Historical "facts" and popular representations of histrical figures that are wrong

[tofulove]

imo Fredric the great was the best german leader. but im not the must educated in german history ;p

 

[A BigCup of Tea]

that diabetics are not allowed sugar, we are allowed as much sugar as a non-diabetic (although is is advised that we don't go crazy) as long as we keep doing our injections, or that as we are diabetic we need sugar constantly! i thought this stuff was taught in school (i learnt about it is school, although i have been diabetic since i was 11)

Also i'm finding it pretty funny that people are getting butthurt over that persons opinion on hitler.

 

[chadachada123]

I don't want to include anything that has already been said, so I guess I'll include some personal annoyances:

Darwin did not turn to Christianity while on his death bed.

Christopher Columbus did not discover North America. He rediscovered it several hundred years after the Vikings.

The Constitutional Convention did not open with a prayer.

Thomas Jefferson, while owning slaves, was not pro-slavery, and drafted plenty of legislation that stopped the importation of slaves and the like, and made his state the first to stop importation of slaves from Africa.

Many/most of the founding fathers were deistic, and not strictly Christian.

and before the vikings it was the native Americans who travel from Asia who traveled from Africa

That reminds me, some cool new evidence in (China?) suggests that at least one group of modern humans migrated to there some 20,000 years earlier than prior evidence suggested. I think that's pretty exciting to think that we may have had a couple additional exoduses that were previously unknown.

 

[chadachada123]

What don't you understand? You're arguing like I'm yet to come across some piece of information. I know the man. I know the Nazi Party. I know the history. I like some aspects of the most former and think he could have been great.

I think you are misunderstanding something here. I, and others on here, are not arguing that he could have been great. But you said in your very first post here that he was great. And that is something I, and others here, disagree with.

Yes. And? I think he was a great leader (could have been a lot better). You don't think he was a great leader.

Am I supposed to switch sides because you show me things I already know? Tell me a game you love and I'll tell you it's actually not good and then list several reasons why. Will you change your mind? No. Because you like the game and therefore obviously disagree with me lol.

Me? Agreeing with Boudica on an issue?

This is going to be an interesting day.

On topic, as far as the leading part goes, he really knew how to do it effectively. On the military side, I feel like he sucked hard, which I suppose is a very good thing for the world as a whole, but as far as internal politics go, he really knew how to get his country's shit in gear.

 

[DJjaffacake]

Some people seem to think King John was actually a good king and that it's just Robin Hood that's given him a bad name. He was, in fact, such a bad king that the Barons went to war with him. On the other hand, that gave us Parliament and the Magna Carta, so, as Churchill said, "When the long tally is added, it will be seen that the British nation and the English-speaking world owe far more to the vices of John than to the labours of virtuous sovereigns."

he was delt a bad hand from the lion heart who bankrupt the nation on a failed war across the world. so that did not help.

Yeah, but he can't really blame Richard for the fact that he was a tyrannical dictator who hired mercenaries to loot his own country (and arguably the Third Crusade wasn't a failure).

 

[Nadia Castle]

I just get annoyed by the stupid myth of the 'noble native'. Pre European-Imperialism wasn't some happy go lucky place where Africans lived in tribes of about ten people, the Native Americans all sat around with peace pipes and the South Americans didn't commit their time to just building cities of gold.

In truth Africa was home to some enormous native empires ruled by emperors who had messengers executed for getting words wrong. The Native American tribes used to kick the crap out of each other over buffalo hunting grounds and some Aztec kings decided that a pyramid of human skulls would look pretty niffy. Hell just look at Easter Island and ask if the whole 'oh only white men don't care about nature' argument about the imperial age holds any sway.

What even worse is it's just a myth peddled by modern political thinkers that for some reason people buy as some great truth. No historian would seriously accept it. Yes European Imperialism was fucking crazy and unbelievably harsh, but back then every civilization was run by bastards or you didn't survive.

