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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.

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#1

30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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

She also let sick people suffer, convinced that they were suffering for their sins and pain would give them redemption.

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    #2

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

    hannamarinsgrandma , By Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Public Health Service. Health Services and Mental Health Administration. Center for Disease Control. Venereal Disease Branch (1970 - 1973). - This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing., Public Domain Report

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

    And then they denied people the proper treatment once treatment was discovered just so they could see what would happen

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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.

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

    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.

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    #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.

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

    Many of the African slaves were sold by black Africans.

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    #5

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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

    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.

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    #6

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time That only Europeans were colonizers or imperialists.

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

    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.

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    #7

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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

    Just think about how huge the North American Continent is and how different the landscape is. Of course native people living won't be an homogeneous group!

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    #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.

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    #9

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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    Nora12
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    1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    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.

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    #10

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

    JakeDeLonge , By Jacques-Louis David - zQEbF0AA9NhCXQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain Report

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

    Please covert that to how many bananas... 🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌

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    #11

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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

    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.

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    #12

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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

    The cowboys were Mexicans who continued to do the same work they did before in the Mexican territories annexed by the United States.

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    #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. 

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

    They were trespassing on Mexican land, and were given multiple opportunities to vacate the Alamo but stayed until it was too late.

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    #14

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time "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.

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

    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.

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    #15

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Christopher Columbus discovered America. That’s been bs for a long time and still gets taught in schools.

    Archangel02150 , By Sebastiano del Piombo - This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See the Image and Data Resources Open Access Policy, Public Domain Report

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    Nora12
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    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    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

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    #16

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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

    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.

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    #17

    That Frankenstein is the monster, but in actuality Frankenstein is the doctor not the monster. The monster is actually called Frankenstein’s monster.

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

    I disagree - Frankenstein was the monster. The creature was as much victim as villain

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    #18

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

    Financial_County_710 , By U.S. Air Force (Operation Holly 1970 (Folder 13 of 15), sheet 182) - This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing., Public Domain Report

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    mycroft1967 avatar
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    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    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.

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    #19

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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

    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.

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    #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."

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

    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.

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    #21

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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    Tähtikarhu (he/him) 🇫🇮
    Tähtikarhu (he/him) 🇫🇮
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    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    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

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    #22

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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

    And tens of billions of little microbes that weakened the population, by killing the majority.

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    #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 :)

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

    The Titanic did not carry enough boats for everyone on board.

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    #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.

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

    '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.

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    #25

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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

    From now on I'm starting celebrating on the 2nd through till the end of the 4th

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    #26

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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)."

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    #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.

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

    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.

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    #28

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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

    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.

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    #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.

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

    I. Was told it was a parking meter thrown through the window - not a brick?

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    #30

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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

    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'.

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    clarissa-h-unpronounceable avatar
    Easily Excitable Panda
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    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

    "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.

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

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

    There is a theory that the farmers of Fertile Crescent cultivated grains for beer also, not only for food.

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    horsebonds21 avatar
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    1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's also worth noting that alcohol back then would mostly have been much weaker than the same types brewed today.

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

    It was true, also beer then was very low calorie and used more as a food.

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

    Probably because they were s******g in their drinking water. It didn't occur to them how unsanitary that was.

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

    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.

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    #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.

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

    Then that means that the USSR's space accomplishments weren't just "Soviet" accomplishments either. They were *human* ones

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    #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.

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

    '...Martha, was scared they would kill her for their freedom.' Always a worry with a slave-labour system: the distinct lack of gratitude.

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    #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.

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

    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.

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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.

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

    "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.

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    #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.

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

    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.

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    #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.

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

    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.

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    #37

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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.

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

    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.

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    #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.

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

    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.

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    #39

    The pilgrims and thanksgiving in the United States. Especially in elementary school.

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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.

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

    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.

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    #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.

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

    I did a project on him so I can say that I know a bit more than normal people would about Shakespeare

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    #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.

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

    : 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

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    #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.

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

    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).

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    #44

    That the Wright Brothers were first in flight.

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    #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.

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

    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.

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    #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.

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

    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

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    #47

    30 False History Facts That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Stalin said “one death is a tragedy but a million deaths is a statistic”

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

    True, you could've added that this quote was later correctly attributed to Kurt Tucholsky

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    #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

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

    The me262 was the first jet aircraft built in series production.

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    #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.

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

    The 1812 war. Russia's successful defeat of the French invaders? Sorry, wrong war.

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    #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.

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

    An Australian machine-gunner. Not just 'lucky', either. He was quite an experienced soldier, and knew just how to 'lead' a target like that.

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    #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.

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

    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.

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    #52

    That the Philippines was discovered by Magellan.

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    #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

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

    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.

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    #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

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

    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.

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    #55

    That the Wright brothers first took off in North Carolina, which is actually where the first landed, the started in Dayton, Ohio.

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

    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.

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