Most annoying historical myths?

Started by Cyrano Johnson, July 12, 2013, 01:57:45 PM

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Neysha

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on February 17, 2014, 05:08:51 PM
William Taft getting stuck in a bathtub?

I didn't even know that was a myth, I figured it was just a punchline cuz he was fat, not because people believed he actually got stuck in one.

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TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Neysha on February 17, 2014, 05:13:07 PM
I didn't even know that was a myth, I figured it was just a punchline cuz he was fat, not because people believed he actually got stuck in one.

The more you know...

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/06/fact-or-fiction-taft-got-stuck-in-a-tub/

So there is exactly one primary source that the entire legend springs from, written by a man with a grudge against Taft. And yeah, google 'William Taft bathtub' and you'll get tons of pages claiming it as explicit fact.

Oniya

George Washington chopping down a cherry tree?
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Ironwolf85

For a modern historic presidental myth, we can look to Ronald Regan.
There are a number of republicans who are conjuring a myth around him making him out to be some "Saint of American Conservitisim" I see this especally with TEA Party politicians.
He wasn't a bad president, and his policies helped hasten the ending of the cold war. But he was no saint or superhero. It's another case of Rosey Glass Syndrome.
I could go on a rant here, but most people on here know he raised taxes, and contibuted the most to US Debt of any president prior to the recent bailouts, and economic collapse. Not to mention the contra scandel and such.
I think it tarnishes a man's legacy when people twist the past. I find it perticularly disturbing that politicians pretend dead people would totally agree as a justification for a policy instead of presenting facts and dealing with national issues.
Prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, love...
debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

Culture: the ability to carve an intricate and beautiful bowl from the skull of a fallen enemy.
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Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Ironwolf85 on February 18, 2014, 07:46:34 PM
For a modern historic presidental myth, we can look to Ronald Regan.
There are a number of republicans who are conjuring a myth around him making him out to be some "Saint of American Conservitisim" I see this especally with TEA Party politicians.
He wasn't a bad president, and his policies helped hasten the ending of the cold war. But he was no saint or superhero. It's another case of Rosey Glass Syndrome.
I could go on a rant here, but most people on here know he raised taxes, and contibuted the most to US Debt of any president prior to the recent bailouts, and economic collapse. Not to mention the contra scandel and such.
I think it tarnishes a man's legacy when people twist the past. I find it perticularly disturbing that politicians pretend dead people would totally agree as a justification for a policy instead of presenting facts and dealing with national issues.

Oh yeah the tea Partiers dislike being corrected on Ronnie Reagan. they particularly dislike the truth that he raised taxes, grew government and would on occasion work with others to get things done.

Ironwolf85

Exactly why I find it an annoying historic myth.

If anyone from another country have some myths like these, I'd like to hear'em.

I think china's got a hero-worship myth around Mao, but that's all I've got for modern hero myths.
Prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, love...
debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

Culture: the ability to carve an intricate and beautiful bowl from the skull of a fallen enemy.
Civilization: the ability to put that psycho in prision for killing people.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Ironwolf85 on February 18, 2014, 08:57:06 PM
Exactly why I find it an annoying historic myth.

If anyone from another country have some myths like these, I'd like to hear'em.

I think china's got a hero-worship myth around Mao, but that's all I've got for modern hero myths.

I know the folks back home, where my dad and older brother move in the GOP leadership circles, dislike me a bit. I called one county leader up on his 'forgetfulness'. He was at LEAST 2 decades older than me and clearly was more active than I was during the Reagan era but continued to willfully pull the 'Ronnie would be a Tea Partier' lie so much I had to call him out.

Valthazar

The Tea Party is hurting true conservatism more than helping it, in my opinion.

TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Callie Del Noire on February 18, 2014, 10:03:58 PM
I know the folks back home, where my dad and older brother move in the GOP leadership circles, dislike me a bit. I called one county leader up on his 'forgetfulness'. He was at LEAST 2 decades older than me and clearly was more active than I was during the Reagan era but continued to willfully pull the 'Ronnie would be a Tea Partier' lie so much I had to call him out.

