25 Historical “Facts” That Are Technically Incorrect

We think we know our history pretty well, because we’ve studied it in school, read about the details in encyclopaedias, watched remakes of it in movies or TV series etc. But there are always surprising elements that are left out of the mainstream media versions just to sensationalise the story, or because the popular version of the tale doesn’t carry all the details. 

#1

Image source: savage493, Matthew Pearce/unsplash

Actually, archers did use quivers, but they would stick the arrow in the ground during battle.

#2

Image source: heyitsEnricoPallazzo, Own work

Gladiators didn’t fight each other to death in the Colosseum.

#3

Image source: WhoH8in, United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division

Thought I’d add another reply to this thread because Neo-confederate apologia always gets me and I jsut wrote up this whole reply to a comment that got deleted.

No matter how you slice it the American civil War was fought first and foremost by the south to preserve the institution of slavery. It was fought over states rights you say? States rights to do what? Own slaves. That argument is bubkiss anyway because the southern states weren’t concerned at all with the northern State’s rights when they passed the [Fugitive S***e act] in 1850 which basically allowed southern runaway hunters to capture any black person in the North that they though might be a runaway.

What’s that, it was a war caused by economic differences? Hmm, what led to these economic differences? I’ll tell you what, it was the south’s dependance on s***e labor which prevented it from investing in infrastructure and incentivized industrialization leading to vastly different economies to form in the North and South. This also allowed for a s***e holding class to rise to the cultural and political elite of the south and to dominate it in every way. In the few places this wasn’t the case secession did not take place (i.e. West Virginia).

Still don’t believe me? Well then maybe the words of the southern states themselves will convince you because they explicitly state that they are going to war to preserve slavery!

From the Confederate constitution (Article 1 Section IX):

>No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

It was illegal to make slavery illegal.

Or Article 4, Section 3 (New States):

>The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.

The were also committed to *spreading* slavery.

From the Mississippi Declaration of Secession:

>Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery – the greatest material interest of the world.

Georgia Declaration of Secession:

>For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-s***e-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.

Need I go on? Just google any Declaration of Secession and CTRL+F “S***e” and you’ll see they were obsessed with the topic.

My last piece of evidence is the [*Battle Hymn of the Republic*] which was popular among federal troops and demonstrates that they believed themselves to be fighting a holy war to end slavery:

>In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

#4

Image source: WhoH8in, Mario Mendez/unsplash

This may be more a prehistoric misconception but the idea that individuals in hunter-gatherer or “caveman” societies were/are stupid. Imagine how difficult that life is and all of the things every individual has to know in order to survive. There is no infrastructure or existing structural supports, everything has to be done by hand. These societies have to know which plants are edible, what animals will be where during which times of year, how to treat injuries without any sort of medical equipment. imagine any aspect of your life and now imagine it without any modern comforts at all. Relationships and hierarchies are maintained without use of record keeping. Food is gathered and prepared without any means of long term storage. Now remember that the entire planet was settled this way. From the African veldt to the Scandinavian fjords, and from the the Atacama desert to the Islands of the pacific, and these people utilized some pretty ingenious discoveries and inventions to do these things.

#5

Image source: marjo2511, National Gallery of Art

That Napolean was short (he was of average height for a Western European of that era… cartoonists in London newspapers and pamphlets just like to caricature him as a small figure).

#6

Image source: PrayJackPok, PwHe6-AEvwmbIw at Google Cultural Institute

The pilgrims didn’t leave England to escape religious prosecution. They left England because they disagreed with the religious freedom that was offered in England. So they went to a land where there would be no straying from the doctrine of Puritanism. Basically they went to the New World so that they could be the prosecutors. Also they didn’t land at Plymouth rock or arrive on the Mayflower.

#7

Image source: Tomteseal, Hildegard von Bingen

That people during the middle ages thought the earth was flat, it was known since the ancient Greeks that it was round and people didn’t just forget about it.

#8

Image source: anon, Martin van Meytens

It’s my pet peeve that most people still believe that Marie Antoinette said “let them eat cake.” Not only did she never say it, but “cake” is a crummy translation for “brioche.” Literally.

#9

Image source: AlphaNerd80, Osama Elsayed/unsplash

That the ancient pyramids were built by slaves.

The latest evidence points to them being paid labourers.

#10

Image source: PophamOG, NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet/flickr

Vikings didn’t have horns on their helmet.

#11

Image source: Qyark, Jonathan Kemper/unsplash

That knights going into battle in a full suit of plate needed to be winched onto their horses, and if they fell off would be basically immobile and helpless. They could actually move quite well, some could even walk on their hands when they wanted to show off. The misconception came from Mark Twain’s novel “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”, where he references a specific type of jousting plate.

#12

Image source: anon, Archives nationales

Joan of Arc was not condemned to death on charges of Witchcraft but for Heresy, a totally different crime.

