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

[Xangba]

Lincoln was not a paragon of slaves, hell he didn't even care about them. The whole thing was a political move for reelection and to try and be more favorable with Britain. Blacks were also treated like absolute shit in the North as well.

If I remember correctly, The Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually free all slaves, just the ones in the states who had seceded from the Union. It had no immediate effect because Lincoln had no direct control over what the Confederate States did and the states which still had slaves but where part of the Union were not affected. Overall, it was just another political ploy to turn the civil war into a war about slavery, and to gain the favour of European countries which had long since abolished slavery.

Thank you! The thing did nothing whatsoever. It had no authority in seceding states, as they were their own nation, nor did it even mention the border states that were still part of the union and had slaves. Nothing but a political move.

 

[Lieju]

I hate it when people glorify tribal socities, that they were perfet and living together with the nature in harmony etc.

In general I hate it when people glorify the past, whether it's hippies and 'natural' ways of life or right-wingers and the utopia of 50-American family.

 

[Lord Garnaat]

It's sort of debated. There's evidence to suggest that he did genuinly care about the plight of the slaves, but there is also evidence to suggest he was just going with the flow. He certainly didnt seem to care that much in the run up to election, however that might of been him simply trying to appeal to the moderates.

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races ? that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.

Yeeep. He was racist.
But so was almost everyone in is time. The moral zeitgeist marches on.

Huh, well then. Learn something new everyday!

The whole "racist Lincoln" thing is a difficult fact to prove or disprove, mainly because it relies on what classified as racist at the time. Lincoln himself was a strict abolitionist and thought that "if slavery isn't evil, than nothing is", but when the Civil War rolled around he decided that he had to put all of his personal opinions aside and focus solely on what would help keep the Union from falling apart, no matter what it was. I believe he said that he was willing to abolish slavery, preserve slavery, or ignore slavery so long as it preserved the Union.

He WAS instrumental in freeing them however, so one cannot discount that. Even if it did come a bit late for political reasons, he still did it.

On the other hand, there's the argument that Lincoln was a racist. And early on in his life this would certainly be true: he went on record saying that he did not necessarily believe that whites and blacks were equal. But later on, due to his friendship with Fredrick Douglass, he grew to recognize that a black man could be just as intelligent, eloquent, and moral as any white man. So there's that.

 

[The Funslinger]

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.

Oh, sweet Jebus, he did suck.

He prioritized the movement of Death Camp residents to more camps further from the front lines (to cover up in case the war went south) over the movement of troops and supplies to the front lines against the Russians.

If he hadn't done the latter, likely he wouldn't have needed to do the former. It's popular opinion that if it weren't for that ass backwards decision, the Russians would have been broken before they got near Berlin.

You're telling me better safe than sorry is not more safe than it is sorry?

I'm saying he had his priorities backwards to a moronic extent.

He started pretty much the end-all of wars, and then put it on the god damn back burner. Germany could very likely have defeated Russia if he hadn't held back supplies and men so he could move Jewish prisoners. Considering moving them around was a contingency for if he lost the war, he could have tried a bit harder not to practically hand all that ground over to the Russians.

This being a conclusion I reached after talking to a Holocaust survivor, who had quite a bit to say about the Russians, and after reading about their advance through Germany.

Any 'good' qualities you want to put forward about Hitler don't change the fact he was one of the worst generals ever to get into a war room. Not just with the above incident, either. His generals winced whenever he took control of an operation. But he could still likely have staved off the Russians if he hadn't made some idiotic attempt to preserve his own reputation. Which I find interesting, because it implies even he knew how shit a person he was being on some level.

 

[Leadfinger]

If only your original idea about Hitler being a "great leader" weren't so patently absurd, if only your subsequent answers not complete non-sequitors, there might have been some glimmer of intelligibility in the otherwise gibbering non-sense of your post. If only...

If there was no amount of intelligibility, how did you read it? Moreover, nonsense is one word and non sequitur is spelled with a U. If you don't like my comment, you can say it without trying to use random, out of place words.

You got me. I have to confess that I was at least able to read your post. You wrote complete sentences in English and so forth (and I salute your spelling!). In truth, it's the ideas contained within that are gibbering non-sense, especially the idea that Hitler has somehow gotten a bad rap by history.

 

[Kargathia]

300 gets a free pass with me for being ridiculously stylised. Though anyone thinks that it accurately reflects history is an idiot.

Quite so. It really is more of a truthful reimagining of how the story of the battle at thermopylae has been told throughout history: copious amounts of awesome, with scant regard for such inconveniencing details as "historical accuracy".