You dared question that their god would support current doctrine, heretic. What did you expect? ;D

Ironwolf85

Quote from: Valthazar on February 18, 2014, 10:10:39 PM
The Tea Party is hurting true conservatism more than helping it, in my opinion.
If not for the way the party's going I probably would've been a moderate republican.
But the party left me, and many others behind during the bush years, then sold out to groups like the tea party to maintain votes and stay in power.
it's not working of course.
Prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, love...
debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

Culture: the ability to carve an intricate and beautiful bowl from the skull of a fallen enemy.
Civilization: the ability to put that psycho in prision for killing people.

Lux12

Now for a military one. The whole myth about the plate armor that knights wore being clumsy and so heavy that they had to essentially be crane lifted on to horses. Actually, people who have worn armor designed in the same fashion remarked that they have a fair amount of mobility. Granted these weren't paper thin tin body cases, but they were not as hefty as people often think.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on February 18, 2014, 10:47:48 PM
You dared question that their god would support current doctrine, heretic. What did you expect? ;D

when said person swears he values 'honesty in politics over all else' and then goes after my brother because he's 'not right' for the position that HE (my brother) is paying all his expenses to run for..then plays all sorts of dirty pool to get things his way.. THEN he gets upset when my brother and SIXTEEN other county GOP members call him on his BS.. don't expect me to blindly cowtow to a tool who has in his past told me 'only the useless serve' (His words to me while I was in service)

So yeah, I was a dick and called him on his lies.

ofDelusions

Quote from: Lux12 on February 19, 2014, 09:18:23 AM
Now for a military one. The whole myth about the plate armor that knights wore being clumsy and so heavy that they had to essentially be crane lifted on to horses. Actually, people who have worn armor designed in the same fashion remarked that they have a fair amount of mobility. Granted these weren't paper thin tin body cases, but they were not as hefty as people often think.

I might be wrong, but from what I hear the myth mostly comes from how tournament armour was much heavier than the one used in actual battlefield.

Kythia

Quote from: ofDelusions on February 19, 2014, 12:05:58 PM
I might be wrong, but from what I hear the myth mostly comes from how tournament armour was much heavier than the one used in actual battlefield.

The myth was made up by Mark Twain - Straight Dope
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Mathim

Quote from: Oniya on February 17, 2014, 05:42:50 PM
George Washington chopping down a cherry tree?

I could be totally wrong but I remember hearing once that he didn't actually have wooden teeth...

Here's a myth I was amazed to find: Einstein didn't actually fail math as a kid! Sorry if this was already mentioned, I didn't want to reach 10+ pages of stuff.
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Ironwolf85

Quote from: Mathim on February 19, 2014, 05:39:16 PM
I could be totally wrong but I remember hearing once that he didn't actually have wooden teeth...

Here's a myth I was amazed to find: Einstein didn't actually fail math as a kid! Sorry if this was already mentioned, I didn't want to reach 10+ pages of stuff.
it turns out the wooden teeth is an actual fact, they were made from wood and ivory.
The closest thing to dentastry & tooth care at the time was tooth pulling and tooth picks. Top that with his service in the gorgian army (The model of the british military at the time) with it's rough lifestyle, battles, and crappy tooth cracking rations and it's not only possible but plausable that he lost his teeth by the time of the reveloutionary war.
It is part of the reason he always has such a strong jaw line in his portrats, the teeth were meant to give that cosmetic look when they fit in place, he paid for the quality kind.

This is confirmed because he had a life mask made by the french artist Jean-Antoine Houdon, and the bust survived the ages. It shows washington with a much weaker jawline. This is believed, after forensices, measurements, and a great deal of computer scanning, to be because he lacked teeth when the mold was made. The conclusion being that he did have false teeth, and had them out during the process. Wood also stained when you drank, so a man of washington's status could've afforded the "premium model" with ivory teeth screwed into a wooden frame.

Cool fact on einstien too by the way!
Prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, love...
debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

Culture: the ability to carve an intricate and beautiful bowl from the skull of a fallen enemy.
Civilization: the ability to put that psycho in prision for killing people.

Hemingway

Quote from: Lux12 on February 19, 2014, 09:18:23 AM
Now for a military one. The whole myth about the plate armor that knights wore being clumsy and so heavy that they had to essentially be crane lifted on to horses. Actually, people who have worn armor designed in the same fashion remarked that they have a fair amount of mobility. Granted these weren't paper thin tin body cases, but they were not as hefty as people often think.

Later versions, such as from the Renaissance, was remarkably light and flexible - not to mention extremely durable. I think people underestimate just how clever people can be when their lives depend on it ( or their wealth and riches ), and it fits the myth of the Medieval as a period of abject backwardness.