#13

Image source: Phalinx666, Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦/unsplash

Mostly everything in The Bible?

#14

Image source: Brickie78, Unknown author

Polish Cavalry charged at German tanks with lances and sabres in 1939.

The Polish Cavalry was a very high-prestige part of Polish armed forces, and had a lot of history behind them – Napoleon’s lancers, Winged Hussars and so on. By 1939, the Polish cavalry were highly mobile infantry units really, but were used in the same way as NATO planned to use jeep squads in the event of a Soviet invasion – set up an ambush with anti-tank weapons, knock out a couple of tanks, retire to the next position quickly and set up another ambush etc.

There were even examples of the Polish cavalry divisions bringing the Panzers to a dead stop, for example the Battle of Mokra.
The “charging tanks with cavalry” myth seems to have originated in a specific incident on the first day of the invasion, the Skirmish at Krojanty.

Although trained as mobile anti-tank/dragoon units, Polish cavalry retained the sabre, just in case. On 1 September, the 18th Pomeranian Uhlans were covering a retreat when they spotted a unit of German infantry resting in a clearing. Colonel Mastelarz decided to take them by surprise and ordered a sabre charge of about 250 cavalry. The charge was successful and the German infantry – who can’t have been expecting cavalry with sabres charging them – dispersed into the trees with heavy casualties.
At that point, some German armoured cars appeared and laid into the cavalry, causing some casualties (including Col. Mastelarz) and driving the rest off.

In the aftermath, the German casualties were cleared away and the Poles left, and some neutral war correspondents were invited to come and see, and told that the cavalrymen had been k****d while charging at tanks with sabres.

The story circulated rapidly, not only among the German and sympathetic presses (to whom the moral of the story was supposed to be “Look how stupid and backward the Poles are – we’re doing them a favour by bringing German civilisation”), but also in the British and French presses, who swallowed the story whole, but there the moral was “Look how suicidally brave the romantic Poles are – isn’t this just the sort of people we should be supporting?”

Then, after the war, the Communist Polish government, eager to seize on anything that would make the pre-war government look bad, perpetuated the myth, with the moral now being “Look what the old capitalist government did for you – forcing soldiers to face Panzers with sword and lance!”

In other words the same, fake, story has been repeated by f*****t, democratic and communist sources each to serve their own narrative of the invasion if 1939.

#15

Image source: deuteros, Europeana/unsplash

That the Dark Ages refers to a period of ignorance and superstition in Medieval Europe.

It actually refers to a lack of written sources during that time period.

#16

How about that Treaty of Versailles? There are a whole bunch of ideas surrounding it that don’t really match up to the facts:

1. **The war was basically no one’s fault so trying to assign blame after the fact was “victor’s justice”**. You can *kind of* make this arguement when it comes to Russia vs. Germany but Germany vs. France was a little more one sided. Germany declared war on France after they wouldn’t immediately renounce their alliance with the Russians and agree not to call up their military. Saying they’re both equally at fault is a bit like saying that a guy who gets mugged is at fault when he gets shot because he should have handed over his wallet quicker.

2. **Reparations were unreasonable “revenge” against a defeated foe.** France was on the winning side in WWI but had lost a huge number of men, run up a giant foreign debt, and had one of the most economically important parts of the country turned into a giant wasteland by the fighting. Germany had lost a bunch of guys, but its national debt was almost entirely owned by Germans (and so could be repudiated), and it had suffered almost no economic destruction as a result of the war. Without reparations the French would have been in the position of having won the war but lost the peace, and it’s hardly unreasonable for them to want to avoid this situation.

3. **Reparations were some new thing.** All of the crying about how harsh and unreasonable Versailles was is kind of funny in light of the fact that the Germans had just signed the vastly more harsh treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Russians. Additionally, one of the reasons that the Germans had such a huge internal debt was that they didn’t raise taxes during the war, expecting a repeat of the Franco Prussian war where they quickly won and then paid the costs of the war with French reparation money.

4. **The hyperinflation in Germany in the early 20s was caused by the treaty.** There’s a bit of truth to this, but there was also a lot more going on. Germany’s economy was in a shambles after the war but it was largely a shambles of its own making. When the hyperinflation really got off the ground the German government was sending money to miners in the Ruhr to support their efforts, and trying to pay off its wartime debts, and trying to pay the reparations all without raising taxes. Their policy of running the printing presses to manage their finances was very hard on the average German, but it had the effect of giving them a “free” source of money to pay these miners not to work and at the same time the resulting inflation made their wartime debts shrink tremendously in real terms. The terms of the reparations weren’t denominated in paper money so the relationship of the hyperinflation to the reparations is somewhat more complex. ~~Economists like~~ Niall Ferguson argue that the whole hyperinflation episode was largely an intentional attempt to scare the s**t out of the internaitonal community and make them think Germany was on the verge of collapsing and being taken over by the reds. Of course he also seems to think that there was some kind of gay conspiricy between Keynes and the Germans so ????? on his ideas.