 

[Infernai]

The movie 300 is a thorn in my side. As someone who had looked into the battle of Thermopylae, it got a little bit frustrating with the poor representation of the phalanx, giving the persians elephants, gunpowder, that massive guy, the last stand only containing 300 Spartans (when in reality, there was around two thousand people in the last stand), no mention of Admiral Themistocles, the reasoning for Spartans not sending the full force and the representation of Spartan training as being solely about strength, when in fact they were trained to win at all costs (the right of passage was to murder a slave without being caught, requiring stealth over brute force).

Annoyingly, there are people I know who believe that film was accurate.

The way i like to view 300: It's being told by an unreliable narrator to try and make the spartans with him have a morale boost. Any historian worth their salt knows that alot of the stuff in the film 300 is total bullocks: It wasn't just the 300 as various other nations from Greece also leant aid (The Athenians were present and leant naval aid if i remember), Ephialtes was not a Spartan nor deformed, and Xerxes was not even present when the 300 spartans and others died at Thermopylae...he'd run back home under the pretense of a "Vision". The ephors as well were NOT inbred seers either, that one seriously pissed me off.

OT: Did you know that canons were actually apart of Middle ages warfare and were introduced in the 14th century? Shame Hollywood keeps forgetting that.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

There's evidence to suggest that the current Dali Lama might just desire to reinstate his countries caste system in which he was privileged and wealthy while the rest of the country just sort of existed to be poor and serve him and his colleges.

He MIGHT want that, mind. He might not. But it's important to remember the society he came from. I personally think he just might be a genuinely good guy who wants peace and order in the world, but hey, ya never know.

Watch the Penn and Teller's Bullshit episode on this guy to find out some more.

I hate that show but I hope it reveals some dirt about the guy because I have very strong doubts about the Dalai Lama. He lives in a palace with his servants all around him toiling for basically nothing, no reward only an ever-receding spiritual goal which is never reached. His statements are very odd too - unlike some of the spiritual teachers not in positions of authority (Maharshi, Krishnamurti UG, Alan Watts etc) he comes across as disingenuous and some of the stuff he says I would expect from politicians. You know there's something not right about the guy, like Jiddu Krishnamurti.

 

[Supertegwyn]

And if your profile is right, you're Australian.

Please do not tell Germans who their best leader was. Whoever it was (Bismarck, ffs!), it was NOT Hitler. This is just insulting.

Please don't tell Australians what to think of German leaders.

See, that can work both ways.

But I do not insult you asking you not to do this.

You actually managed to offend me. This does not happen often.

If you take offense to someone saying which political figure they feel could have made the best leader of a country under different circumstances, you're far too sensitive.

My family was almost destroyed by World War 2, and I hold Hitler directly responsible for that.
This is more than that and you know it. Don't try and bullshit your way out of your insane claims.

While sad, I don't see how that has any bearing on my opinion that he could have been a terrific leader under different circumstances.

I am saying that Hitler has had an affect (effect? Shit I don't know) on a lot of people and saying that people are 'sensitive' when you call him a great leader is full of shit.

 

[Infernai]

The movie 300 is a thorn in my side. As someone who had looked into the battle of Thermopylae, it got a little bit frustrating with the poor representation of the phalanx, giving the persians elephants, gunpowder, that massive guy, the last stand only containing 300 Spartans (when in reality, there was around two thousand people in the last stand), no mention of Admiral Themistocles, the reasoning for Spartans not sending the full force and the representation of Spartan training as being solely about strength, when in fact they were trained to win at all costs (the right of passage was to murder a slave without being caught, requiring stealth over brute force).

Annoyingly, there are people I know who believe that film was accurate.

