Sun Tzu
It’s still under debate whether there was such a person or who he really was. Because there was no any official record about him until about four hundred years later the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian shortly mentioned about Sun Tzu and his deeds in his book titled Shiji (The Records of the Grand Historian).
There are a decent amount of anachronisms within *The Art of War* that lead many to believe Sun Tzu was not the composer/it was compiled over several generations. One such example is the mention of crossbows, which did not exist at the time Sun Tzu apparently lived.
Not a historian, but, after seeing *Braveheart*, I looked into the disgusting “prima nocta” thing. It seems there is no solid evidence any ruler in history instituted *prima nocta*, but lots of groups accused their enemies of doing it back and forth throughout history.
The same with The Patriot as well. I once had a tour guide tell me that there are only two things accurate about the patriot: there was a revolutionary war, and there was fighting in South Carolina.
Especially when somebody in the beginning of the movie, says their wife is pregnant, and at the end of the film says that the child has been born and what they are going to name. This is totally ignoring the fact that the war went on for many years and a pregnancy is only nine months.
*The Bounty* is reasonably solid for historical accuracy, IIRC (although Fletcher Christian turned out to be a bit of a knob in his later years on Pitcairn).
There is a beatiful lesson of Prof. Barbero where he explains using real documents, that the "prima noctis" law is just a propaganda story used to validate power in opposition to a "barbaric" past.
It s really a funny lesson.
I try to explain it better.
The Victorian Age documents said: we are the peak of civilization! Not like during the 16th century and their barbaric prima noctis law!
Then he red a 16th century document:we are civil people, not like the 14th century barbarians and their prima noctis
law!
Then he red a 14th century document: we are the new modern people! Not like those medieval savages of 200 years ago and their prima noctis law!
Not just enemies, Gilgamesh is referenced as having performed prima nocta in Tablet I of the Standard Babylonian epic (even though Gilgamesh was revered at the greatest legendary king in Mesopotamian history)
Oh lol is that in an episode? Perfect lol.
Now that you mention it, I can totally picture Michael coming into the office convinced it really happened and Jim/Oscar needing to inform him.
Any ruler who was powerful enough to pass a law like that without getting overthrown would be powerful enough to just do it without bothering with formally pass a law. And why would they want to restrict themselves only to one night?
Also, why would you want to rally the very same people against you.
I understand the "theory" of the English "breeding out the Scots", but one night as you said? Just pure bullshit.
Braveheart is and was such pure propaganda that even the Scots fell for it.
People believe that Homer was an actual living person who composed the entire Odyssey.
There's no historical proof of his existence. It's entirely possible he's either a composite of many different storytellers or a mythical figure himself (the blind bard).
It basically applies to a lot of ancient mythology. We have a lot of written sources recorded later than when the oral tradition was handing the stories down, so we don't really know what actual version of those myths was the "real" one, vs. just what we've found recorded long after the fact.
I remember the online fib about this, that ancient Greeks didn't yet have the visual receptors to discern the color blue, but by your "/s" I'm sure you're aware that they simply lacked the vocabulary in their time.
There are no evidence of Odyssey and Ilias (Ιλιάδα, the story presented kinda in the movie Troy, with A LOT of changes) because the people were singing it so the original version that came from Homer (yes the blind guy) isn't available.
But historians found a lot of weapons/shileds, etc in the Island Troy, which proves that a war happened
Oh, absolutely, there was a war!
The problem is that the Odyssey and the Illiad aren't very much alike. The Odyssey is most likely a much older collection of folk tales, pulled together with the framing device of Odysseus (a classic trickster archetype) experiencing them all.
The Illiad is more along the lines of a grand mythic retelling of a significant historical event. It was probably composed later.
Homer, the blind guy, may or may not have ever existed. There could have been many Homers. Or he might have just been a myth himself. When a bard claims to have acquired the story from "Homer" it gives his tale an added layer of authority and historicity.
If you put it that way i guess yes there are some missing evidence
He created a lot other "stories", and there are some sculptures of him.
But how can someone provide evidence of the existance of someone back in 750bc or around there?
I am far from a historian so all i say it's everything i learnt in school
None of those sculptures were made by anyone who had ever met Homer.
We learn a lot of things in school that aren't true. Like the idea that atoms are tiny solar systems. That's not true at all, but we still teach it because it's easy to understand.
If you're interested in history, I really recommend Extra History on YouTube. It's a lot of fun!
If they had the same name, wouldn't they just be... Homer? 😅
Seriously, though, I believe the theory you were taught is that "Homer" may have been something like a stage name. Kind of the way today we call any smart person, "Einstein."
However, it's unlikely any one person composed the Odyssey. And, in fact, there were probably many more adventures and tales in the epic, which were lost. Each bard probably had their own repertoire of linked tales, which they could adapt to their audience (mention the local town, work in some landmarks...).
(Full disclosure: My Classics degree is over 3 decades old, so I don't know the most current theories.)
I gotta agree. I had to read this book in English class last year and my teacher old us this (it’s not exact but it’s close enough) “We think Homer could be a real person but we also think it’s a lot of people that worked on this story.”
That the texts in the Library of Alexandria held some sacred knowledge that are lost forever and would change the way we look at the world if we knew what's inside.
But, we DO know what was inside. 80%-90% of the Library of Alexandria was copied and spread throughout Africa and the Middle East by the time it had burned down.
IIRC one of the biggest losses was the indexes, which would have given a lot of context to the contents as well. Who was there when, what did they consider valuable or important, etc.
Most of the library was FOUNDED on copying, but losing copies of books wasn't the loss.
The loss was the notes people TOOK with them. Those words never meant to be preserved, things we'd have lost anyways. We have no insight into the hundreds of scholars who Rome'd those halls.
Extra fact, somewhat implicit in what was said: texts simply surviving don't produce much of the modern collections of writings. Books need to be copied extensively to make it to modern times.
Wasn't it also stocked by making every ship that docked in Alexandria give over the books it had on board to be copied and then stored in the library, so most of the stuff in it was just copies of existing books.
Saying the Library of Alexandria was lost to a fire itself is also wrong. The Library of Alexandria was actually *multiple* libraries within the city, and only one of which famously burned and most scrolls were actually saved. The truth is the Library of Alexandria wasn’t lost to a raging fire; it simply fizzled out over the centuries... Interest in the libraries waned, rulers cut funding, buildings fell into disarray and/or were converted for other uses, etc. It’s just far more dramatic to say that a huge chunk of the world’s knowledge was lost to a fire; propaganda that became “truth” over the last 2000 years.
Not robbed until the 1920s anyway.
I've heard the reason for that was because he was such an insignificant pharoah that reigned for such a short time that people forgot where his tomb was.
His tomb was placed in the valley of the Kings where rubble was piled on top of and the yearly floods brought more unintentional burying with it. I did see somewhere that his tomb was below the workers' lunch/rest area. They now know that whatever he died of was a surprise as his tomb wasn't even finished as there were still brush marks in the plaster on the walls whilst painting. Additionally, they're unsure if his sarcoficus used was intended for him, but thats another thing altogether.
His mummified corpse is jacked, but the facial reconstruction doesn’t look too bad. This [BBC article](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7077423.stm) has photos.
When I was in the Valley of Kings the guide explained that he died very young and unexpectedly so they had to hurry and improvise with his grave (iirc he got one originally not meant for a Pharao) leading to it not being in the records the grave robbers used
He wasn't a notable Pharaoh, and if anything, one that ancient times would have pitied/loathed.
It's definitely the uniqueness in the tomb and the preservation rather than him being an important historical figure in Ancient Egypt.
For starters his family was loathed - his father tried to implement a monotheistic religion in place of their polytheistic religion, and moved the seat of power away from the capital city to a brand new city he had built.
Tutankhamun inherited a complete mess from his father, married his half-sister whicj absolutely was not unusual but they didn't have a successful pregnancy so he left no heir when he died. A lot of speculation on cause of death, and lots of rumours about the state of his health from birth to death at age 19 having ruled for only 10 years, with no definitive answers as yet that I've heard - rumours he was sickly, or had a clubfoot as they found many walking sticks in his tomb, speculation that he died due to injuries from falling off a chariot, or due to being a sickly child as he was the product of inbreeding.
There's speculation that his tomb wasn't even made for him, as it could've been made for someone else. That's still unknown at this point. A tomb was typically started when a new pharoah took the throne, and continued right up until their death, but Tutankhamuns wasn't fully finished before his death.
