My favourite is the story that there was mass panic over a radio broadcast of War of the Worlds where everyone thought a real alien invasion was happening. I heard this story as a kid and really thought this was a cruel prank played by the radio station.
In reality, they made it clear at the beginning of the broadcast, and twice during, that it was fictional. Not that many people were listening and most of the people who were, were aware it wasn’t real. A few idiots freaked out and it somehow turned into a story of mass panic. It was propaganda by newspapers to discredit radio.
I’ve seen people, including pop history channels with lots of views, talk about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident without any disclaimer acknowledging that it didn’t happen. It was just a straight up lie to get the US into Vietnam and idk how many people out there still believe it, it’s crazy.
The idea that eating carrots helps your eyesight came from WW2 Britain. It was an intentionally spread lie to cover up for the fact that they had radar.
Oh, I’ve got a carrots one, too. Rabbits don’t have a particular fondness for carrots. We just think they do because of Bugs Bunny. But Bugs eats carrots to imitate a Clark Gable scene in It Happened One Night, with the carrot substituting for a cigar. Over time the connection got lost and it just sort of became “rabbits = carrots”.
They don’t mind them, but they have no particular preference for them.
That’s not the only Bugs Bunny-related thing, either. “Nimrod” has come to mean “idiot” because of its use by Bugs. But that’s not the intended meaning in the cartoons. He specifically says it to Elmer Fudd. Nimrod is a Biblical figure, known for being a great hunter. He’s being sarcastic. But again the reference got lost and people just thought it meant “idiot”.
I thought it was changing the light colour of the cockpit lights from white to green.
I don’t get how spreading the claim that carrots help your eyes covers up having radar, it feels non sequitur …
It’s the explanation for why the Allies could spot their planes in situations where they would otherwise not be easily visible. If it happens a few times you might write it off as luck, but if it keeps happening over and over you might get suspicious.
With that said, I don’t think they really bought the carrots thing. Both the Allied and Axis powers knew about radar and how it worked. It’s just the Allies figured out how to build and deploy their systems first.
Radar was used to see incoming German planes, even during the night.
I belive Remote viewing is similar.
So many apocryphal stories are just the best…
At a dinner party, someone accused Winston Churchill of being drunk.
“That may be, madam, but you’re ugly, and I’ll be sober in the morning.”
Likely never happened.
But the one that breaks my heart is that there is no evidence Carthage was salted after being destroyed.
Some poor young girl got knocked up and she didn’t want to say who the father was so she made up a story about how a spirit had impregnated her.
I think that one got way out of hand
Someone mistranslated Almah/Parthenos, the word for young girl, as virgin
Is this true?
Is this true?
That’s the most ridiculous affair in history.
Also known as the case of the oblivious husband
Immense aura
Man 4 people really don’t want to consider any alternatives
There was a gap in [some military capability] during the Cold War, and the USA was losing it. Almost anything you stick in there, Russia was behind. They sometimes implied otherwise, but it’s rare that they ever were. Occasionally, they used everything they had to just about match.
By the 1960s, their navy was pretty good, though. Don’t let anyone tell you they were just a bunch of vodka drunk idiots. Not at that time, anyway.
At the opposite end of what this thread is about, Dr Strangelove is far more correct than it should be.
Similar to the Strangelove example - although not about history - know what medical professionals consistently say is the TV show which not only had the most accurate medicine, but also best depicts the social paradigm of working in the medical sector? Scrubs.
The cruiser gap as an example. Was never real, it only existed because of the US Navy classification system of time.
The US Navy would call ships frigate or destroyer leader when they had the size and capabilities of a cruiser in the Soviet navy. The 1975 Ship reclassification cleared it up and also made organization much easier than the dozens of confusing hull designation.
I like the part where we saw the MiG-25, freaked out because it looked very capable, built the F-15 to actually exceed those capabilities, and then only found out after the fact that the MiG-25 wasn’t nearly as good as we thought.
That one story about NASA supposedly spending millions developing a pen that would work in space, while the Soviets just used a pencil.
What actually happened IIRC is NASA bought the pens from a private company that had already developed them. And they didn’t pay millions. Pencils were a hazard in space, so NASA adopted this new pen soon afterwards, with the Soviet Space Program following suit soon after.
Even more irritating, both nasa and the soviets were simply using grease pens because the dangers of pencils were obvious to everyone. Whole story is just absurd.
Yeah, that company specifically developed a space-capable pen as a marketing gig and then offered it to NASA who paid less for them than they did for the pens they would have gotten instead.
