# Bullshit history that turned out to be true **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 2, 2021, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541 "2021-07-02T21:30:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/250 "2021-07-23T10:37:18Z")
> [@therealhoax](#): > > Pretty sure stress and diet and not considered a cause for ulcers these days. H.pylori and NSAIDs are the biggest culprits. I’ve struggled with them for twenty years. I don’t have H.pylori and never have. Never take NSAIDS. For me it is stress and diet. Talk to my GI doctor. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/251 "2021-07-23T10:47:06Z")
Ironically enough, the cartoonist Bill Mauldin had one cartoon about the Soviet version of WWII, about them were sending the American/British/French contribution “down the memory hole”. The cartoon showed a picture of soldiers from all four nations standing over a corpse representing Nazi Germany, and a censor was busy scissoring out the American, British, and French soldiers. I believe that even Stalin said that one of the greatest contributions from America to Russia was the Studebaker trucks shipped over - very useful for bringing antitank guns into the major battles. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/252 "2021-07-23T13:07:49Z")
No… I mean in the past 70 years or so, the CCP has prioritized saving face or secrecy over transparency or being cooperative. Just like the Soviet Union did, and just like Russia does today. Both nations are pretty much bad actors on the international stage, which means that anything coming from them is automatically suspect. So China says “We detected the virus on Jan 5”, and nobody actually believes that, because there’s a historical pattern of other totalitarian states, and China in particular being either less than honest, or honest when/where it suits them. I’m not defending Trump here… far from it. I’d be saying the same thing regardless of who is in the Oval Office. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/253 "2021-07-23T13:11:42Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > I believe that even Stalin said that one of the greatest contributions from America to Russia was the Studebaker trucks shipped over - very useful for bringing antitank guns into the major battles. “Ahh, a bear in his natural habitat…” ---
**Author:** ![therealhoax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/therealhoax/32/5266_2.png) [@therealhoax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/therealhoax)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/254 "2021-07-23T15:12:32Z")
Sure, I can. You must be a medical oddity because you won’t find any modern science based evidence on pubmed and similar sites supporting that stress and diet cause ulcers. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/255 "2021-07-23T15:14:21Z")
It would be far better if we taught American History with context. The War of 1812 and the French and Indian War are two examples of American History taught without context. WWI and WWII apparently barely happened until America got in there. And the Great Depression - understanding that hit the entire world - with particularly tragic results in Germany - helps see all those connections as well. And you are right in that you can’t cover all of World History, but placing context around History is vital to understanding it. We don’t act alone, nor do we act without context. The other advantage of context is that it exposes students to the wider world of History. I love Women’s History, in particular I like the British suffrage movement, which I find more interesting than the American one. But I started learning about the American one, it was only in learning about the connections that I was led into the world of the Pankhursts. When I took History in High School, it was a 1980s version of American History (World History wasn’t even offered) - where white male Americans (and George Washington Carver and Martin Luther King Jr. and Susan B. Anthony) changed the world - always for the better. That’s so inaccurate as to be useless. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/256 "2021-07-23T15:45:30Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > I believe that even Stalin said that one of the greatest contributions from America to Russia was the Studebaker trucks shipped over - very useful for bringing antitank guns into the major battles Another big contribution: Spam. > **[Foods of War: Spam - War on the Rocks](https://warontherocks.com/2015/07/foods-of-war-spam-3/)** > > Editor’s note: This is the third piece in our series “Foods of War.” The intention is to examine the historicity behind different rations and meals served > Nikita Khrushchev said that without Spam, the Soviet Union would have been [unable to feed](http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/a-war-won-with-spam-and-a-few-other-things/) its army. Still, the American GIs had their own opinion of the canned stuff. > “Spam is a ham that didn’t pass its physical.” And “Spam is a meatball without basic training.” