocks and other objects at the redcoats, trying to goad them into something. The soldiers probably had orders not to shoot, but they were outnumbered and scared, so finally they fired.

They were arrested and tried. John Adams (the future 2nd president) defended them in court. And won!

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Walter Bravenboer
Walter Bravenboer
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Like telling the rider; 'a man has been hurt!' and 40 miles later it is '30 men and women killed!'

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#38

That the library of Alexandria being burned down set humanity back hundreds or even thousands of years. At the time that it was finally destroyed in 48BC, most of its collection had already been copied and distributed to other libraries and universities or the important scrolls were relocated. It was no longer an important meeting place for great scholars either and it’s not entirely clear how much of it was even destroyed during the fire, as many believe that it was even partially rebuilt afterwards. It ultimately just fell out of relevance throughout the years and didn’t really take any of the information stored within with it.

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Zia Barrett
Zia Barrett
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It was not destroyed in 48BC, a single dockside storage unit was accidentally destroyed. All of the contents of that storehouse had copies elsewhere. The main library was fine and survived until it shut its doors from lack of patronage, probably around 260AD. All its contents were moved elsewhere.

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#39

That the 'Founding Fathers' is a meaningful, coherent group of timeless sages rather than a collection of politicians who acted for political reasons and disagreed with one another.

Some people who are technically founding fathers are obscure nobodies. Who the Hell cares about Button Gwinett?

There was great diversity of thought at the constitutional convention. James Madison considered the equal apportionment of the United States Senate to be a defeat. James Wilson has been relegated to obscurity, but was among the most learned and respected members of the convention who in exasperation asked, "Can we forget for whom we are forming a Government? Is it for man, or for the imaginary beings called States?."

A great deal of popular conception of the 'founding' and those who did it is rooted in misconception or outright falsehoods.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is why I have such a hard time taking constitutional originalism seriously. Everything that is in the Constitution is a comprimise and even at the time there was debate about meaning & application. But now some think they can use their crystal ball to see what the founders intended? Which founders? They thought differently from eachother when they wrote it!

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#40

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake One from America would be that the famous Johnny Appleseed, out of the goodness of his heart, walked across much of the USA (and even a bit into Canada) planting apple orchards to provide the locals with healthy apples.

In reality, he was an eccentric who had financial means and was a shrewd businessman. Yes, he did, in fact, walk around barefoot with a cooking pot on his head -- that much is true.

Johnny Appleseed (known as John Chapman to his mother) was planting orchards in areas he believed people would soon move as westward expansion grew across the Midwestern US.

But the apples he planted were c**p; they were used to make cider and only to make cider. They were sour and not edible. People eventually moved to those lands, as he predicted, and he paid them to look after his orchards and harvest the apples he sold to breweries.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Cider apple at the time were more valuable than "edible" apples. Cider, Perry and Beer were a staple of daily diet, and the main source of hydration for many. Drinking cider or beer avoided the risk of several infections that were common in stored water. In the USA grafting was not common (it was even considered a "fancy" thing until the 1850s), so many edible fruit plants were somewhat "un-optimized". At the time it made little sense to grow low-yield edible fruits when you could easily make tons of drink-making stuff that sold easier.

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#41

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake The Boston Tea party didn’t have some grand celebration, a lot of the colonists were confused and it’s recorded as one of Boston’s most quiet nights

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#42

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake Ned Kellys last words being Such is Life. That was made up by the reporter. So many Aussies have it tattooed or have big stickers on their 4x4s . But I guess Oh Well doesn’t have the same ring to it

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Pieter LeGrande
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yes, being a colonial of Irish descent I rather suspect his last words would be censored by BP.

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#43

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake That the Spanish Armada was destroyed. They did lose 44 ships.... out of 137.....

And the British also didn't beat them off with a small force. Their navy was actually significantly larger with 197 ships since they were joined by the Dutch Republic.

A decisive defeat? Yes. A small English force overcoming and obliterating the might of the entire Spanish and Portuguese navy? No.

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Jrog
Jrog
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's inaccurate. The English force was significantly weaker, being made up mostly of small vessels usually relegated to auxiliary roles. The Dutch contribution was mostly in terms of "Vlieboot", repurposed coastal merchantmen averaging 80 tons against over 400 tons of the average Spanish warship and about 800 tons for their two dozen main galleons. These "Fly-boats" were used as skirmisher thanks to their good capabilities in shallow water, but were lightly armed. Even the English warships were at best 46-guns vessels, half the tonnage of the Spanish ones, closer to being frigates than battleships. The English flagship Ark Royal had 20 heavy guns, the Spanish counterpart Sao Martin had 48. The Spanish armada as a whole had twice the guns and three times the man of the combined English and Dutch force, and relied on proper military training while the bulk of the English defense was made by repurposed merchant boats.

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#44

“Luke, I am your father” when really it’s “No. I am your father.”

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#45

The Trojan Horse wasn't real. Historians are all pretty much unanimous on this.

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#46

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake I haven't seen this on here yet but....

No one in the town of Salem was actually "burnt at the stake" during the witch trials. Most of them were hung (muhahah) with one being crushed under rocks.

But with most of the kids in school now reading "the crucible", I think this'll start being more well known.

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Pedantic Panda
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

(muhahah) Is this a laugh? Innocent people dying due to religious fantastics? Not funny.

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#47

Paul Revere did NOT ride from Boston to Lexington. He got as far as Cambridge. Israel Bissell, however, DID ride all the way to Lexington.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Strange because there is a monument in Lexington at the point where he was apprehended.

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#48

Columbus was the first one who discovered America

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Pedantic Panda
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The first people to discover America were those who crossed the Bering Straits, the ancestors of native Americans, over 16,000 years ago and began what became known as the Clovis culture.

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#49

Most anything to do with pilgrims, in america atleast

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Jrog
Jrog
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A common misconception was that the pilgrims fled to the Colonies from England due to religious persecution. Actually they fled Holland (after going there from England) because they did not conform to the local religious and social constructs and repeatedly failed in their attempts to proselytize and push their flavor of the Gospel.

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#50

A lot of people think the whole " women and children first" was a standard belief in the past but, as even I've learned recently, that happening during the Titanic and Birkenhead were anomalies. It's not maritime law or common practice.

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Pieter LeGrande
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actually the first would be a couple of seamen to manage the lifeboat.

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#51

That Einstein said “ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”

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Hume
Hume
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Einstein was actually good at playing the violin. How do you go about learning to play the violin? By practicing over and over right? So it would be unlikely for him to have said this.

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#52

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake Martin Luther never nailed his 95 theses to a church door. They were distributed in a series of letters.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Different theories on this one. Some of his contemporaries say one or the other or both https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther

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#53

30 People Share What Historical Facts Many People Believe To Be True Are Actually 100% Fake That 'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy was initially titled "War, what is it good for".

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#54

This is a little niche, but it's been a long held belief in the gaming community that one of Nintendo's business ventures before getting into the video game market was "Love Hotels", hourly hotels who's main purpose is to knock boots in. This has been repeated as fact alongside their other historical ventures like playing cards, taxis, instant food, and toys.

But last year a Nintendo enthusiast did a dive into their historical financial records and found no definitive proof that they ever ran or were associated with love hotels in any way.

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