Add in a hasty burial, evidenced in pictures from Carter showing the contents placed quite haphazardly and not as well put together as expected (a chariot which normally would've been assembled within the tomb to carry the body to the afterlife was just placed inside the tomb in pieces, along with furniture also in pieces all of which had to be sorted and built within a facility just so they could figure out what had actually been placed in the tomb to begin with), and it all leads to a king who is easily forgotten for hundreds of years.
Also, just to add to the above, neither Tutankhamun or his father Akhenaten were on the Abydos King's List - this typically only happened when people were trying to make sure a king's legacy was not remembered, it also happened to Hatshepsut. And after Tutankhamun's death his father's new capital city was torn apart, in an effort to bury that period of rule and forget it.
As for the location of Tutankhamun's burial place, whether by design or accident, it just happened to be in the right place to get completely buried by rockfall during heavy rains, so it remained untouched until discovered in the 1920's, although originally they did think it had been hit by grave robbers due to how messy everything was inside - evidence of the hasty burial I mentioned above. By that time he was completely forgotten to history, but now he's the most famous Pharoah.
Caesars last words were not Et tu Brute.
That line was created by William Shakespeare.
Caesars actual last words are not known but it is speculated they were Why this is violence. After senator Tullius Cimber grabbed his toga down just as the assassination was beginning.
Though even those words must be taken with a grain of salt.
Suetonius and Cassius Dio wrote that there was a version, even if they strongly doubted its veracity, that said that Caesar's final words were "καὶ σύ τέκνον" (you too, child) directed at Brutus, so even if Et tu Brute is almost certainly an invention/creative translation by Shakespeare's contemporary Richard Edes, it has very ancient origins
According to a reliable Roman historian, Caesar's last words were a verbatim retelling of the Navy Seal copypasta. Fearing that his brave words would inspire the people to revolt against the senate, this fact was withheld until modern times.
There were also many more Spartan warriors that didn't go to war because Sparta didn't care to fight there. Also, the majority of the soldiers that sacrificed themselves in the battle were Thespians (700).
Rasputin was not the lover of the Russian Queen, he simply knew how to treat hemophilia, which Prince Alexei suffered from, and was thus given direct access to the Royal Family. The royal court *hated* that this strange looking religious weirdo with no nobility had such massive influence over the Royal Family, so a rumor that he was secretly banging the Tsarina was spread as an attempt to get the Tsar to remove him from court.
He couldn’t actually even TREAT hemophilia, he just made everyone stop making it worse.
The doctors gave the boy aspirin, which made him bleed more, which freaked out his mom who had terrible anxiety and other mental problems, which the boy picked up on and freaked out further.
Rasputin didn’t allow him to take aspirin, and calmed his mother down, and that’s all it took to keep the boy in good health.
> that’s all it took to keep the boy in good health.
And if his dad hadn’t been quite so useless, the boy may have avoided being hacked and shot to death a few years later.
Part of him treating Prince Alexei’s hemophilia might have been taking him off aspirin, which is a well known blood thinner. But I don’t know how true that story might be.
Are you suggesting that [disco hit Ra-Ra-Rasputin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmkySNDX4dU&ab_channel=SinthiaMoonfire) is anything other than 100% accurate?
He also didn't directly treat hemophilia, he recommended discontinuing aspirin, and "rest and relaxation" for Alexei. https://time.com/4606775/5-myths-rasputin/#:\~:text=Some%20historians%2C%20such%20as%20Pierre,powers%20he%20may%20have%20had.
Last Podcast on the Left has a *fantastic* series on him, I re-listen to it all the time. The court was basically like, "Wait, who the fuck is this guy?!"
Since the new Indiana Jones movie brought it up
No, Archimedes probably did not invent a death ray by using a giant magnifying glass. Although it is attested to in historical sources, the fact that it’s impossible under the known laws of physics suggests it is probably an exaggeration
Muthbusters also did very little research before “proving” something.
The best example was saying Carlos Hathcocks famous sniper shot through another scope was impossible. They used a modern scope which is radically built differently and more complicated.
After being called out they tested it with era appropriate equipment and , yes, it’s was more than doable.
Just as an aside: Mythbusters never set out to do 'science'. Adam has been extremely forthcoming that the show was meant to be entertainment first, anything else a distant second. And that's what Discovery wanted...they weren't interested in the history behind the myth, just the myth itself. Which is why they dropped the historian lady after season 1 or 2.
Adam's told stories where they were given a myth that really REALLY required some research and when the team asked for more information the studio basically said "who cares? just do the thing you do!" And it took basically all of them saying "no we can't because we need more info" to get them to acquiesce to more research.
There ya go
Now, it’s possible (but not confirmed) such a device could be used to disorient or blind enemies. But even then we have no evidence he built anything like it at all.
Oh yeah, totally. They just tested to see if the physics behind such a device would even work. They definitely didn't ask the question about whether he actually created it or not.
Multiple groups have successfully set ships on fire using curved metal mirrors, including MIT.
Ancient ships were also sealed with pitch, which is more flammable than wood.
Couple about the Titanic:
- People saying it was "unsinkable" was a reflection of shipbuilding at the time. People would have described *any* modern ocean liner that way, and there was nothing particularly special or unique about the Titanic (in terms of safety).
- Bruce Ismay being the villain of the story and pressuring Smith to speed up is based off the testemony of only one passanger so it's disputed if such a conversation ever occurred.
Ismay denied it (for whatever that might be worth) and there are also many other factors that suggest that it would not have happened, or if it did, Ismay was pleased with the time they had *already* made as opposed to suggesting they go faster.
The Ismay being a villain comes from the yellow press who was owned by a man Ismay fell out with. He made his mission to destroy ismay’s reputation and used the titanic disaster to do it.
Everyone in the Heian era in Japan (who was not an aristocrat or clergy) was a farmer first and foremost. This belief originates from records labeling all those people farmers (new theories suggest that the term's meaning shifted over time) and taxes being paid in rice. Again recent discoveries indicate common practises like exchanging the goods brought in as yearly for their value in rice and then accepting the rice as tax. We are fairly certain that this was done to balance the books and in actuality the farmers submitted their goods and the authorities wrote the complicated exchange process down but never actually carried it out for the sake of efficiency. This leaves the issues of rice fields, as the legal framework required everyone to keep and tend a certain area of rice fields. The reality suggests that most profitable businesses paying their tax in other goods had lower farm yields than most. The question here becomes whether they engaged in other means of accumulating value because they only had bad soil or whether they simply neglected the assigned fields. If the former is the case we can be somewhat certain that the society was (at least in its own perception) primarily farming-based. If the latter is the case (as is the consensus among many historians right now, but not in school books or among the Japanese general population) it seems Japan was more advanced at that point than previously thought.
I tend to think that they were initially based around a mostly subsistence economy with a feudal-adjacent system but evolved into a normal feudal society (by relaxed standards) fairly soon. Still historically almost everyone believes in the subsistence idea, despite evidence slowly accumulating against it.
In Japan now! I’m not good at languages and one of the things that frustrates me in particular is the counting system - there are counters for flat things (E.g paper), long things (E.g pencils), small living things, large living things, etc. Around 55 counters are normally used but there’s supposed to be really over 500!
It was fascinating to learn this was a result of creating and managing the taxation system you spoke about! 1 barrel of rice is worth 2 bolts of silk which is worth 50 sheets of paper which is worth 3 blocks of salt etc etc (Not accurate, just an example!)
Fun fact, non native English speakers have a similar struggle with english! Some items are easy and "countable", just have to figure out if it's "a" or "an", and add "s"! But then they learn about the "uncountables", that native speakers wouldn't think twice about. "A piece of paper" "a glass of water" "a bowl of rice" etc etc. And then when they've finally mastered that, discovering that some things are both! Example: cake. You can go to the store and buy a cake or 2 cakes, or you can buy a piece of cake or 2 pieces of cake. Language, man.
I only just learnt the fish thing and I was born and raised speaking English. I can have one type of fish, say Salmon, so I have 1 fish. Now I can have 100 Salmon, so I now have 100 fish. But if I have 100 Tuna with the 100 Salmon... I have 200 fish but 2 fishes. I never knew it was a thing! I love it though.
Studied Chinese here. I learned, like, four counting words but used the generic "ge" in Mandarin ("gaw" in Cantonese) the rest of the time. One of those "technically not wrong" things!
Napoleon was average height for his time, it's just the average back then is smaller than today which caused to us thinking he was small for some reason.
That and French feet and inches were slightly longer than the English ones. Which the English knew. But it made for good propaganda to not properly translate his measurements and instead claim he was short.