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/257 "2021-07-23T16:51:45Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > It would be far better if we taught American History with context. The War of 1812 and the French and Indian War are two examples of American History taught without context. I agree entirely. I learned a great deal more about these after I left school than I learned in school. In particular, the War of 1812 is treated very oddly, and shorn of its most important aspects. We were taught that it was fought about British impressment of American sailors, which was actually only one very small part of the cause and justification for the war. I’d been given the impression that the Americans scored all the major victories, but when I visited Canada while living near the lake I soon saw monuments proclaiming the British victories. The battles on the Great Lakes may have been indecisive, but they were a much bigger deal than I’d been lead to believe. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/258 "2021-07-23T16:53:17Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > The War of 1812 and the French and Indian War are two examples of American History taught without context. WWI and WWII apparently barely happened until America got in there. And your evidence for these claims is…? ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/259 "2021-07-23T17:03:25Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I mean, I don’t blame the Chinese people, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the lab workers and government officials’ first instincts and reactions at all levels were coverups, and they only fessed up to their superiors when they absolutely couldn’t cover up any more. I remember an interview I read with Valerie Giscard d’Estang where he mentioned he’d asked Mao “so what exactly is the population of China?” Mao replied “We aren’t sure. All the provincial administrations we think lie and exaggerate to get more food from the Central government.” > [@Mijin](#): > > It’s not much of a pattern though really; information about the virus was suppressed in the early days and doctors were even jailed. This was awful and local government should face convictions. But this was over a period of 10 days. > In the way it keeps getting blown up with each retelling, it’s supposedly obvious that China knew months beforehand and even knew the answers to all the scientific questions that normally take investigation to solve, like whether it could spread human to human. The local officials - city, province - certainly didn’t want to bring themselves to the attention of the central government if they could avoid it. As the quote goes - “never ascribe to malice what can best be explained by incompetence.” As to whether Covid spread human to human - there’s only one way to find out. The most telling point was that there was a doctor who raised the alarm pretty much world-wide before he was silenced (and IIRC, arrested) by the authorities. If they knew before that that something serious was going on before that, why would a doctor even have the opening to speak out? The government would have preemptively suppressed any news. So I would say this is “not proven” rather than “BS that turned out to be true.” > [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > Ironically enough, the cartoonist Bill Mauldin had one cartoon about the Soviet version of WWII, about them were sending the American/British/French contribution “down the memory hole”. IIRC Stalin had to keep pestering the other allies about when they were finally going to open a second front, while the Soviets were doing most of the heavy lifting. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/260 "2021-07-23T17:04:56Z")
My own high school education, the high school education of two children, now 21 and 22 (so recent) and my youngest who is majoring in History Education and is particularly interested in the topic of the American History as Mythos. And with the backlash against Critical Race Theory, it may get worse before it gets better. We are so hung up on American Exceptionalism that high school History class could be taught as mythology over in the English department where America sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus. (That’s an exaggeration, but not by much). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/261 "2021-07-23T17:06:13Z")
> [@Franklymydear](#): > > The Longest Day” “Patton” “Saving Private Ryan”, the list goes on. The US beat the Nazis. > > British history probably focuses on the British role. And British movies probably emphasize the British contribution. Plenty of UK made films that suggest they won the war. But "The Longest Day” &“Saving Private Ryan” more or less focus on one battle, where indeed, the US won that battle. The Russians didn’t help much there. The British claim the won the Battle of the Atlantic but of course they had help. In The Dam Busters, The Battle of Britain, etc you get the same impression that the Brits won the war- since they did win those battles. After Stalin the USSR and Russia has now tried to spread that they won the war, with hardly any help from the rest of the Allies. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/262 "2021-07-23T17:14:57Z")
> [@therealhoax](#): > > Sure, I can. You must be a medical oddity because you won’t find any modern science based evidence on pubmed and similar sites supporting that stress and diet cause ulcers. Maybe so. It wouldn’t be the first time. I have had quite an array of “we can’t find a reason” physical problems in my life. I do get tested for h.pylori fairly regularly. Never comes up positive. The ulcer (and now, acid reflux) was perfectly real however. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/263 "2021-07-23T17:25:13Z")