In somewhat the same vein, I could probably list a whole litany of myths concerning samurai and samurai warfare. I think I'll just leave it at mention them, though.

TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Hemingway on February 20, 2014, 12:46:37 PM
Later versions, such as from the Renaissance, was remarkably light and flexible - not to mention extremely durable. I think people underestimate just how clever people can be when their lives depend on it ( or their wealth and riches ), and it fits the myth of the Medieval as a period of abject backwardness.

In somewhat the same vein, I could probably list a whole litany of myths concerning samurai and samurai warfare. I think I'll just leave it at mention them, though.

QuoteThat's it. I'm sick of all this "Masterwork Bastard Sword" bullshit that's going on in the d20 system right now. Katanas deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine katana in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that's about $20,000) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even cut slabs of solid steel with my katana.

Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind.

Katanas are thrice as sharp as European swords and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a katana could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.

Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their katanas of destruction. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.

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That is all.

Ironwolf85

oh god the mythology surrounding samurai, ninja, and their weapons...
For example ninja did NOT wear the iconic garb we think of, that is the outfit of a kaubuki stagehand, meant to symbolize "this guy doesn't exist in the story, he's just moving props, ignore him" so when one pulls a knife and stabs sombody on stage for an assassination scene, people go "ooohhhh he was a ninja!" and westerners visiting japan not knowing what the was going on, go "That must be what ninja wear..." pass it down the cultural line a bunch of times, and boom, you have ninja from the 70's-80's-90's all wearing the same gear.

Whoever posted that second one you quoted glyph... should be pimpslapped with a history book.
Mideval europe never conquered japan becuase japan was on the other side of asia... but mideval knights at their height were in par with the samurai, (Knights reaching their zenith during the hundred years war, and the samurai during the late Sengoku period) both were well trained highly diciplined spiritual fudal warriors and masters of horse & sword. Their choice of weapons and fighting style varied because their battlefields were diffrent.
For example japan has far less access to iron than let's say france (the heart of knightly ways before longbows and guns did that style in) did, less iron means less steel, and less steel means a warrior's sword must be of far higher quality, and the smith entrusted with making it must be a master of the craft, otherwise it's a waste. At the same time a smaller and more rugged landmass yields a diffrent style of combat than say the open planes of france, the forests of germany, or the rolling hills of spain.

Another example is that European knights prefered to survive rather than kill, and all western styles since greece reflected this mindset. this is why all western armies made heavy use of shields. This is somthing that would have seemed cowardly and confusing to a samurai. But in a battle based on equipment, this gives the knight a distinct advantage in close quarters, japanse swords, which kitana exemplifies were insanely sharp, but became brittle as part of the refolding process. Yet knights didn't wield ranged weapons on the battlefield (a fact the english took full advantage of during agincourt) and samurai saw the use of the bow in war as a noble endevor...
Both men were mobile fighters, with well made armor (again we are talking Knight and Samurai at their height, which means custom fit armors and all that.) and while their more exotic weapons would have seemed strange and impractical (Flail & kusrigama) their weapons shared a number of similarities, great swords & katanas, halbard & naginato, Mace (1hand + shield) & Kunabo (2 hands), ans so on.

But at the same time, many of the combat martial arts of east and west are nearly identical. Most europeans stopped practicing how to take down an armored foe and use his weight against him after the gun, crossbow, and longbow, became a great equalizer among men.

Age of Sail Europeans regarded japan as another eastern culture, worthwhile, but with little in the way of resources that they couldn't get from the chinese anyway. Japan's rulers were openly hostile following it's isololation, but content to sit in their little corner of the globe. France, England, ect. had better, far more profitable ventures in The New World, the Asian mainland, and Africa rather than try to crack open an obviously hostile government with few valuable resources. The Dutch had an exculsive trade partnership with japan, even during it's isolation, so they remained "dutch trade turf" so to speak.

Part of the reason the US cracked japan open was to find an asian trade partner that wasn't in europe's pocket.
Prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, love...
debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

Culture: the ability to carve an intricate and beautiful bowl from the skull of a fallen enemy.
Civilization: the ability to put that psycho in prision for killing people.

Cyrano Johnson

#419
There are more Japanese vs. Western myths yet to debunk.