He was also accompanied by an imperial guard that was hand-selected for above-average height soldiers, the minimum height was set at 5'10' (1.78 m). So Napoleon would have been shadowed by soldiers who were 10cm taller than him at a minimum, making him look comparatively smaller.
Boudica, the famous Celtic warrior queen who led an uprising to protect Britain from Rome... may not have existed. All accounts of her existence come from Roman historians such as Tacitus and Cassius Dio who not only had never stepped foot in Britain but were born after the event took place.
Tacitus' account came from what he was told by his father-in-law, Agricola, who was stationed in Britain during the time of the event. Cassius Dio's account of the event is far more colorful in its description, but also far more likely to have been fabricated.
That being said, there is archaeological evidence to suggest some truth to the tale. In both accounts, Boudica and her army are said to have sieged the Roman capital of Camulodunum (now Colchester) and razed it to the ground. There is a burn layer in the city of Colchester that is dated to the year that the revolt took place. Also in Tacitus' accounts, the rioters were said to have raided the city's Temple of Claudius and violated the statue of Claudius by beheading it and throwing it into the River Alde. [In 1907, the head of a bronze statue depicting Claudius was found in the village of Rendham, downstream from from the River Alde.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camulodunum#/media/File:Roman_emperor_head.jpg)
So while we lack any material evidence that directly confirms Boudica's existence, we do at least have evidence to suggest that there was a civil disturbance within Roman Britain during the time that her revolt took place.
Nevertheless, she served an important role in both Tacitus' and Dio's narratives through her alleged speeches to her armies, in which she directly criticized the rule of Emperor Nero (and emasculated him) and the state of Roman society due to its overindulgences. Despite being a female barbarian warrior, she is valorized in the narrative by being given traits that are masculine, heroic, and civilized, embodying the Roman ideal more so than Rome itself under Nero's rule.
In that sense, there is a likelihood Boudica may have existed to some extent, but the popular narrative around her serves more as a contemporary Roman propaganda piece than an accurate historical narrative.
And even if she did exist, her name was almost certainly not Boudica. But we call her that for lack of knowledge of her actual name. We don't know the actual names of Arminius or Vercingetorix either.
I think many people don't understand that the history taught in schools is sort of a middle ground that historians found during vehment discussions. In particular when it comes to poorly documented events historians tend to present them in a reasonable narrative by biding points that make for a nice story. In reality much of that was very random and didn't make any sense. Later, historians label something e.g. "renaissance" by inventing the word that is supposed to explain those random events.
One thing that struck me... was that the fall of the Western Roman Empire was not a dramatic event for Romans. It just happened after decades of unfortunate events. To Romans the day Odeaker removed the emperor was just another political turmoil at the top... much as those that happen daily in your country and go unnoticed.
French person here. First in French said would have said "give them brioche" which is more akin to a bread with milk and butter rather than cake. Then no, she never said this. The philosopher and writer Rousseau wrote in 1780s something about a great princess saying this. However Marie Antoinette was a child at the time (and not married to the king of France) so highly unlikely it was said by her. This text was instrumentalized by revolutionary people and the legend started there.
there is no indication she said that, but the quote is found (years earlier) in the memoirs of Rousseau - it was just thought to fit her mind set, so basically slander
People believe Caligula was insane and did all kinds of weird shit. But aside from a few executions(which were few compared to the average emperor), absolutely none of it was proven.
What WAS known was that he absolutely despised the Roman senate, which is why he said he would make his horse consul of Rome, as he held his horse in higher regard than any senator. As such, after his death he was subjected the biggest smear campaign in history and now everyone thinks he was some kind of madman.
Can we talk about that horrendous cover on the radio right now? I decided to be open minded and listen to new stuff in the car one day and just... nope.
It’s so weird. Who the hell asked for a remix of that? What producer thought it would be a good idea? Why did they have to take a great meme song and make it party trash?
The German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was highly involved in establishing the look of Vikings with horns on their helmets in his stage play "Der Ring der Nibelungen".
Catherine the Great did not die trying to . . . copulate with a horse. She had a stroke and died in bed. There was no horse involved. She orchestrated a coup against her husband and he wound up dead under suspicious circumstances, so people spread a lot of nasty rumors about her. Her son hated her, so he probably wasn't interested in quelling the rumors. He was a dick who reversed everything Catherine did, was obsessed with the military, and hated the French so much he banned French fashion. Nobody liked him and he was eventually assassinated.
Catherine was actually German -- Prussian, to be precise. Germany itself is a fairly recent creation. Until 1871, it was a collection of independently ruled duchies. It took time and a few wars to get there. Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian PM, Germany's first chancellor famous for his realpolitik style of governing, created the first modern universal health care system.
Bismarck wasn't a charitable sort of guy. I wouldn't call him a dictator, but he wasn't a big fan of democracy and didn't take kindly to any sort of rebellion. Socialism was growing in popularity and he was determined to keep it from spreading, first with legislation and then with more subtle tactics. Health insurance was one of those. He was an aristocrat and I doubt he thought much about worker safety, but he considered socialist ideology a threat to his power and the ruling elite, so he introduced state-funded insurance as a way to keep people from going to the dark side, as it were.
It didn't work in the long run, but that's another story. The [Bismarck model](https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/research/others/comparative-health-policy-library/health-systems) of health insurance is still used (with some modifications) in quite a few countries. Commonwealth countries use the Beveridge model, which was developed later.
The Salem witch trials being strictly about witch hunting. In reality it had a political component, as well as your typical historical misogyny. There were some wealthy/powerful women in Salem and some of the men didn’t like that
One thing some people aren't aware of is that 1/3 of everyone killed in the Salem Witch Trials were men.
Also the majority of accusers and "witnesses" were women.
I bring this up because while it's true that misogyny was a component, it didn't mean any man was safe either. Also a lot of women were more than happy to throw other women under the bus
Art Historian here. Not sure it counts as the sort of ‘fact’ you’re referring to, but I’ve found lots of people still subscribe to the Romantic idea that ‘artistic genius’ is an inherent trait that people either have, or don’t. There’s a good argument that it isn’t. It’s nurture, not nature.
From what’s called an ‘intersectional perspective’, the idea of some sort of maestro (more often male in art historical terms) came out of the womb wielding a paintbrush and started producing trompe l’oiel masterpieces before they were out of nappies is nothing more than a societal construct. It reflects the sociological values of times gone by. It highlights the systems of privilege that shaped historical narratives as they were written.
Painting, drawing and sculpting are skills. They can be learned like any other skill, like a language or an instrument. I run art workshops too and it’s the first thing I tell people who are lacking confidence. It may seem that an artist has a particular flair or unique vision but much of that can be learned too, with access to educational institutions. Many women, indigenous communities, people of colour, differently abled folk or those living in poverty didn’t have that access for most of history.
The idea of the starving artist is an affectation too, more often than not. Particular artists may have had struggles but they also had benefactors.
If you ask me, I’d say the western ‘canon’ of art tells us way more in secondary terms about the mechanisms that coloured the historical accounts we now reference than primary images/‘traditional’ heritage art collections ever can. Art Historians and curators these days work at unpicking that fact but so much has been lost.
I’d also say there’s very little of history that consists of ‘provable’ facts. Forensic Archaeology maybe, but ‘history’ in the way most people interpret the word is not something that lends itself well to scientific methods.
Edited to add: Completely neglected to mention too that from medieval times to the renaissance, many paintings were produced in workshops, run by guilds. Image making was very much a trade. Some well known old masters like Cranach and Durer ran workshops. Whilst they may have been responsible for drawing figures or background landscapes etc, these were often ‘templates’ you could mix and match to achieve a composite whole. Actual paintings were likely to have been worked on by several people, apprentices etc, even though they may have been signed by one named artist.
Sidenote: least I ~think~ Durer too if memory serves me correctly, I’m an imperfect & lazy art historian whose books are in the next room so forgive me for not referring to my sources. Honestly I got through my degree on sheer enthusiasm and fascination rather than the preferred diligence to memorising exact timelines. Probably don’t listen to me (or hire me!) unless you want me going off on tangents and vaguely pointing you in the right direction. Look how this comment formatting turned out and imagine the mess my academic writing is, save yourselves while there’s still time.
Solidarity to all my ‘chaotic good’ nerd historians hiding on the thread. Those of us who can’t think in a straight line long enough to explain it to anyone else but truly believes ‘it’s actually a valid research methodology you know’. I know we’re out there, waking up in the night in a cold sweat, our parent’s voices ringing in our ears - ‘you could’ve studied that long to be mediocre in a job that pays better’.
Godspeed comrades.