I think any nation’s film industry is naturally going to play up their own country’s contributions and/or focus on their greatest victories. That’s what sells films. But I think there was a certain Cold War propaganda effort to discredit the Soviet Union after the war, aided by German generals’ memoirs trying to distance themselves from Hitler and Nazism. Specifically the idea that the Soviets were essentially militarily unskilled, and that the Germans were merely plowed under by the super-humongous, yet stupid and indifferent to casualties, Red Army juggernaut. The actual history is more complex. In fact, the Red Army had been crippled by purges of their leadership prior to the war, and it took them a couple of years to identify/train/promote enough competent leaders to actually quit fighting the way they are accused of fighting the whole war. By 1944, they were essentially a modern military fighting the way that their contemporaries did. Similarly, the Germans were perpetually undermanned and underequipped, and often made poor strategic and tactical choices- some were Hitler’s, and others were the generals’. But it was to the West’s advantage during the Cold War to portray their adversaries as incompetent, so that’s what happened. (I’m more or less paraphrasing David Glantz above) ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/264 "2021-07-23T17:25:51Z")
> [@therealhoax](#): > > You must be a medical oddity because you won’t find any modern science based evidence on pubmed and similar sites supporting that stress and diet cause ulcers. > **[Stress Ulcer: Symptoms, Signs, and Treatments](https://www.healthline.com/health/stress-ulcer)** > > Learn about stress-induced ulcers, including symptoms and treatments. > **[Stress ulcer: Symptoms and treatments](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324990)** > > A stress ulcer can cause pain and a burning sensation in the lining of the gut, and these ulcers usually appear with additional symptoms. Treatment includes medications. Learn more about stress ulcers here. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/265 "2021-07-23T17:26:45Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I mean in the past 70 years or so, the CCP has prioritized saving face or secrecy over transparency or being cooperative. A) it’s still off topic – this is not a defense of the original (or Trump’s) claim B) there’s a difference between information suppression and the kind of CTs people are throwing out about the lab. So even if we are going back over 70 years (and a lot of countries don’t look good if we do that) it’s also not providing data to support the claims. ---
**Author:** ![therealhoax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/therealhoax/32/5266_2.png) [@therealhoax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/therealhoax)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/266 "2021-07-23T17:30:43Z")
I can find you links that say anything on the web. Here’s the same site contradicting you: > **[Stomach Ulcers and What You Can Do About Them](https://www.healthline.com/health/stomach-ulcer#causes)** > > Stomach ulcers are painful sores in the lining of the stomach. Find out what causes them and how to treat them. Show me an article on pubmed supporting the claim stress causes ulcers. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/267 "2021-07-23T17:36:26Z")
If you’d bothered to read the first article I linked, you would have discovered that you are talking only about _peptic ulcers_, but there are other kinds of ulcers. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/268 "2021-07-23T18:26:28Z")
WWI guilt. After the First World War, there were MANY arguments over how the war got stated and who was REALLY guilty. Odious conspiracy theories abounded. So the history that “The Kaiser and his clique started the war” was considered to be bs history. My memory may be faulty, but I believe that Barbara Tuchman (_The Guns of August_) wrote how seductive some of the more scholarly theories were - until she went to the primary sources and determined to her satisfaction that there was one side consistently preparing, planning, and creating the conditions for a European war. The other sides, not so much. She also mentioned knowing about the allied propaganda for “poor Belgium”, but then going into the graveyards in Belgium and seeing the headstones from that time… ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541/269 "2021-07-23T19:26:06Z")
The whole “Hard shelled Tacos/Nachos aren’t authentic” meme is something that kicks around to this very day, plenty of Buzzfeed articles feature paid Mexican actors looking at a hard shelled taco and acting like it’s something that their minds can’t even comprehend. But hard shelled Tacos and nachos have existed in various Mexican cultures ever since the tostada was invented. They weren’t what Taco Bell serve, but they’re close enough that it’s not a massive logical leap to look at a tostada with chicken and melted cheese and then look at a plate of nachos. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit-history-that-turned-out-to-be-true/945541.md?page=14)