Lies they teach you in HIstory class

[dwightsteel]

George Washington never had any children: FALSE
George Washington had a son with a slave woman on his brother-in-law's plantation.

makes me wish the whole cherry tree thing was real.

 

[Kazturkey]

The history that is taught in the Western 'civilised' world bears a remarkably Anglo-American signature. IMO it really started after WWII with the Allied Forces claiming to have won the war (you know D-Day and all). Well, Great Britain, France and the United States stepped in when most of the work was already done.

The Russians have been fighting Hitler since 1941,

Um, the Brits and the French had been fighting since 1939. If the Nazis hadn't of been fighting the Battle of Britain in 1940 they could have invaded Russia a year earlier.

they were marching towards Berlin when the Allied Forces performed the landing at Normandy.

Normandy wasn't the only invasion of the Allied Forces:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_torch

So yeah, the Allied forces dealt the decisive blow. But roughly 80% of the effort came from Russia, who was fighting the war single-handedly until 1944.

Um, I think the Allied forces in North Africa might disagree. Imagine if Rommel had been on the Eastern front instead of the Mediterranean.

When somebody finishes the work you started

I wouldn't call signing a secret peace treaty that allows the enemy to focus on one front 'starting any work'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact

I'm seeing this all the time on The Escapist now: where is this ideas that 'the Russians are really the ones who won WWII' coming from?

If rommel had been in Russia he would have been ANNIHILATED. The german tanks' oil froze inside the pipes, and they ran out before long. So he would have made little difference if any. The Russians did far more work than the yanks and the brits combined. (Rommel was only defeated by patton because of insane outnumbering, FYI. His tactics were far superior and his use of mock tanks to force surrenders was nothing short of brilliant.)

Also the battle of britain was fully air-based and as such did not detract from the russian war effort, as planes were of little use in the frozen russian winter. That high up they would have seized up and fallen from the sky with the fairly primitive fighters they had in WWII.

 

[johnman]

Of course, I could be wrong, and if any Americans on here have been taught that the war started with Pearl Harbor, please correct me. But American history classes aren't as backward as you seem to think.

I dont think they are backward, it was just responding to PatientGrasshopper's post where he said he was taught it began in 1941. I would imagine the vast majority would say 1939, and this is the first time I have ever heard of 1941 being mentioned.

 

[RRilef]

The Boston Tea Party wasn't an act of patriotic rebellion. England actually lowered the price of tea at the time to compete with smugglers, who were dominating the tea trade at the time. The Tea Party was done by smugglers to send a message to the Crown. The message? Quit fucking with our enterprise.

The reason they had to compete with smugglers was that Britain had declared a monopoly of tea trade to America. So no one other than the East Indian Trading Company (?) could give tea to America.

However, about the no taxation without representation thing, by forming a new country, their taxes actually increased. America had some of the lowest taxes throughout the British Empire.

 

[Terror_666]

For the Netherlands World War 2 did not officially end until 1990 when the reestablished unified Germany came into being.

 

[gdnvs]

People believed that the world was flat. No they didn't, even in the 13th century people accepted it was round, it was only Christopher Columbus.....the twit. Thank you QI!

In fact in a version of Dante's Inferno I read there was a little map of the diameter of the world. It wasn't exactly accurate and it had hell placed in the centre of the earth with a little swirling tunnel to Mount Purgatory, but it did depict the earth as a sphere. This was written at the start of the 14th century.

 

[johnman]

Also the battle of britain was fully air-based and as such did not detract from the russian war effort, as planes were of little use in the frozen russian winter. That high up they would have seized up and fallen from the sky with the fairly primitive fighters they had in WWII.

Your not seeing the full picture here. Germnay industry could not keep up with the demand on so many fronts. Since Britian was still a threat, Germany had to keep men and equipment along the french cost and in Africa, where they suffered fairly heavy losses in men and material that they could not make up for. If they had not had this drain, they would have been able to focus there entire strength on the Russian front, and been able to sweep into the major industrailised areas before they packed up and moved to the Urals and began production there, meaning the vast armies of T-34's that won the battle of Kursk would not have existed.
As for your statement that plane were useless, remember Stalingrad where the luftwaffe tried to supply the sixth army by air? They could'nt as they didnt have enough air power as it had been drained in the battle of Britian.
Hitler made a pact with Russia in 1939 as he knew Germnay couldnt survive a war on two fronts. The fact that he led Germnay into one is his biggest blunder of the war.

 

[yankeefan19]

Here's another.
World War one didn't end until 1919.
which also throws out the 'fact' that 1919 was supposed to be the only year when there wasn't a war :|

Yea, I think I remember something about that. Also,in the US we claim that WWII started in 1941 when Europe puts the date at 1939,while Hitler gained power even before that.

Have you been to a history class? 41 was when the US joined the war, not when it started. It started in 39 when Britain declared war on Germany after they invaded Poland. Hitler gaining power was not the beginning of WW2, he was elected long before (31 but I could easily be wrong about that)

I actually heard the reverse, I thought that Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and then declared war on Britain.

No, Britain told Germany that if they invaded Poland, then France and Britain would declare war on them, and Poland was invaded.

 

[PumpActionJesus]

Lie #7
The Pilgrims were fleeing a land of religious persecution (England) to establish a land of religious freedom and tolerance.

Yeah, hanging and crushing people to death for being 'witches' is really tolerant.

Did you know that only about 7 people were actually killed throughout the entire "witch hunt" trials. I was totally shocked when i read that because i used to think it was into the tens of thousands.

 

[Eagle Est1986]

I don't think I was taught any of these lies, maybe my history teacher was just an exception.

 

[Internet Kraken]

You know, I was taught the truth behind many of these so-called "lies" in this thread.

Are you guys just trying to make yourselves feel smarter by pretending you know more than what the school teaches you?

 

[Terror_666]

The Germans could never have defeated the Soviets during WWII because, litteraly days after the operation Barbarossa began the Soviets began moving there Factories and command and control facilities to behind the Ural mountains. Then they began to mobiles there people to fight as seen in what the German soldiers called the Mongol Army this is because the Soviets began getting there soldiers form beyond the Urals. It is true that the first 2 years of the war on the eastern front were totally in favor of the Germans because the Soviets had no officer talent after Stalin's purge and the Germans vast technical superiority, but then the Germans over extended themselves and could not supply their front line units. Finally the Soviets had the Germans greatly out numbered and many many more natural resources (oil, metal).

The fact is that even without US involvement the Soviets would have defeated the Germans it might have taken longer but they would have won in the end.

 

[DarkRyter]

Lie
Megan Fox is real.

 

[Lexodus]

Yea, I think I remember something about that. Also,in the US we claim that WWII started in 1941 when Europe puts the date at 1939,while Hitler gained power even before that.

are you serious? USA is alot more arrogant now, its like you guys think that a war doesn't start until you join it.

Well I can sorta understand why people say that. Aside from the fact that the USA didn't join until 1941.

You could argue that, until the USA began fighting in the east, it wasn't a 'world war' that included all of the worlds contents.

Antarctica wasn't represented, so that still holds true then.