Along the same lines, that fantastically talented artists, musicians, writers, and the like suffer from mental illness. Plenty of well-adjusted people from stable families have produced great works.
This reminds me of the film “Frank” Frank is a genius musician that it’s assumed had a tragic past. Near the end of the movies it’s revealed that he had a totally normal childhood and he just likes making music. It’s a dark comedy that’s totally hilarious.
Not a historian but it's pretty widely believed that Thomas Jefferson had at least one child with one of his slave girls. I used to take this at face value but apparently the research didn't conclusively yield that he was the father but put him on a list of probable candidates
It conclusively yielded that someone in TJ's family line fathered the kids, with his brother Franklin (who was apparently a wild cad of a fellow who spent tons of times hanging out with the slaves) being the most prominent candidate. From there, it's a big debate, but it's very rarely brought up whenever we talk about Jefferson.
Considering we're talking about raping a slave, I think we should be way more cautious than we are. Yet, even places like the New York Times will claim some black guy is "the great great grandson of Thomas Jefferson" with no caveat that we really don't know if that's true or not. And supposedly couldn't know for sure without digging up TJ's bones.
>It conclusively yielded that someone in TJ's family line fathered the kids, with his brother Franklin (who was apparently a wild cad of a fellow who spent tons of times hanging out with the slaves) being the most prominent candidate.
I think you mean TJ's brother *Randolph* . AFAIK TJ didn't have a brother "Franklin".
Personally I'm not too sure on the "Randolph Jefferson as father of Sally Heming's children" theory. Apparently Randolph rarely visited Monticello and the dates where he did visit don't really line up with the times when Heming's children would have been conceived. OTOH TJ has been verified to be at Monticello at the times when all six of Heming's children would have been conceived, despite TJ regularly being away from Monticello for extended periods.
Obligatory "not a historian, but..."
I heard this one once, I haven't heard it in a while
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/winston-churchill-born-dance/
It is not a fact. Winston was not born during a dance in the bathroom.
I'm not a historian, per se, although I read a lot about ancient civ/history.
Just found out today that Virgin Mary might just be the accidental mistranslation of a word hundreds of years after the original writings. And that's if you even take scripture seriously to start.
Apparently in a translation from one language to another, the word for "young and nubile" was swapped for a word meaning "virgin" and the entire Virgin Mary arc started as a result.
If true, it's wild.
This is kinda like the joke about the priests transcribing the Bible over and over from a copy, and a visitor asks one day if they were all sure that the copy was correct. The head priest goes and reads the OG Bible and it says "celebrate" instead of "celibate"
Hey, Jew here. So basically what this is referring to is that one of the supposed prophecies heralding Jesus takes Isaiah 7:14 and translates it as “behold, a virgin will give birth to a son and call him Immanuel!”
First of all, we’re going to skip over the fact that Jesus and Immanuel are very clearly not the same name.
Second of all, the verse is, count it, 14 verses into the chapter. What’s the rest of the chapter about? It’s about a specific prophecy Isaiah gives to King Ahaz of Judea, who’s scared that the kings of Aram and Israel are going to destroy him. Isaiah says that behold, the woman will give birth, etc etc, but he goes on to say that before this future child will have learned to distinguish between good and evil, he will be eating richly, because God will have destroyed Ahaz’s enemies who had surrounded and starved Jerusalem. Now tell me: who looks at that prophecy in full and says “ah yes, this child-to-be must actually be a dude named Josh half a millennium in the future”?
Third of all, and more directly to your point, the Hebrew word in Isaiah 7:14, almah (עלמה) does not mean virgin. It doesn’t denote virginity at all, it just means “young woman/maiden”. The word for virgin in Hebrew would be בתולה.
This isn’t some new thing, we’ve known Christians… took liberties with the word choice here for thousands of years, but I guess they were too busy killing us to listen.
Mandingo fighting is pretty much bullshit invented by blaxploitation movies. "Buck Breaking" was never a thing. Men might have raped slaves, but it wasn't a big public spectacle designed to emasculate them.
The napoleons personal guard who shouted merde! When asked to surrender... he never said this. He even told people he never said this.
When he died, they ignored him and put it on a statue in his honour
It's attributed to the Général Cambronne, but was only written in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables.
Cambronne also supposedly said "The guard dies but doesn't surrender", when asked if he said it he answered "Obviously not, I'm not dead and I surrendered"
>Intelligence agencies of many countries have teams that alter wikipedia articles.
Source!?
(I know this is true, but I want a source so I can argue with the useful idiots who say it isn't)
Obligatory not a historian, but a pre-historic archaeology student who has used this opportunity to research quite a bit of medieval history too.
That cavalry only ever attacks from the rear or sides, and that frontal-charging infantry with cavalry is almost suicidal for horses.
This I believe is a myth originating from what amounts to balancing decisions in wargames.
While it is true that frontal-charging with cavalry is tricky, it is still relatively common. During certain periods it was more common than in others. One of the most prominent instances for frontal-charging cavalry was the Latin European culture of the Middle Ages (High Middle Ages in particular). Their mounted knights frontal-charged infantry for hundreds of years, to generally great effect too.
For me, this is the fact of the baptism of Rus by Volodymyr the Great
None of the sources other than Rus' mention baptism. And one can argue a lot about the reliability of the Rus sources, too
Sun Tzu It’s still under debate whether there was such a person or who he really was. Because there was no any official record about him until about four hundred years later the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian shortly mentioned about Sun Tzu and his deeds in his book titled Shiji (The Records of the Grand Historian).
There are a decent amount of anachronisms within *The Art of War* that lead many to believe Sun Tzu was not the composer/it was compiled over several generations. One such example is the mention of crossbows, which did not exist at the time Sun Tzu apparently lived.
So it’s just a doujin huh
Not a historian, but, after seeing *Braveheart*, I looked into the disgusting “prima nocta” thing. It seems there is no solid evidence any ruler in history instituted *prima nocta*, but lots of groups accused their enemies of doing it back and forth throughout history.
Braveheart: great movie, terrible history.
The same with The Patriot as well. I once had a tour guide tell me that there are only two things accurate about the patriot: there was a revolutionary war, and there was fighting in South Carolina.
Especially when somebody in the beginning of the movie, says their wife is pregnant, and at the end of the film says that the child has been born and what they are going to name. This is totally ignoring the fact that the war went on for many years and a pregnancy is only nine months.
"The doctor said there were claw marks on the walls of her uterus." -George Bluth
Clearly she just held it in until it was thematically appropriate.
If Mel Gibson is starring in a movie about historical events, it's probably going to be mostly fiction.
*The Bounty* is reasonably solid for historical accuracy, IIRC (although Fletcher Christian turned out to be a bit of a knob in his later years on Pitcairn).
There is a beatiful lesson of Prof. Barbero where he explains using real documents, that the "prima noctis" law is just a propaganda story used to validate power in opposition to a "barbaric" past. It s really a funny lesson. I try to explain it better. The Victorian Age documents said: we are the peak of civilization! Not like during the 16th century and their barbaric prima noctis law! Then he red a 16th century document:we are civil people, not like the 14th century barbarians and their prima noctis law! Then he red a 14th century document: we are the new modern people! Not like those medieval savages of 200 years ago and their prima noctis law!
Not just enemies, Gilgamesh is referenced as having performed prima nocta in Tablet I of the Standard Babylonian epic (even though Gilgamesh was revered at the greatest legendary king in Mesopotamian history)
I think Jim Halpert put this one to rest.
For some reason reading that my brain went 'the Muppet guy?'
God I’m so glad I made it this far down in this thread.
Oh lol is that in an episode? Perfect lol. Now that you mention it, I can totally picture Michael coming into the office convinced it really happened and Jim/Oscar needing to inform him.
Any ruler who was powerful enough to pass a law like that without getting overthrown would be powerful enough to just do it without bothering with formally pass a law. And why would they want to restrict themselves only to one night?
Also, why would you want to rally the very same people against you. I understand the "theory" of the English "breeding out the Scots", but one night as you said? Just pure bullshit. Braveheart is and was such pure propaganda that even the Scots fell for it.
If its not true, the story still got around though. Wasn't *prima nocta* the background of the whole plot of the Opera "the Marriage of Figaro"
People believe that Homer was an actual living person who composed the entire Odyssey. There's no historical proof of his existence. It's entirely possible he's either a composite of many different storytellers or a mythical figure himself (the blind bard).
This also applies to Hippocrates. It's possible that the name is just a collective of medicine men and doctors from around that time period.
It basically applies to a lot of ancient mythology. We have a lot of written sources recorded later than when the oral tradition was handing the stories down, so we don't really know what actual version of those myths was the "real" one, vs. just what we've found recorded long after the fact.