In the end a movie simply is not comparable to a history book, as it has a completely different set of priorities.

 

[cahtush]

Greenland wasn't (very) green when the vikings arrived, it was more or less a marketing ploy to get people there.

2: Samurai could, and showed quite often, they could run like little bitches when a battle wasn't going their way. During the siege of Osaka, in one notorious incident, a Tokugawa side general named Ia Naotaka actually started shooting at his own samurai to encourage them into the breach when they faltered.

SHAMEFUR DISPRAY!

 

[Woodsey]

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

From the same episode:

Mother Theresa didn't do shit to help people, apparently. The wards that they set up were just there for people to die in, not get better.

The only other thing I know is that St. George wasn't English, but Roman (I think - certainly not English, though).

I think Hitler was a great leader. He did a few things during the 30's that he shouldn't have (like dissolving the SA with a knife and locking up the socialists) but underneath the mess there was a fantastic leader. He gets misrepresented and demonized much more than he might deserve.

If he hadn't come into power during the depression, if the upper class had been slightly more varied in ethnic makeup, if the socialists didn't cave to public pressure and open the door for him... Under different circumstances, Hitler may have been the greatest leader Germany had ever known.

I've heard it said that he was lazy and simply ignored any bad news (or went fucking nuts in reaction to it).

And then there's whole, y'know, being a massive twat and a fascist thing. Never understood why people seem to do their best to measure Hitler as a "great leader" by focusing on economics.

 

[MetalDooley]

It's commonly believed by a lot of Irish people that the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 was fought between the native Irish and the "nasty" Vikings with the goal being the liberation of our fair land.
The reality is quite different.For starters there were Irish and Vikings fighting on both sides.The king of Leinster(the eastern province of Ireland)supported the Viking rulers of Dublin while the forces of Brian Boru(high king of Ireland)had Viking troops from settlements like Limerick and Waterford.Furthermore the goal of the battle was not liberation but to seize control of Dublin from the Vikings.Dublin at the time was Irelands biggest and richest port so the goals of the battle were purely financial

 

[Syzygy23]

Edison didnt invent shit.

Linchon didn't give a fuck about slaves

The Americans were being a bit unreasonable about the whole Revolutionary war thing.

Yes.

Yes.

FUCK YOUR KING NIGGAS!

Sorry about that last one, it's a genetic thing.

 

[natster43]

Gandhi was a huge racist and a wife beater.
The Native Americans were extremely more advance than what is brought up in history books, and most were killed off by a plague before the colonists arrived.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

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

See, that can work both ways.

Why not? They would presumably know much more about who was the best for Germany(which would be Bismarck IMO).

 

[The_Waspman]

Not to keep harping on about the Hitler thing, but he was neither a vegetarian, nor an atheist.

 

[Baldry]

I am a big fan of history, I love reading about it, and learning new things. However, this love of history has lead to me getting annoyed when people start saying things that aren't really true, bust have been sold to them as truth. For example, when people talk about Richard the lionheart, people often talk about him as if he had some great love for England, or that he was a good king. Neither of these are actually true, Richard the Lionheart hated England he hated how rainy and cold it was, he spent something like 6 months of his reign in England although a big portion of that was because he was off killing Muslims in the Third Crusade. In addition he didn't even speak English, preferring to speak French (His mother was French and he much preferred France to England). He also left England with tons of debts, forcing his brother to clean up the mess.

Yeah because John was such an amazing king. Also it's debatable as to if he was a good king. Personally I think he was he just died too soon. One of the reasons he wasn't in England was because John fucked him over, teamed up with Phillip and gave him a shit load of Angevin land while Richard was still on the Crusade that Phillip had left due to him being upstaged by Richard. If Phillip hadn't left, Richard would've continued onto beat Saladin at Jerusalem. Saladin even says this himself, his army was fed up, they wanted to leave and go back to their families. Also your forgetting the fact Richard got kidnapped by the Germans(or Austrians I forget) and was unable to leave until England paid the ransom. Once he returned he had to clean up the trouble that John had caused and was doing a good job at it until he died. He left England in secure hands of his counsel and don't you think if England was annoyed at him taking money to fight wars they would've done something, the lack of rebellions shows England was quite content with Richard. I personally think that if he hadn't died England would be a little bit bigger then it is today.

On topic, I had a good one but just forgot it...Fuck.