The way i like to view 300: It's being told by an unreliable narrator to try and make the spartans with him have a morale boost. Any historian worth their salt knows that alot of the stuff in the film 300 is total bullocks: It wasn't just the 300 as various other nations from Greece also leant aid (The Athenians were present and leant naval aid if i remember), Ephialtes was not a Spartan nor deformed, and Xerxes was not even present when the 300 spartans and others died at Thermopylae...he'd run back home under the pretense of a "Vision". The ephors as well were NOT inbred seers either, that one seriously pissed me off.

OT: Did you know that canons were actually apart of Middle ages warfare and were introduced in the 14th century? Shame Hollywood keeps forgetting that.

Well so were early muskets that were basically metal tubes bolted to wooden planks. Arquebusses I think they were called?

Spoiler

You're thinking of Hand Cannons, but yes they were being utilized in europe around that time. Although China actually made and started using them even earlier then that.

 

[C. Cain]

Me? Agreeing with Boudica on an issue?

This is going to be an interesting day.

On topic, as far as the leading part goes, he really knew how to do it effectively. On the military side, I feel like he sucked hard, which I suppose is a very good thing for the world as a whole, but as far as internal politics go, he really knew how to get his country's shit in gear.

He effectively monopolised power, I give you that. But he wasn't very good at wielding it.

No. No I didn't say that. I said I wish Hitler had come into power at a different time and that the society he was raised in hadn't possessed the exact cultural box of tinder that it did. I like many aspects of the man, despise some and wish it had been different. What I did not say was that I wish he or history was completely different.

Nice work? No, it really wasn't.

People are the product of their environment. You are proposing to change the environment that spawned Hitler beyond recognition. In that case Hitler would be, to all intents and purposes, a wholly different person. So I'm with Tropicaz on this one.

If only things were different, Hitler could have been the best leader Germany ever had.
If only things were different, Hitler could have still been the worst leader Germany ever had.

Both claims are equally unsubstantiated. Your "If only's" can be reduced to "If only things had been different, then things would have been different." It's technically true, but at the same time utterly pointless.

 

[SckizoBoy]

No, it was British propaganda against the French. The British wanted to slander Napoleon's name, so they decided to make him short.

Don't forget that all propaganda has some (however spurious or misconstrued) basis in truth. In France, Napoleon's height was a respectable 5'2"... but based on the French 'inch' (or 'pouce') which is 2.71cm, as opposed to the British inch of 2.54cm. When the Brits found out since the Strand didn't have an image of him except his early military portraits (which, I hasten to add were not in the least flattering and yet he was still quite a handsome/strapping man until his late 30's) they didn't take this unitary difference into account hence: good gosh, he's a small squit isn't he?! And off they went portraying him to be a small tyrant. So your point stems from my point, as it were...

Please do not tell Germans who their best leader was. Whoever it was (Bismarck, ffs!), it was NOT Hitler. This is just insulting.

I have reservations about Bismarck... I know he was the principal architect in the German Unification, but he was just so endlessly meddling. His lack of provision for a decent successor leaves me thinking he is main cause for both the rise and the fall of the German Empire. Granted, he didn't count on being Minister-praesidant under Wilhelm II, so you can blame that on Frederick III smoking too much! However, he was the greatest cause for the rift between the Kronprinz and Wilhelm II and for the young Kaiser being so reactionary and glory-hungry... *shrug*

imo Fredric the great was the best german leader. but im not the must educated in german history ;p

As a singular military leader of Germany, yeah, I'm with you on that one, but he didn't really make it last, since Frederick Wilhelm II well and truly buggered most of the Prussian nation up and the army fell severely into disrepair. I don't know about you, but I think that part of a truly great leader's responsibilities is to ensure that he has at least a half as competent and wily successor so that everything just doesn't spontaneously disintegrate once he kicks it. Tough ask? Well, that's the understated requirement of 'greatness'.

OT: *shrug* What the hell, Augustus wasn't the first emperor (de jure).

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

People are the product of their environment. You are proposing to change the environment that spawned Hitler beyond recognition.

So let's just throw genetics out the window, shall we? -_-

Genetics IS environment.