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

[oppp7]

Not sure if anyone said this in the 15 pages of this, but the Dark Ages didn't really happen [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_%28historiography%29#Rational_thought_and_the_study_of_nature]. Remember that next time you get into an argument with atheists.

Edit: Just checked, someone else ninja'd me. :/

 

[Nikolaz72]

Not sure if anyone said this in the 15 pages of this, but the Dark Ages didn't really happen [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_%28historiography%29#Rational_thought_and_the_study_of_nature]. Remember that next time you get into an argument with atheists.

Edit: Just checked, someone else ninja'd me. :/

Yea, the 17th century priests and philosophers and theologians wanted to make the middle-ages the period between the rennaisiance and the fall of the roman empire a time of nothing. The Middleage was in and of itself an insult. Not giving the period any name, just calling it 'what was between'

Something to do with protestants wanting to discredit catholicism, not atheism wanting to discredit religion.. Although I can see the two getting confused..... To an extend that atheists on their own might think that its an arguement against religion and not just catholics.

 

[Pandalisk]

So it's not true that America is the only reason the Allies won World War II, but they were a large help.

Don't forget the stuff we gave to Russia:

Aircraft 14,795
Tanks 7,056
Jeeps 51,503
Trucks 375,883
Motorcycles 35,170
Tractors 8,071
Guns 8,218
Machine guns 131,633
Explosives 345,735 tons
Building equipment valued $ 10,910,000
Railroad freight cars 11,155
Locomotives 1,981
Cargo ships 90
Submarine hunters 105
Torpedo boats 197
Ship engines 7,784
Food supplies 4,478,000 tons
Machines and equipment $ 1,078,965,000
Non-ferrous metals 802,000 tons
Petroleum products 2,670,000 tons
Chemicals 842,000 tons
Cotton 106,893,000 tons
Leather 49,860 tons
Tires 3,786,000
Army boots 15,417,001 pairs

Sure it only amounts to about 4% of the stuff Russia actually built for themselves. But 4% in a war is a huge fucking deal. Not as much a deal as their 96% manufacturing. But a good help nonetheless Also it was like a good 25% of their air-force was planes gifted by us.

Those Food supplies numbers are also of great importance. The Russians loved the canned food that was provided during lend-lease, not least because Russia's bread basket was on fire at the time. Trucks were also a vital factor. The Russian's never need American weaponry, just supplies and machinery and i think its telling in the fact that the Allies only shipped under 10,000 guns and tanks but SO much supplies.

 

[Flamezdudes]

Theres an opinion. And a factually wrong one at that.

Aside from the horrible grammar, think about that statement you just made. Well, if we're going to go out on a limb and start considering our opinions to be facts, I'm sure [insert video game that you like] is also factually a pile of garbage. No? Oh, funny how it only works when you want it to.

You fail to understand that I like some of his decisions and I like some of his actions. I don't care what you think of them or what you want to call them.

Please. He may have made Germany powerful again but that was only possible because he totally cut out women, jews and others from their jobs and tried to control aspects of everything, It put the country into a massive amount of debt too and his attempts to make Germany self succient failed aswell.

 

[Colour Scientist]

On topic: That the Americans won WW2. It was the Russians if that "award" is going to go to anyone.

Geoff Roberts writes a lot about that, he's a well-respected expert on Stalin. He wrote one particular article called Stalin's Victory, referring to WWII, but the publishers thought that was too controversial so they changed it to Stalin's Victory? without telling him. He was so pissed off, it was hilarious.

errrmehgerd

I am drowning in the irony right now. This may be my last post ever, destined to drown like those escapist threads did.

Oh dear.

 

[Krantos]

Lincoln didn't give a fuck about slaves

That one is a bit more debatable than you're making it out to be.

Certainly, emancipation was not his primary concern. However, numerous personal correspondences, and exchanges imply a level of sympathy for them.