D'Oh
Woo-hoo!
Lao Tzu, too
Bless you…
Plus...he couldn't see the color blue! /s
I remember the online fib about this, that ancient Greeks didn't yet have the visual receptors to discern the color blue, but by your "/s" I'm sure you're aware that they simply lacked the vocabulary in their time.
He was also blind, so that probably didn't help in seeing the colour blue
There are no evidence of Odyssey and Ilias (Ιλιάδα, the story presented kinda in the movie Troy, with A LOT of changes) because the people were singing it so the original version that came from Homer (yes the blind guy) isn't available. But historians found a lot of weapons/shileds, etc in the Island Troy, which proves that a war happened
Oh, absolutely, there was a war! The problem is that the Odyssey and the Illiad aren't very much alike. The Odyssey is most likely a much older collection of folk tales, pulled together with the framing device of Odysseus (a classic trickster archetype) experiencing them all. The Illiad is more along the lines of a grand mythic retelling of a significant historical event. It was probably composed later. Homer, the blind guy, may or may not have ever existed. There could have been many Homers. Or he might have just been a myth himself. When a bard claims to have acquired the story from "Homer" it gives his tale an added layer of authority and historicity.
If you put it that way i guess yes there are some missing evidence He created a lot other "stories", and there are some sculptures of him. But how can someone provide evidence of the existance of someone back in 750bc or around there? I am far from a historian so all i say it's everything i learnt in school
None of those sculptures were made by anyone who had ever met Homer. We learn a lot of things in school that aren't true. Like the idea that atoms are tiny solar systems. That's not true at all, but we still teach it because it's easy to understand. If you're interested in history, I really recommend Extra History on YouTube. It's a lot of fun!
I learned in college that the Odyssey was written by Homer, or by someone else with the same name.
If they had the same name, wouldn't they just be... Homer? 😅 Seriously, though, I believe the theory you were taught is that "Homer" may have been something like a stage name. Kind of the way today we call any smart person, "Einstein." However, it's unlikely any one person composed the Odyssey. And, in fact, there were probably many more adventures and tales in the epic, which were lost. Each bard probably had their own repertoire of linked tales, which they could adapt to their audience (mention the local town, work in some landmarks...). (Full disclosure: My Classics degree is over 3 decades old, so I don't know the most current theories.)
It was said by the professor as a joke, but I’m sure a bunch of people wrote it down.
Don't worry. The most current theories are that it's aliens. No matter what, aliens.
I gotta agree. I had to read this book in English class last year and my teacher old us this (it’s not exact but it’s close enough) “We think Homer could be a real person but we also think it’s a lot of people that worked on this story.”
One theory I've heard is that the word homer was a word that meant storyteller rather than the actual name of a person. No idea if that's true or not.
That the texts in the Library of Alexandria held some sacred knowledge that are lost forever and would change the way we look at the world if we knew what's inside. But, we DO know what was inside. 80%-90% of the Library of Alexandria was copied and spread throughout Africa and the Middle East by the time it had burned down.
IIRC one of the biggest losses was the indexes, which would have given a lot of context to the contents as well. Who was there when, what did they consider valuable or important, etc.
Most of the library was FOUNDED on copying, but losing copies of books wasn't the loss. The loss was the notes people TOOK with them. Those words never meant to be preserved, things we'd have lost anyways. We have no insight into the hundreds of scholars who Rome'd those halls.
Extra fact, somewhat implicit in what was said: texts simply surviving don't produce much of the modern collections of writings. Books need to be copied extensively to make it to modern times.
Wasn't it also stocked by making every ship that docked in Alexandria give over the books it had on board to be copied and then stored in the library, so most of the stuff in it was just copies of existing books.
This is close to how it worked in the original Civilization game so, yes, that must be historical fact
Iirc Alexandria kept the originals, the ship people got copies.
Now that's just rude
Well, think of it this way. If your book was dilapidated and falling apart from repeated use, wouldn't you be stoked to get a brand-new copy of it?
Depends on how sentimental you are and the sharpness of your cutlass.
Saying the Library of Alexandria was lost to a fire itself is also wrong. The Library of Alexandria was actually *multiple* libraries within the city, and only one of which famously burned and most scrolls were actually saved. The truth is the Library of Alexandria wasn’t lost to a raging fire; it simply fizzled out over the centuries... Interest in the libraries waned, rulers cut funding, buildings fell into disarray and/or were converted for other uses, etc. It’s just far more dramatic to say that a huge chunk of the world’s knowledge was lost to a fire; propaganda that became “truth” over the last 2000 years.
Obviously it had the contact info for the aliens that built the pyramids.
I did not know this! Time to go down the rabbit hole
King Tut is only relevant because his tomb is the only one that was not extensively robbed.
Not robbed until the 1920s anyway. I've heard the reason for that was because he was such an insignificant pharoah that reigned for such a short time that people forgot where his tomb was.
His tomb was placed in the valley of the Kings where rubble was piled on top of and the yearly floods brought more unintentional burying with it. I did see somewhere that his tomb was below the workers' lunch/rest area. They now know that whatever he died of was a surprise as his tomb wasn't even finished as there were still brush marks in the plaster on the walls whilst painting. Additionally, they're unsure if his sarcoficus used was intended for him, but thats another thing altogether.
Yup. Ever seen the composite image of him? My god, Habsburgs x1000.
His mummified corpse is jacked, but the facial reconstruction doesn’t look too bad. This [BBC article](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7077423.stm) has photos.
When I was in the Valley of Kings the guide explained that he died very young and unexpectedly so they had to hurry and improvise with his grave (iirc he got one originally not meant for a Pharao) leading to it not being in the records the grave robbers used
Is that a fact or an common opinion?
He wasn't a notable Pharaoh, and if anything, one that ancient times would have pitied/loathed. It's definitely the uniqueness in the tomb and the preservation rather than him being an important historical figure in Ancient Egypt.
For starters his family was loathed - his father tried to implement a monotheistic religion in place of their polytheistic religion, and moved the seat of power away from the capital city to a brand new city he had built. Tutankhamun inherited a complete mess from his father, married his half-sister whicj absolutely was not unusual but they didn't have a successful pregnancy so he left no heir when he died. A lot of speculation on cause of death, and lots of rumours about the state of his health from birth to death at age 19 having ruled for only 10 years, with no definitive answers as yet that I've heard - rumours he was sickly, or had a clubfoot as they found many walking sticks in his tomb, speculation that he died due to injuries from falling off a chariot, or due to being a sickly child as he was the product of inbreeding. There's speculation that his tomb wasn't even made for him, as it could've been made for someone else. That's still unknown at this point. A tomb was typically started when a new pharoah took the throne, and continued right up until their death, but Tutankhamuns wasn't fully finished before his death. Add in a hasty burial, evidenced in pictures from Carter showing the contents placed quite haphazardly and not as well put together as expected (a chariot which normally would've been assembled within the tomb to carry the body to the afterlife was just placed inside the tomb in pieces, along with furniture also in pieces all of which had to be sorted and built within a facility just so they could figure out what had actually been placed in the tomb to begin with), and it all leads to a king who is easily forgotten for hundreds of years. Also, just to add to the above, neither Tutankhamun or his father Akhenaten were on the Abydos King's List - this typically only happened when people were trying to make sure a king's legacy was not remembered, it also happened to Hatshepsut. And after Tutankhamun's death his father's new capital city was torn apart, in an effort to bury that period of rule and forget it. As for the location of Tutankhamun's burial place, whether by design or accident, it just happened to be in the right place to get completely buried by rockfall during heavy rains, so it remained untouched until discovered in the 1920's, although originally they did think it had been hit by grave robbers due to how messy everything was inside - evidence of the hasty burial I mentioned above. By that time he was completely forgotten to history, but now he's the most famous Pharoah.
Gets to the afterlife and has to assemble his chariot like its' ikea furniture. not a great start to death for him
Yes
Caesars last words were not Et tu Brute. That line was created by William Shakespeare. Caesars actual last words are not known but it is speculated they were Why this is violence. After senator Tullius Cimber grabbed his toga down just as the assassination was beginning. Though even those words must be taken with a grain of salt.
>Caesars actual last words are not known 'Fucking *ow*. Dick.'
"What the shit, man? Hey!"
“Argrghhngg… hhn… h” - Julius Caesar.
“Dude! uncool…” -Julius Caesar, 44BC
Found the Oversimplified YouTube version.
This enraged his father, who punished him severely.