The Confederacy didn’t actually fight for the states’ right to continue slavery.
They fought against the states’ right to abolish it, even if a state wanted to.
The distinction is subtle, but they actually wanted more power for the federal government to tell states what to do.
In this case, to tell them they aren’t allowed to ban slavery.They fought for their states’ rights to dictate what other states were or were not allowed to do. Something that’s closely mirrored with similar debates today.
That the USA saved europe in ww1 (they did in ww2 but they are also the once kinda at fault for it with forcing a weak democratic system on a weak germany), that they invented democracy (litterly italian republics and german hansiatic citys have been around for much longer at the same time as them)
That germany could have won ww2. No we could never have. Too much with too little resources.
The wehrmacht didnt so horrible things. Oooh yes they did. Where do you think the SS got the lists of the jews and who helped transport and kill jews and others?
Middle ages were all doom and dark. No they were pretty af!!
Middle Ages were probably not very fun as an average person, working hard 7 days a week. Also, no toilet paper.
The concept of work was a lot back different in the Middle Ages compared to now. There were a lot more breaks when completing work and the boss often fed you as it was generally part of your pay.
You could make a great argument that agricultural work was likely easier than industrial work. It just happened to be that the number of agricultural workers cratered during the Industrial Revolution.
They still werent all doom and dark. All grey. Only war.
NASA spending millions to develop a zero-gravity pen while the USSR used a pencil. It’s funny, believable, and false.
One thing you definitely don’t want when your floating through microgravity a thousand miles from the ground is fragments of graphite flying into your incredibly sensitive electrical equipment.
But it would be funny to watch them trying to use a pencil sharpener
So crayons instead?
What they were actually using prior to the space pen, and what the soviets used, were grease pencils, which really basically are crayons
Only if there are no Marine astronauts, otherwise they’ll assume it’s rations.
Nah - they went with the pen
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
They asked for false or exaggerated stories…
On a similar note, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter
Player to player, pimp to pimp, have we considered FDR: American Badass?
Also: Bubba ho-tep
The Boston Massacre.
9 officers were surrounded by like 300 angry Bostonians who were wielding clubs and other weapons and goading them to fire their weapons while throwing shit at them. The fact that the only punishment for the officers who killed five people following their trial (in colonial court defended by John Adams) was that two had their thumbs branded indicated how two-sided the situation was.
Paul Revere’s famous engraving depicting the incident was intentional anti-British propaganda used to advance the cause of the revolution.
While Wojtek serving in the Polish army during the invasion of Italy is true, a lot of his exploits are exaggerated. I still love it though.
Him helping out is confirmed, and if I remember correctly, the story of him carrying artillery shells is among the confirmed ones. And yes, he did in fact drink beer. But no, he didn’t smoke cigarettes, on the account of being a bear. He ate them, though.
I miss The Wonderful World of Disney anthology series that played on a Sunday evening. I want to see one with Wojtek, Sgt. Reckless, and Cher Ami. That would make me so happy.
Marie Antoinette saying let them eat bread or something
From her point of view it sounds incredibly based, it would probably have just been ignorance though. I’m still glad she died because of that patronising comment that she kind of didn’t actually say
The quote is “let them eat cake”. It’s true, she probably never actually said that but it makes a good quote to use when rich people say out of touch things. For instance, when Trump said something about kids getting one doll for Christmas instead of two.
I had a French teacher who claimed that “let them eat cake” was a bit of a mistranslation and that “cake” was just a different, maybe fancier, type of bread.
Like the situation was more like someone said “Marie, the people don’t have any baguettes to eat.” And she replied “Well then let them eat brioche”
Still probably apocryphal, but I think maybe a little more believable if it were true while still showing the tone-deafness.
It also just feels very French to me.
Someone else said it when Marie Antoinette was only a little girl. Can’t remember who it was.
Rousseau, one of the architects of the Revolution.
The home secretary in my country said during Covid that everyone will have to be more financially conservative during Covid-related lock-downs. She said that then three ball gowns are enough, you don’t need more than that.
Reminds me of a story I heard where McDonald’s or some other fast food company was giving their workers tips on saving money and their tips assumed their workers were rich enough to have servants
The Androleteirai, destroyers of men, aka The Amazons.
Meanwhile, when Ghostwatch was on, people panicked even though it had been announced as a “Play on (BBC) One” for weeks.
I think it’s still on YouTube somewhere.
One woman famously sent the BBC a dry cleaning bill because her husband had literally shat himself
