In any case, here is the link:
13 Historical Things You Learned In School (That Are Terribly Wrong)
http://www.answers.com/article/1303044/13-historical-things-you-learned-in-school-that-are-terribly-wrong?paramt=21¶m4=fb-us-de-entertainment-hppv¶m1=living¶m2=50585331¶m5=10152374243196186¶m6=6029036582597#slide=1
Just in case you have difficulty downloading this page (as I sometimes have difficulty with the Answers web pages, here is the list:
1. Napoleon was short - He was actually 5'7, which was actually taller than average for the time. However, the English heard that he was 5'2, according to French measurement, and assumed that it meant their version of 5'2, which would have meant that he was quite on the short side. It also worked for propaganda purposes. But it is an enduring myth that is historically wrong. What exacerbated matters is that the French had a nickname for Napoleon that reinforced the stereotype, calling him "le petit caporal", or "the little corporal."
2. Christopher Columbus discovered America - Nordic explorers actually came to American shores hundreds of years before Columbus was ever born. They found this previously unknown land (to Europeans, anyway) and named it "Vinland" (Vineland).
3. Great Wall of China is visible from the Moon - While it is a hugely impressive feat of engineering, the 5,500 mile Great Wall of China is actually not visible from space. This myth was popularized by Ripley's Believe It or Not, dating back to 1936. Of course, they could not know any better back then. They made these assumptions, and over the decades, it has become an enduring myth.
4. People in the Middle Ages did not live long - The site acknowledges that there is a grain of truth to this, although once you understand how the life expectancy dropped, it makes a lot more sense. Medicine was not nearly as good as it has become since, so a lot of children died at young ages, as did many mothers during the process of childbirth. But if you survived all of that, and many people did, it was quite common to live into your fifties and sixties.
5. Vikings had horns on their helmets - Everyone assumes that Vikings actually did wear horns on their helmets. Hell, this myth has been so popularized, that the Minnesota Vikings NFL franchise has the design of horns on their helmets. However, this simply was not true, and stems from Richard Wagner using horns on helmets depicting Vikings in his opera "Der Ring des Nibelungen."
6. Slaves built the pyramids - Those who built the pyramids were actually paid laborers, and not slaves. Still, a lot of these laborers did work very hard, as evidenced by skeletons found near the site of the pyramids. This myth is believed to have had it's origins dating back to Greek philosopher Herodotus, who had claimed that slaves had built the pyramids.
7. France is prone to surrendering - The French military has gained a notorious reputation among many Americans in particular. This stems mostly from France's quick surrender to Nazi Germany during World War II, as well as, to a lesser extent, the Franco-Prussian War. However, it should be remembered that this is the nation of Napoleon, who was obviously known as a conqueror, and he defeated some much larger armies in his day. During the days of Louis XIV, other armies of the various nations in Europe had to build alliances specifically to try and keep France in check. France also has a long and well-documented history where many individuals stood out specifically for their strong bravery and outstanding conduct.
8. Pronouncing old English phrases (examples given: "Ye Olde Shoppe") - Despite how different it looks from our own modern English, the old English spellings often are not as different as many people think "Ye Olde Shoppe" would actually be pronounced "The old shop." Ye was an old form of the word the.
9. "The British are coming" - Remember that most colonialists still considered themselves British citizens at the time. Paul Revere probably warned that the British regulars were on the move.
10. Classical Greek and Roman statues were in white - White marble statues dating back to the days of the ancient Greeks and Romans are iconic, and always associated with those long ago days. They are seen as the epitome of beauty, and many believe that they are seeing these statues as they were intended. In fact, these statues were elaborately painted, although the coatings just wore off over the course of all those years that passed by.
11. Betsy Ross designed and sewed the first American flag - This story began to be popularized in 1870, nearly a century after the days of the American Revolution. It came from her last living grandson, but no one challenged it, and it came to be accepted as true history. In truth, Betsy Ross did sew flags, and was related to a prominent Colonial Army figure.
12. Van Gogh cut off his own ear - The popular myth is that Van Gogh cut off his ear after a heated argument with Paul Gauguin, and that he then sent his ear to a prostitute. What might have happened, however, was that he perhaps lost his ear in a duel to Gaughin, but made up the story to protect Gaughin.
13. Magellan circumnavigated the globe - In fact, Magellan was killed in the Philippines, while his expedition was indeed trying to circumnavigate the globe. In fact, the explorer that should be given credit for being the first to circumnavigate the globe is Juan Sebastian Elcano, the man who succeeded Magellan after his death, and took over the expedition.
Just in case you have difficulty downloading this page (as I sometimes have difficulty with the Answers web pages, here is the list:
1. Napoleon was short - He was actually 5'7, which was actually taller than average for the time. However, the English heard that he was 5'2, according to French measurement, and assumed that it meant their version of 5'2, which would have meant that he was quite on the short side. It also worked for propaganda purposes. But it is an enduring myth that is historically wrong. What exacerbated matters is that the French had a nickname for Napoleon that reinforced the stereotype, calling him "le petit caporal", or "the little corporal."
2. Christopher Columbus discovered America - Nordic explorers actually came to American shores hundreds of years before Columbus was ever born. They found this previously unknown land (to Europeans, anyway) and named it "Vinland" (Vineland).
3. Great Wall of China is visible from the Moon - While it is a hugely impressive feat of engineering, the 5,500 mile Great Wall of China is actually not visible from space. This myth was popularized by Ripley's Believe It or Not, dating back to 1936. Of course, they could not know any better back then. They made these assumptions, and over the decades, it has become an enduring myth.