 

[beastro]

americans claiming that the atomic bombs were necessary to defeat japan without an invasion. it's history revisionism at it's best, japan had already signaled willingness to surrender prior to the bombings but was ignored. the consensus among historians is pretty much that it was to field test those things and to intimidate the soviets, which were perceived as a growing threat.
also, slightly related: pretending like the germans would have won the war in europe without american assistance. no. just...no. (pacific is a different deal though)

Until the fire bombings there was no pleas for peace. Once they started the only willingness Japan had was a restoration of status quo antebellum so that they could rebuild and start another war in a few decades time.

The consensus? Take a look at Downfall by Richard B. Frank. http://www.amazon.com/Downfall-The-Imperial-Japanese-Empire/dp/067941424X

Until the nukes came along the Japanese believed that all they had to do was hold on and the Allies would give up. Should they not, then national suicide was preferred. The whole focus of the leadership was to kill as many of the enemy as possible and welcomed an invasion even if it meant the extinction of their people.

Even with the fire bombings, the allies were still suffering casualties.

With nuclear weapons the Allies were suddenly able to simplify things: One bomber, one bomb to wipe out a whole city. They could sit back and obliterate these Japanese at their leisure with minimum risk.

Suddenly that didn't seem so fun which is when the Emperor made his move (And also almost failed due to an attempted coup by the army).

from the top of my head (although there are numerous others) i firstly think of the strategic bomb survey of '46. if even the US military itself says in hindsight that it wasn't necessary it should get one thinking.
i know it's not how it's taught in american high school history, but on an academic level there is really not much of a discussion about it.

Wasn't necessary?

Strictly speaking no, however the blockade and bombardment would take years to grind them down, they certainly sped things up.

Also, I find it interesting that you're from the Philippines. While your country had be liberated, much of the Far East still remained under the control of the Japanese and every month the same number of people who died in those two bombings died under their occupation.

Nuking two cities to quickly end a war and spare East Asia more grief was well worth the price, imo.

 

[Ljs1121]

"America is and always has been a Christian nation!"

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

What really boils my blood is when people insist that because of this "fact", our president needs to be a Christian or else God will rain fire and brimstone upon the country or something like that.

I especially like how my Bible teacher put it when we were debating over Romney vs. Obama.

"Obama's pro-abortion and he wants gay marriage and he gave us lots of debt and *insert hundreds of other examples of 'bad things' here*."

"But on the other hand, Mitt Romney is a Mormon."

That's literally all he used as his entire reasoning as to why Romney shouldn't be president. I wanted to hit something.

 

[Thespian]

I think Hitler was a great leader. He did a few things during the 30's that he shouldn't have (like dissolving the SA with a knife and locking up the socialists) but underneath the mess there was a fantastic leader. He gets misrepresented and demonized much more than he might deserve.

If he hadn't come into power during the depression, if the upper class had been slightly more varied in ethnic makeup, if the socialists didn't cave to public pressure and open the door for him... Under different circumstances, Hitler may have been the greatest leader Germany had ever known.

Thread Title:

Historical-facts-and-popular-representations-of-histrical-figures-that-are-wrong?

I think

Thread Title:

Historical-facts

I think

Spot the flaw.
Also, even if your grasp on how history works wasn't fundamentally flawed, you sure have a knack for avoiding all of the people disproving you by deflecting their questions with minor nit-picks.
Also, saying Hitler would have made a good leader when he clearly made several incredibly flawed and hateful decisions REALLY comes off as if you would like the attention more so than you actually learned something specific and obscure about history that you'd like to share. If the latter was true it would likely be more obscure and less sensationalist.
Also also, saying anyone would be a good leader if not for x, x and x and if y, y and y was true and if the conditions at the time were 100% perfect is utterly redundant and means nothing. I could quite easily enter a singing competition and claim that I'd be a great singer if only I had immense talent and had practiced all my life, but it doesn't count for much.

Just my opinions on your opinion.

OT: It quite annoys me when people say Hitler was a vegetarian and Atheist. Neither were true and both are used rather stupidly and irrelevantly in arguments >_>

 

[beastro]

the Americans beat the Nazi's
actually the Soviets captured Berlin which forced Hitler to surrender (or in his case commit suicide).
The Americans helped the Britians and Canadians with the liberation of West Europe (Holland,Belgium,etc.)

Called a team effort, hence the who Allied thing.

The Soviet Union sure wouldn't have been in a position to capture Berlin hadn't it been for the massive amount of US material flowing into their country, especially such things as trains and factory equipment.

Most of the factories that were set up beyond the Urals contained large amounts of US equipment, were fed by US made trains while the majority of Soviet trucks were of US origin.

No one nation won the War, but the US certainly did go a long way to help "beat the Nazi's".