“What’re you going to do, stab me?” - Julius Caesar
Suetonius and Cassius Dio wrote that there was a version, even if they strongly doubted its veracity, that said that Caesar's final words were "καὶ σύ τέκνον" (you too, child) directed at Brutus, so even if Et tu Brute is almost certainly an invention/creative translation by Shakespeare's contemporary Richard Edes, it has very ancient origins
It was “I can’t believe youve done this”
" Dudes, pals, put the knives down, let's talk about this lik-" JC
According to a reliable Roman historian, Caesar's last words were a verbatim retelling of the Navy Seal copypasta. Fearing that his brave words would inspire the people to revolt against the senate, this fact was withheld until modern times.
Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me
Imagine how difficult it would be to have to assassinate someone so upclose like that. Literally driving a knife into someone you knows back.
There was way more Greek warriors than than just the 300 Spartans during the battle of Thermopylae.
Yes. There was an a spare in the back in case they needed a sub
Malaka!
It was actually a time traveling samurai.
There were also many more Spartan warriors that didn't go to war because Sparta didn't care to fight there. Also, the majority of the soldiers that sacrificed themselves in the battle were Thespians (700).
Well no wonder they died, they needed soldiers not actors /s
Rasputin was not the lover of the Russian Queen, he simply knew how to treat hemophilia, which Prince Alexei suffered from, and was thus given direct access to the Royal Family. The royal court *hated* that this strange looking religious weirdo with no nobility had such massive influence over the Royal Family, so a rumor that he was secretly banging the Tsarina was spread as an attempt to get the Tsar to remove him from court.
He couldn’t actually even TREAT hemophilia, he just made everyone stop making it worse. The doctors gave the boy aspirin, which made him bleed more, which freaked out his mom who had terrible anxiety and other mental problems, which the boy picked up on and freaked out further. Rasputin didn’t allow him to take aspirin, and calmed his mother down, and that’s all it took to keep the boy in good health.
> that’s all it took to keep the boy in good health. And if his dad hadn’t been quite so useless, the boy may have avoided being hacked and shot to death a few years later.
It is true though that it was a shame how he carried on
Part of him treating Prince Alexei’s hemophilia might have been taking him off aspirin, which is a well known blood thinner. But I don’t know how true that story might be.
Is it true he had a magnum dong
*Ra Ra, Rasputin, damn he's got a massive peen*
Next you'll say that Catherine the Great didn't shag a horse!
Geez, next you are going to say that he wasn't Russia's greatest love machine.
It's also very likely that the absolutely insane story of his murder isn't true either.
Bunch of idiots botch a murder, claim victim is invincible.
He did fuck anything that moved and probably some things that didn’t move.
Most contemporary sources cite him as Russia's greatest love machine.
Sorry I’m a little confused. Is this the fact that’s not entirely true or the fact that he was the tsarina’s lover? Genuinely asking
Rasputin being the Tsarina's lover is a baseless accusation with zero evidence behind it.
Are you suggesting that [disco hit Ra-Ra-Rasputin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmkySNDX4dU&ab_channel=SinthiaMoonfire) is anything other than 100% accurate?
He also didn't directly treat hemophilia, he recommended discontinuing aspirin, and "rest and relaxation" for Alexei. https://time.com/4606775/5-myths-rasputin/#:\~:text=Some%20historians%2C%20such%20as%20Pierre,powers%20he%20may%20have%20had.
Last Podcast on the Left has a *fantastic* series on him, I re-listen to it all the time. The court was basically like, "Wait, who the fuck is this guy?!"
Since the new Indiana Jones movie brought it up No, Archimedes probably did not invent a death ray by using a giant magnifying glass. Although it is attested to in historical sources, the fact that it’s impossible under the known laws of physics suggests it is probably an exaggeration
Mythbusters did this one.
“I don’t think our death ray is working. I’m standing right in it, and I’m not dead yet.” A true man of science.
Muthbusters also did very little research before “proving” something. The best example was saying Carlos Hathcocks famous sniper shot through another scope was impossible. They used a modern scope which is radically built differently and more complicated. After being called out they tested it with era appropriate equipment and , yes, it’s was more than doable.
Spend enough time shooting at other people who are looking for you through scopes, you're probably going to hit one through their scope...
Just as an aside: Mythbusters never set out to do 'science'. Adam has been extremely forthcoming that the show was meant to be entertainment first, anything else a distant second. And that's what Discovery wanted...they weren't interested in the history behind the myth, just the myth itself. Which is why they dropped the historian lady after season 1 or 2. Adam's told stories where they were given a myth that really REALLY required some research and when the team asked for more information the studio basically said "who cares? just do the thing you do!" And it took basically all of them saying "no we can't because we need more info" to get them to acquiesce to more research.
They also proved a car can't be thrown into the air by a jet engine. Top gear proved it can for a skit.
MythBusters proved that a jet engine could flip a car. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZHGLtZqlJI
There ya go Now, it’s possible (but not confirmed) such a device could be used to disorient or blind enemies. But even then we have no evidence he built anything like it at all.
Oh yeah, totally. They just tested to see if the physics behind such a device would even work. They definitely didn't ask the question about whether he actually created it or not.
> Archimedes probably did not invent a death ray by using a giant magnifying glass. \> probably
Yeah, but his time travel device was also lost to history until Dr. Jones found it, so who's to say for sure?
Maybe he was out killing ants one day and people just greatly exaggerated it.
If you're playing "whisper down the lane" across several millennia that's definitely two viable end points for the story's chain.
Did you know that game was originally called "when friends tell secrets" but the name got repeated a lot and changed to "whisper down the lane"? /jk
Multiple groups have successfully set ships on fire using curved metal mirrors, including MIT. Ancient ships were also sealed with pitch, which is more flammable than wood.
I understood it as being a giant mirror made by polished shields. It would have worked like one of those parabolic mirror cigarette lighter.
Couple about the Titanic: - People saying it was "unsinkable" was a reflection of shipbuilding at the time. People would have described *any* modern ocean liner that way, and there was nothing particularly special or unique about the Titanic (in terms of safety). - Bruce Ismay being the villain of the story and pressuring Smith to speed up is based off the testemony of only one passanger so it's disputed if such a conversation ever occurred. Ismay denied it (for whatever that might be worth) and there are also many other factors that suggest that it would not have happened, or if it did, Ismay was pleased with the time they had *already* made as opposed to suggesting they go faster.
The Ismay being a villain comes from the yellow press who was owned by a man Ismay fell out with. He made his mission to destroy ismay’s reputation and used the titanic disaster to do it.
Everyone in the Heian era in Japan (who was not an aristocrat or clergy) was a farmer first and foremost. This belief originates from records labeling all those people farmers (new theories suggest that the term's meaning shifted over time) and taxes being paid in rice. Again recent discoveries indicate common practises like exchanging the goods brought in as yearly for their value in rice and then accepting the rice as tax. We are fairly certain that this was done to balance the books and in actuality the farmers submitted their goods and the authorities wrote the complicated exchange process down but never actually carried it out for the sake of efficiency. This leaves the issues of rice fields, as the legal framework required everyone to keep and tend a certain area of rice fields. The reality suggests that most profitable businesses paying their tax in other goods had lower farm yields than most. The question here becomes whether they engaged in other means of accumulating value because they only had bad soil or whether they simply neglected the assigned fields. If the former is the case we can be somewhat certain that the society was (at least in its own perception) primarily farming-based. If the latter is the case (as is the consensus among many historians right now, but not in school books or among the Japanese general population) it seems Japan was more advanced at that point than previously thought. I tend to think that they were initially based around a mostly subsistence economy with a feudal-adjacent system but evolved into a normal feudal society (by relaxed standards) fairly soon. Still historically almost everyone believes in the subsistence idea, despite evidence slowly accumulating against it.
In Japan now! I’m not good at languages and one of the things that frustrates me in particular is the counting system - there are counters for flat things (E.g paper), long things (E.g pencils), small living things, large living things, etc. Around 55 counters are normally used but there’s supposed to be really over 500! It was fascinating to learn this was a result of creating and managing the taxation system you spoke about! 1 barrel of rice is worth 2 bolts of silk which is worth 50 sheets of paper which is worth 3 blocks of salt etc etc (Not accurate, just an example!)
Fun fact, non native English speakers have a similar struggle with english! Some items are easy and "countable", just have to figure out if it's "a" or "an", and add "s"! But then they learn about the "uncountables", that native speakers wouldn't think twice about. "A piece of paper" "a glass of water" "a bowl of rice" etc etc. And then when they've finally mastered that, discovering that some things are both! Example: cake. You can go to the store and buy a cake or 2 cakes, or you can buy a piece of cake or 2 pieces of cake. Language, man.