Many people point to Lincoln's justification to congress and detractors (that compensated emancipation would be cheaper than fighting the war, etc.) and say these prove he didn't care for slaves. They don't prove that, however, they merely prove that they were some of his reasons for advocating emancipation.

It must also be acknowledged that the Republican Platform did have abolitionism as a core tenet. Again, doesn't prove anything, but Lincoln's affiliation with the group cannot be disregarded.


The thing that irritates me about the public's vision of Lincoln is he is known as "The Great Emancipator" which he wasn't, and few credit him for preserving the Union, which he did.

 

[Bloodstain]

Hitler did not invent / plan the German autobahn.

 

[gphjr14]

Lincoln didn't give a fuck about slaves

That one is a bit more debatable than you're making it out to be.

Certainly, emancipation was not his primary concern. However, numerous personal correspondences, and exchanges imply a level of sympathy for them.

Many people point to Lincoln's justification to congress and detractors (that compensated emancipation would be cheaper than fighting the war, etc.) and say these prove he didn't care for slaves. They don't prove that, however, they merely prove that they were some of his reasons for advocating emancipation.

It must also be acknowledged that the Republican Platform did have abolitionism as a core tenet. Again, doesn't prove anything, but Lincoln's affiliation with the group cannot be disregarded.


The thing that irritates me about the public's vision of Lincoln is he is known as "The Great Emancipator" which he wasn't, and few credit him for preserving the Union, which he did.

Pretty much this.

Lincoln found slaves to be unfortunate beast of burden, victims of circumstances. He had hopes of sending freed slaves and persons of color back to Africa with the idea of "civilizing" the rest of the Africa. What pissed southerners off the most about him winning the election is because he wanted to stop the spread of slavery. In the early years of the war he sent escaped slaves back to their owners, maintaining the war was about preserving the union not ending slavery. It wasn't until he saw how vital slaves were to upholding the Confederate war effort he started freeing slaves till he eventually passed the 13th amendment.

His assassination really fucked over freed slaves and people of color since he never outlined their role during reconstruction. Andrew Johnson did his best to do a 180 which worked very well for the south up till the Civil Rights Era...

But those concepts are too difficult to teach in grade school so its better to just stick with this interpretation.

Spoiler

 

[fuzz]

As a Welshman I might as well dispel the 'Welsh people shag sheep' thing. In the olden days (don't ask me when) if you were caught stealing a sheep you would have a hand cut off. However if you said 'but I was only going to have sex with the sheep' then you would get a fine for beastiality. So really we aren't sheep shaggers, we're just bad sheep thieves and good liars.

 

[Tiger Sora]

Abraham Lincoln did not hunt vampires. True facts bro.

 

[Colour Scientist]

It is a common misconception that World War II is the only historical event in existence.

Other stuff happened too, you guise.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Hitler had BOTH of his balls intact.
Yep.
True story.
He was also a terrible partner. Most of his ex-girlfriends committed suicide. He was also an abusive jackass.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Sorry, are you going to make any sort of genuine contribution any time soon? I do believe the point of the forum is discussion on the topic, not internet memes and smart alec remarks repeated from the schoolyard. If you want to faff about and quote for the sake of rhetoric, I suggest 4chan.

You know, I'm half tempted to save this here post, and quote it back to you every time you do this yourself (which, by the way, is frequently).

Or do you subscribe to the "do as I say, not as I do" philosophy?

The irony is enough to choke on.

.
Oh God yes I'm going to save this one as a word document in my computer. It will be glorious. GLORIOUS I TELL YOU!

Anyway, facts about history nobody gives a crap about... uhm... The queen of France did not say "Then eat cake", when shouted at with "We have no bread to eat". What in fact happened was that a rumor about the queen hoarding grain in one of France's toughest drought and lack of grain actually made a group of angry, rioting peasant women to storm the palace and force them to move back to Paris and out of their palace... Where they were killed.