5. **The terms of the treaty were wild and unreasonable.** On paper they kind of were, but the actual terms of the treaty made this somewhat more complex. The civilian population on the winning side wanted the terms of the treaty to be as harsh as possible, but the people in charge kind of understood the problems with making the treaty too unreasonable and the treaty reflects this. The total amount “owed” in reparations was some huge figure but the actual repayments were broken down into 3 series of bonds. The A and B series actually had some kind of end date in mind while the C series (which was most of the total figure) was supposed to be negotiated after the A and B series were paid off. Since there wasn’t any way to do binding arbitration in those negotiations this effectively meant that the C series was never going to be repaid. Also, since the whole issue of reparations was contingent on Germany being able to pay it created an incentive on the part of the winners to keep Germany’s economy running. Germany recieved a tremendous amount of help with loans and economic aid and so on during the 1920s and some economists would even argue that Versailles was a net benefit to the German economy in the final analysis. In any event the actual amount repaid amounted to maybe 3% of their GDP which is significant but hardly ruinous.

6. **The victors write history.** This old saw gets trotted out a lot when it comes to WWI but the reality is almost the exact opposite. Once it became apparent that the war was lost the German state began a coordinated effort to both alter their own official records in order to remove embarassing material, and to spread this pro-German view of WWI and Versailles. The fact that their views are still so widely accepted, even in countries that were their enemies during WWI is proof of how good a job the losers did writing history in this case.

Welp, that’s what I’ve got. This is a really complex topic and whole books can (and have) been written about it. My account involves signicant simplifiications (and more than likely a few outright mistakes). I’ve got to go to work now but if anyone wants sources or more information about specific points I’ll probably be around later on.

Image source: irritatingrobot

#17

Image source: JorusC, Andrej Lišakov/unsplash

The one that drives me the craziest is any time you see a medieval fight scene in a movie, and they cut straight through metal armor like it isn’t even there.

No! You can’t cut through a car hood with a sword! It’s called “armor” for a reason! You have to find a weak point between the plates, or you can hammer at it literally all day without getting through!

#18

Image source: Mictlantecuhtli, Marv Watson/unsplash

The Aztecs did not believe Cortes and his men were gods nor was Cortes the return of the Toltec king Quetzalcoatl.

The Maya did not die out or collapse.

Syphilis is firmly a New World disease. The question about it is whether or not it existed in the Old World prior to the Columbian Exchange.

Bronze was not unknown to the Americas. The Tarascans made use of arsenic bronze for creating a variety of objects including bells, needles, tweezers, and axes.

#19

Image source: hss1118, Gmihail

Invention of perspective in art during the Renaissance when ancient Chinese an Greeks used it way before. All the medieval paintings were done that way due to that particular art style being favored at the time.

#20

Image source: anon, National Portrait Gallery

The apple never hit Isaac Newton on the head. (He saw it fall and hit the ground.)

Galileo never dropped balls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa. (He rolled balls down ramps.).

#21

Image source: boldequity, Office of War Information

Paul Revere never said “The British are coming! The British are coming!” as he himself and the defectors were all still considered British. He actually said “The regulars are coming! The regulars are coming!”…not quite the same ring to it.

#22

Image source: alxus91, EqualStock/unsplash

That technology shortens work hours. From hunter gatherers to the industrial revolution the amount of time people spent working greatly increased. It is estimated that a hunter gatherer would work six hours a day, while I am not sure of the exact average, if you were working class during the industrial revolution it is very likely you would be working 12-14 hours a day. This has of course decreased in the developed world due to socialism and unionism creating legal and economic pressures to decrease working hours.

#23

Image source: ScientificMeth0d, Qualiesin

Blackbeard’s pirate ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, wasn’t a spectacularly huge Galleon, but actually a light and nimble frigate.

The Queen Anne’s Revenge was really maneuverable and fast. Just like how Somalian pirates use dinghies against cargo ships.

#24

Image source: duddo, Andrej Lišakov/unsplash

There wasn’t any “Apocalypse expectation” approaching the year 1000. This was basically made up by 1800s historians which cared for a “Dark Ages” idea of Middle-age.
Actually nobody was scared of that particular year and, mostly, people didn’t even know what the date was!

#25

Image source: Fluffysniper, john antoni/flickr

The Spartans didn’t fight for freedom and equality. they had slaves and they often used them as target practice.

Edit: As an aside, Xerxes the 1st, who is depicted as the villain in the movie ‘300’ and his Jewish wife queen Esther, provided sanction and equal rights to jewish minorities in Persia (which was a zoroastrian empire at that time). Hence, you could go argue that he was far more tolerant of cultural diversity and freedom than the spartans.