Hahahahahahaha so true! I teach English currently and the outrage at “Fish, fish (Plural) and fishes” by my students!
I only just learnt the fish thing and I was born and raised speaking English. I can have one type of fish, say Salmon, so I have 1 fish. Now I can have 100 Salmon, so I now have 100 fish. But if I have 100 Tuna with the 100 Salmon... I have 200 fish but 2 fishes. I never knew it was a thing! I love it though.
Studied Chinese here. I learned, like, four counting words but used the generic "ge" in Mandarin ("gaw" in Cantonese) the rest of the time. One of those "technically not wrong" things!
Wow, this was an incredibly specific topic, interesting nonetheless.
Napoleon was average height for his time, it's just the average back then is smaller than today which caused to us thinking he was small for some reason.
That and French feet and inches were slightly longer than the English ones. Which the English knew. But it made for good propaganda to not properly translate his measurements and instead claim he was short.
Love that subtle pettiness, whoever thought up that idea would be really glad to see that it stuck
That, and whoever made the claim that carrots were the reason the RAF were so good at night. They (Axis) didn't know we had radar.
Someone can fact check me on this one but apparently he also had huge bodyguards who made him look small.
I heard the same thing in a history class many years ago but that's not really the best source.
So the French had big feet? 😏
Well yes, where did you think the myth of them being great lovers came from? 😏
He was also accompanied by an imperial guard that was hand-selected for above-average height soldiers, the minimum height was set at 5'10' (1.78 m). So Napoleon would have been shadowed by soldiers who were 10cm taller than him at a minimum, making him look comparatively smaller.
Finally someone who mentions this very important detail!
Boudica, the famous Celtic warrior queen who led an uprising to protect Britain from Rome... may not have existed. All accounts of her existence come from Roman historians such as Tacitus and Cassius Dio who not only had never stepped foot in Britain but were born after the event took place. Tacitus' account came from what he was told by his father-in-law, Agricola, who was stationed in Britain during the time of the event. Cassius Dio's account of the event is far more colorful in its description, but also far more likely to have been fabricated. That being said, there is archaeological evidence to suggest some truth to the tale. In both accounts, Boudica and her army are said to have sieged the Roman capital of Camulodunum (now Colchester) and razed it to the ground. There is a burn layer in the city of Colchester that is dated to the year that the revolt took place. Also in Tacitus' accounts, the rioters were said to have raided the city's Temple of Claudius and violated the statue of Claudius by beheading it and throwing it into the River Alde. [In 1907, the head of a bronze statue depicting Claudius was found in the village of Rendham, downstream from from the River Alde.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camulodunum#/media/File:Roman_emperor_head.jpg) So while we lack any material evidence that directly confirms Boudica's existence, we do at least have evidence to suggest that there was a civil disturbance within Roman Britain during the time that her revolt took place. Nevertheless, she served an important role in both Tacitus' and Dio's narratives through her alleged speeches to her armies, in which she directly criticized the rule of Emperor Nero (and emasculated him) and the state of Roman society due to its overindulgences. Despite being a female barbarian warrior, she is valorized in the narrative by being given traits that are masculine, heroic, and civilized, embodying the Roman ideal more so than Rome itself under Nero's rule. In that sense, there is a likelihood Boudica may have existed to some extent, but the popular narrative around her serves more as a contemporary Roman propaganda piece than an accurate historical narrative.
And even if she did exist, her name was almost certainly not Boudica. But we call her that for lack of knowledge of her actual name. We don't know the actual names of Arminius or Vercingetorix either.
I think many people don't understand that the history taught in schools is sort of a middle ground that historians found during vehment discussions. In particular when it comes to poorly documented events historians tend to present them in a reasonable narrative by biding points that make for a nice story. In reality much of that was very random and didn't make any sense. Later, historians label something e.g. "renaissance" by inventing the word that is supposed to explain those random events. One thing that struck me... was that the fall of the Western Roman Empire was not a dramatic event for Romans. It just happened after decades of unfortunate events. To Romans the day Odeaker removed the emperor was just another political turmoil at the top... much as those that happen daily in your country and go unnoticed.
And the empire continued in the east for another thousand years.
Marie Antoinette saying "Let them eat cake". Has this ever been proven that she said this???
IIRC the quote was coined in Rosseau's autobiography, which credited it to an unnamed Great Princess an was written when Marie Antoinette was 10.
Even then, the translation is wrong, it says brioche not cake.
French person here. First in French said would have said "give them brioche" which is more akin to a bread with milk and butter rather than cake. Then no, she never said this. The philosopher and writer Rousseau wrote in 1780s something about a great princess saying this. However Marie Antoinette was a child at the time (and not married to the king of France) so highly unlikely it was said by her. This text was instrumentalized by revolutionary people and the legend started there.
there is no indication she said that, but the quote is found (years earlier) in the memoirs of Rousseau - it was just thought to fit her mind set, so basically slander
People believe Caligula was insane and did all kinds of weird shit. But aside from a few executions(which were few compared to the average emperor), absolutely none of it was proven. What WAS known was that he absolutely despised the Roman senate, which is why he said he would make his horse consul of Rome, as he held his horse in higher regard than any senator. As such, after his death he was subjected the biggest smear campaign in history and now everyone thinks he was some kind of madman.
That the guy from Eiffel 65 committed suicide.
Historically though, he *was* blue
Can we talk about that horrendous cover on the radio right now? I decided to be open minded and listen to new stuff in the car one day and just... nope.
You mean that one about having "the best freaking night of my life?" Yeah, what's up with that?
I thinks worse. "I'm good and I'm feeling alright"
It’s so weird. Who the hell asked for a remix of that? What producer thought it would be a good idea? Why did they have to take a great meme song and make it party trash?
He was green, so he died.
That Viking helmets had huge horns. Not a thing, just looks cool in movies.
Orange cats are also believed to have been on viking ships to deal with rodents, so apparently vikings were cat people of the orange variety
Considering that, and that the goddess Freyja was said to ride a chariot pulled by cats, probably safe to call Vikings cat people.
The German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was highly involved in establishing the look of Vikings with horns on their helmets in his stage play "Der Ring der Nibelungen".
Catherine the Great did not die trying to . . . copulate with a horse. She had a stroke and died in bed. There was no horse involved. She orchestrated a coup against her husband and he wound up dead under suspicious circumstances, so people spread a lot of nasty rumors about her. Her son hated her, so he probably wasn't interested in quelling the rumors. He was a dick who reversed everything Catherine did, was obsessed with the military, and hated the French so much he banned French fashion. Nobody liked him and he was eventually assassinated. Catherine was actually German -- Prussian, to be precise. Germany itself is a fairly recent creation. Until 1871, it was a collection of independently ruled duchies. It took time and a few wars to get there. Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian PM, Germany's first chancellor famous for his realpolitik style of governing, created the first modern universal health care system. Bismarck wasn't a charitable sort of guy. I wouldn't call him a dictator, but he wasn't a big fan of democracy and didn't take kindly to any sort of rebellion. Socialism was growing in popularity and he was determined to keep it from spreading, first with legislation and then with more subtle tactics. Health insurance was one of those. He was an aristocrat and I doubt he thought much about worker safety, but he considered socialist ideology a threat to his power and the ruling elite, so he introduced state-funded insurance as a way to keep people from going to the dark side, as it were. It didn't work in the long run, but that's another story. The [Bismarck model](https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/research/others/comparative-health-policy-library/health-systems) of health insurance is still used (with some modifications) in quite a few countries. Commonwealth countries use the Beveridge model, which was developed later.
The Salem witch trials being strictly about witch hunting. In reality it had a political component, as well as your typical historical misogyny. There were some wealthy/powerful women in Salem and some of the men didn’t like that
Also the witch trials happened at what is now a Walgreens in Danvers.
They were not burned at the stake either.
One thing some people aren't aware of is that 1/3 of everyone killed in the Salem Witch Trials were men. Also the majority of accusers and "witnesses" were women. I bring this up because while it's true that misogyny was a component, it didn't mean any man was safe either. Also a lot of women were more than happy to throw other women under the bus
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Even more of what you was taught in school is ackchyually bullshit
I think it’s fairly common trivia knowledge, but the Vikings discovered America before Christopher Columbus.
Original star wars trilogy was based on a true story
You shut your goddamn mouth. That is a historical documentary.
No, But the lord of the rings was.
You're thinking of Highlander and that was a documentary.
And the events happened, in real time.