For example:

- Samurai and Western knights were not fighters of the same type. Samurai were a kind of tactical all-rounder that seem to have begun as a variant of mounted archer, and European knights were heavy shock cavalry; only dismounted and acting as infantry would they be in any way close to comparable. (There is a comparison possible in looking at how both methods fared against the Mongols. Both forces were well outclassed, but tellingly, the samurai as all-rounders were able to survive multiple engagements with the Mongols -- with a bit of luck and extraordinary tactical skill that compensated for their lack of modern discipline -- long enough to repulse the immediate enemy. Knightly forces in contrast proved less adaptable -- they were specialized to the heavy cavalry charge and melee combat and met with full-spectrum catastrophe at every outing against Mongol troops without exception. The Western forces more tactically comparable to samurai were the Muslim paladins of the Middle East, like the Mamluk army that beat the Mongols at the Battle of Ayn Julut.)
- The katana was not a major battlefield weapon. The primary battlefield sword of the samurai was the nodachi (in fact that's what the name nodachi means, "field sword"). It drives me nuts that even Deadliest Warrior got this basic fact wrong! The katana's main use prior to the Tokugawa era was in beheading defeated enemies, culminating seppuku ceremonies and as a weapon of final resort. It only became the great signature weapon of the samurai class once Japan was unified and the samurai, now sans battlefield, came to use it as a personal duelling weapon.

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Chris Brady

Slight correction.  The per-eminent battlefield weapon of the Samurai before the Tokagawa obsession with the sword was actually the Spear (AKA the Yari.)  Like most cavalry forces.
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Cyrano Johnson

Quote from: Chris Brady on February 20, 2014, 07:48:01 PM
Slight correction.  The per-eminent battlefield weapon of the Samurai before the Tokagawa obsession with the sword was actually the Spear (AKA the Yari.)  Like most cavalry forces.

Quite correct; I changed that phrase to read "primary battlefield sword."
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Skynet

Unless somebody mentioned it already, Holocaust Denial is probably one of the most disgusting historical myths out there.  It's like a cockroach; it just won't stay dead despite all the fact-driven attempts to put it to rest.

Ironwolf85

Quote from: Cyrano Johnson on February 20, 2014, 06:04:28 PM
There are more Japanese vs. Western myths yet to debunk.

For example:

- Samurai and Western knights were not fighters of the same type. Samurai were a kind of tactical all-rounder that seem to have begun as a variant of mounted archer, and European knights were heavy shock cavalry; only dismounted and acting as infantry would they be in any way close to comparable. (There is a comparison possible in looking at how both methods fared against the Mongols. Both forces were well outclassed, but tellingly, the samurai as all-rounders were able to survive multiple engagements with the Mongols -- with a bit of luck and extraordinary tactical skill that compensated for their lack of modern discipline -- long enough to repulse the immediate enemy. Knightly forces in contrast proved less adaptable -- they were specialized to the heavy cavalry charge and melee combat and met with full-spectrum catastrophe at every outing against Mongol troops without exception. The Western forces more tactically comparable to samurai were the Muslim paladins of the Middle East, like the Mamluk army that beat the Mongols at the Battle of Ayn Julut.)
- The katana was not a major battlefield weapon. The primary battlefield sword of the samurai was the nodachi (in fact that's what the name nodachi means, "field sword"). It drives me nuts that even Deadliest Warrior got this basic fact wrong! The katana's main use prior to the Tokugawa era was in beheading defeated enemies, culminating seppuku ceremonies and as a weapon of final resort. It only became the great signature weapon of the samurai class once Japan was unified and the samurai, now sans battlefield, came to use it as a personal duelling weapon.

Thanks for the info, I'm glad I inspired it by not knowing as much as I should have.
I agree though, Knights fought as heavy calvary or heavy infantry, samurai were all rounders.
I find the knight VS samurai debate pops now and again, in part thanks to deadliest warrior.

It depends on the knight and samurai in question, their origins, their specializations, the location they fight, their persionalities, count far more than strengh or type of arms.
For example the French Paladin and the German Ritterbrüder (some of the best knights either country prodouced regardless of their persional morality) had largely diffrent fighting styles and mindsets. On any day any warrior can defeat any other warrior, so long as the conditions are right.
Prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, love...
debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

Culture: the ability to carve an intricate and beautiful bowl from the skull of a fallen enemy.
Civilization: the ability to put that psycho in prision for killing people.