4. People in the Middle Ages did not live long - The site acknowledges that there is a grain of truth to this, although once you understand how the life expectancy dropped, it makes a lot more sense. Medicine was not nearly as good as it has become since, so a lot of children died at young ages, as did many mothers during the process of childbirth. But if you survived all of that, and many people did, it was quite common to live into your fifties and sixties.
5. Vikings had horns on their helmets - Everyone assumes that Vikings actually did wear horns on their helmets. Hell, this myth has been so popularized, that the Minnesota Vikings NFL franchise has the design of horns on their helmets. However, this simply was not true, and stems from Richard Wagner using horns on helmets depicting Vikings in his opera "Der Ring des Nibelungen."
6. Slaves built the pyramids - Those who built the pyramids were actually paid laborers, and not slaves. Still, a lot of these laborers did work very hard, as evidenced by skeletons found near the site of the pyramids. This myth is believed to have had it's origins dating back to Greek philosopher Herodotus, who had claimed that slaves had built the pyramids.
7. France is prone to surrendering - The French military has gained a notorious reputation among many Americans in particular. This stems mostly from France's quick surrender to Nazi Germany during World War II, as well as, to a lesser extent, the Franco-Prussian War. However, it should be remembered that this is the nation of Napoleon, who was obviously known as a conqueror, and he defeated some much larger armies in his day. During the days of Louis XIV, other armies of the various nations in Europe had to build alliances specifically to try and keep France in check. France also has a long and well-documented history where many individuals stood out specifically for their strong bravery and outstanding conduct.
8. Pronouncing old English phrases (examples given: "Ye Olde Shoppe") - Despite how different it looks from our own modern English, the old English spellings often are not as different as many people think "Ye Olde Shoppe" would actually be pronounced "The old shop." Ye was an old form of the word the.
9. "The British are coming" - Remember that most colonialists still considered themselves British citizens at the time. Paul Revere probably warned that the British regulars were on the move.
10. Classical Greek and Roman statues were in white - White marble statues dating back to the days of the ancient Greeks and Romans are iconic, and always associated with those long ago days. They are seen as the epitome of beauty, and many believe that they are seeing these statues as they were intended. In fact, these statues were elaborately painted, although the coatings just wore off over the course of all those years that passed by.
11. Betsy Ross designed and sewed the first American flag - This story began to be popularized in 1870, nearly a century after the days of the American Revolution. It came from her last living grandson, but no one challenged it, and it came to be accepted as true history. In truth, Betsy Ross did sew flags, and was related to a prominent Colonial Army figure.
12. Van Gogh cut off his own ear - The popular myth is that Van Gogh cut off his ear after a heated argument with Paul Gauguin, and that he then sent his ear to a prostitute. What might have happened, however, was that he perhaps lost his ear in a duel to Gaughin, but made up the story to protect Gaughin.
13. Magellan circumnavigated the globe - In fact, Magellan was killed in the Philippines, while his expedition was indeed trying to circumnavigate the globe. In fact, the explorer that should be given credit for being the first to circumnavigate the globe is Juan Sebastian Elcano, the man who succeeded Magellan after his death, and took over the expedition.
Anyone who believes number two on that list is just plain stupid, with the exception of the very young, who simply haven't had time to come to grips with the absurdity of such a notion. Columbus wasn't even the first European to discover America (as you accurately point out), and even if he had been, so what? "He discovered America - unless you count the subhumans [my characterization of their obnoxious sentiment, obviously] who were there for 20 thousand years before he arrived, but who's got time for such trifles?" As for number 7, that one obviously pisses me the hell off as well. It wasn't even the soldiers (an estimated 100,000 of whom died in the early weeks of WWII, incidentally) who bailed - it was those in command who made that decision. I'm no military tactician or expert on weaponry by any stretch of the imagination, but the idiots who sent those poor young men to fight the Germans using hopelessly outdated techniques (cavalry??? seriously???), and who couldn't figure out how easily the Maginot Line could be circumvented failed on an epic scale, with devastating consequences. But morons who circulate the old "French machine guns - never used, dropped only once" clichés are obviously content to stick to that come hell or high water - objective analysis is clearly not the objective.
ReplyDeleteFrom Miquelon.org:
ReplyDelete“Defeated by the Nazis, but not disgraced – The German victory remains a victory, and the French loss, a loss. But what has happened over the past 70 years, particularly over the past 30, has amounted to a slow and meticulous reappraisal of what actually happened in May-June 1940. Today, current scholarship is in the process of dismantling the allegations that have so long supplied the comic with his bag of satirical jibes at France and the French. Slowly, the image of 100,000 Frenchmen with hands in the air is being replaced by the image of 123,000 gravestones” – Robert Young, professor emeritus of history, University of Winnipeg.
I like that quote. Have not been on that website for some time, but perhaps it is time to change that. Yeah, that one pisses me off, too. So tired and cliche.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that kills me is that the France-bashers, by and large anyway, seem to go far, FAR easier on the Germans. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating Germany-bashing, or suggesting that the current German population and the generations to come should be lumped in with the atrocities committed by their ancestors. But let's be honest, here: Germany was AT LEAST as responsible - and I'm speaking euphemistically, here - for WWII and the crimes against humanity that conflict unleashed on the world as France - quite arguably far MORE responsible than France. While no excuses can be made for the people in France (and elsewhere) who chose to collaborate with the Nazis, to dismiss the entire French population based on that, while seemingly giving the Nazis themselves a pass, is just baffling to me. German cars are highly popular in Israel if I'm not mistaken. "The French are anti-semites. The Germans on the other hand are cool - let's buy their cars." Am I missing something here? Is there perhaps some obscure parallel universe wherein that makes perfect sense?
ReplyDelete