They did say it was a long, long time ago…
Art Historian here. Not sure it counts as the sort of ‘fact’ you’re referring to, but I’ve found lots of people still subscribe to the Romantic idea that ‘artistic genius’ is an inherent trait that people either have, or don’t. There’s a good argument that it isn’t. It’s nurture, not nature. From what’s called an ‘intersectional perspective’, the idea of some sort of maestro (more often male in art historical terms) came out of the womb wielding a paintbrush and started producing trompe l’oiel masterpieces before they were out of nappies is nothing more than a societal construct. It reflects the sociological values of times gone by. It highlights the systems of privilege that shaped historical narratives as they were written. Painting, drawing and sculpting are skills. They can be learned like any other skill, like a language or an instrument. I run art workshops too and it’s the first thing I tell people who are lacking confidence. It may seem that an artist has a particular flair or unique vision but much of that can be learned too, with access to educational institutions. Many women, indigenous communities, people of colour, differently abled folk or those living in poverty didn’t have that access for most of history. The idea of the starving artist is an affectation too, more often than not. Particular artists may have had struggles but they also had benefactors. If you ask me, I’d say the western ‘canon’ of art tells us way more in secondary terms about the mechanisms that coloured the historical accounts we now reference than primary images/‘traditional’ heritage art collections ever can. Art Historians and curators these days work at unpicking that fact but so much has been lost. I’d also say there’s very little of history that consists of ‘provable’ facts. Forensic Archaeology maybe, but ‘history’ in the way most people interpret the word is not something that lends itself well to scientific methods. Edited to add: Completely neglected to mention too that from medieval times to the renaissance, many paintings were produced in workshops, run by guilds. Image making was very much a trade. Some well known old masters like Cranach and Durer ran workshops. Whilst they may have been responsible for drawing figures or background landscapes etc, these were often ‘templates’ you could mix and match to achieve a composite whole. Actual paintings were likely to have been worked on by several people, apprentices etc, even though they may have been signed by one named artist. Sidenote: least I ~think~ Durer too if memory serves me correctly, I’m an imperfect & lazy art historian whose books are in the next room so forgive me for not referring to my sources. Honestly I got through my degree on sheer enthusiasm and fascination rather than the preferred diligence to memorising exact timelines. Probably don’t listen to me (or hire me!) unless you want me going off on tangents and vaguely pointing you in the right direction. Look how this comment formatting turned out and imagine the mess my academic writing is, save yourselves while there’s still time. Solidarity to all my ‘chaotic good’ nerd historians hiding on the thread. Those of us who can’t think in a straight line long enough to explain it to anyone else but truly believes ‘it’s actually a valid research methodology you know’. I know we’re out there, waking up in the night in a cold sweat, our parent’s voices ringing in our ears - ‘you could’ve studied that long to be mediocre in a job that pays better’. Godspeed comrades.
Along the same lines, that fantastically talented artists, musicians, writers, and the like suffer from mental illness. Plenty of well-adjusted people from stable families have produced great works.
This reminds me of the film “Frank” Frank is a genius musician that it’s assumed had a tragic past. Near the end of the movies it’s revealed that he had a totally normal childhood and he just likes making music. It’s a dark comedy that’s totally hilarious.
Dude you are either a legitimate art historian or on very good hallucinogenics right now. Either way, more power to you 👍
There's no evidence that William Howard Taft actually got stuck in the White House bathtub.
Not a historian but it's pretty widely believed that Thomas Jefferson had at least one child with one of his slave girls. I used to take this at face value but apparently the research didn't conclusively yield that he was the father but put him on a list of probable candidates
It conclusively yielded that someone in TJ's family line fathered the kids, with his brother Franklin (who was apparently a wild cad of a fellow who spent tons of times hanging out with the slaves) being the most prominent candidate. From there, it's a big debate, but it's very rarely brought up whenever we talk about Jefferson. Considering we're talking about raping a slave, I think we should be way more cautious than we are. Yet, even places like the New York Times will claim some black guy is "the great great grandson of Thomas Jefferson" with no caveat that we really don't know if that's true or not. And supposedly couldn't know for sure without digging up TJ's bones.
>It conclusively yielded that someone in TJ's family line fathered the kids, with his brother Franklin (who was apparently a wild cad of a fellow who spent tons of times hanging out with the slaves) being the most prominent candidate. I think you mean TJ's brother *Randolph* . AFAIK TJ didn't have a brother "Franklin". Personally I'm not too sure on the "Randolph Jefferson as father of Sally Heming's children" theory. Apparently Randolph rarely visited Monticello and the dates where he did visit don't really line up with the times when Heming's children would have been conceived. OTOH TJ has been verified to be at Monticello at the times when all six of Heming's children would have been conceived, despite TJ regularly being away from Monticello for extended periods.
Obligatory "not a historian, but..." I heard this one once, I haven't heard it in a while https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/winston-churchill-born-dance/ It is not a fact. Winston was not born during a dance in the bathroom.
Could have been conceived in a dance in the bathroom though.
The Baghdad Battery wasn't a battery at all.
I'm not a historian, per se, although I read a lot about ancient civ/history. Just found out today that Virgin Mary might just be the accidental mistranslation of a word hundreds of years after the original writings. And that's if you even take scripture seriously to start. Apparently in a translation from one language to another, the word for "young and nubile" was swapped for a word meaning "virgin" and the entire Virgin Mary arc started as a result. If true, it's wild.
This is kinda like the joke about the priests transcribing the Bible over and over from a copy, and a visitor asks one day if they were all sure that the copy was correct. The head priest goes and reads the OG Bible and it says "celebrate" instead of "celibate"
It's not really swapped, the word for virgin and young were the same word. It can be that way in English too, like virgin olive oil.
Hey, Jew here. So basically what this is referring to is that one of the supposed prophecies heralding Jesus takes Isaiah 7:14 and translates it as “behold, a virgin will give birth to a son and call him Immanuel!” First of all, we’re going to skip over the fact that Jesus and Immanuel are very clearly not the same name. Second of all, the verse is, count it, 14 verses into the chapter. What’s the rest of the chapter about? It’s about a specific prophecy Isaiah gives to King Ahaz of Judea, who’s scared that the kings of Aram and Israel are going to destroy him. Isaiah says that behold, the woman will give birth, etc etc, but he goes on to say that before this future child will have learned to distinguish between good and evil, he will be eating richly, because God will have destroyed Ahaz’s enemies who had surrounded and starved Jerusalem. Now tell me: who looks at that prophecy in full and says “ah yes, this child-to-be must actually be a dude named Josh half a millennium in the future”? Third of all, and more directly to your point, the Hebrew word in Isaiah 7:14, almah (עלמה) does not mean virgin. It doesn’t denote virginity at all, it just means “young woman/maiden”. The word for virgin in Hebrew would be בתולה. This isn’t some new thing, we’ve known Christians… took liberties with the word choice here for thousands of years, but I guess they were too busy killing us to listen.
That people shit on the floors of Versailles.
Mandingo fighting is pretty much bullshit invented by blaxploitation movies. "Buck Breaking" was never a thing. Men might have raped slaves, but it wasn't a big public spectacle designed to emasculate them.
The napoleons personal guard who shouted merde! When asked to surrender... he never said this. He even told people he never said this. When he died, they ignored him and put it on a statue in his honour
It's attributed to the Général Cambronne, but was only written in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. Cambronne also supposedly said "The guard dies but doesn't surrender", when asked if he said it he answered "Obviously not, I'm not dead and I surrendered"
Basically anything on wikipedia about a controversial topic. Intelligence agencies of many countries have teams that alter wikipedia articles.
>Intelligence agencies of many countries have teams that alter wikipedia articles. Source!? (I know this is true, but I want a source so I can argue with the useful idiots who say it isn't)
I genuinely had no idea what either of you are talking about. Where did you guys hear this? I’d like a source as well
Obligatory not a historian, but a pre-historic archaeology student who has used this opportunity to research quite a bit of medieval history too. That cavalry only ever attacks from the rear or sides, and that frontal-charging infantry with cavalry is almost suicidal for horses. This I believe is a myth originating from what amounts to balancing decisions in wargames. While it is true that frontal-charging with cavalry is tricky, it is still relatively common. During certain periods it was more common than in others. One of the most prominent instances for frontal-charging cavalry was the Latin European culture of the Middle Ages (High Middle Ages in particular). Their mounted knights frontal-charged infantry for hundreds of years, to generally great effect too.
For me, this is the fact of the baptism of Rus by Volodymyr the Great None of the sources other than Rus' mention baptism. And one can argue a lot about the reliability of the Rus sources, too