Some clarification re Helicobacter being found to be the cause of most peptic ulcer disease:
A few people as far back as the '50s did publish theories/preliminary evidence suggesting that antibiotic therapy could be helpful in treating ulcers/gastritis. I’m unaware of anyone who made a convincing case about the bacterium that came to be known as Helicobacter causing peptic ulcer disease, until 1983. After that, the concept was further investigated and accepted within a relatively short time (several years).*
*contrary to the meme about how the medical/scientific community supposedly flat-out refused to consider the connection and ostracized its leading proponent.
The idea that ulcers were caused by infection was pushed by a woo~woo lunatic “working” by himself in rural backwater surrounded by peasants.
Or that’s what it looked like at the time. He was based in Western Australia, about as far from the centres of academic research as you can get, he was working almost alone and rejecting common scientific belief because that’s the kind of personality he had, and there was a huge medical industry dedicated to and funded by the successful treatment of ulcers: nobody was looking for a “cure”.
It doesn’t match the “history” part of the OP, but it certainly matches the “Bullshit … that turned out to be true”
Also, he was working with a strain of HP that caused ulcers. Not all HP causes ulcers, which confused some of the work trying to replicate his results
Not really a bullshit theory that turned out to be true, but accepted wisdom that turned out to be wrong. For most of modern biology (up until the 60s), it was accepted that life, certainly life on earth, had to ultimately get it’s energy from the sun. Until the hydrothermal vents were discovered in the deep ocean. Those thriving ecosystems have no need for solar energy however indirect. In fact, when the vents close up, as they eventually do, the ecosystems promptly die. Turns out life can exist without the sun.
Wasn’t it just Julius that was guilty? I thought it was actually Ethel’s sister-in-law that was guilty, but her brother lied and accused her to save his wife?
According to the Wikipedia article I linked to---- the documents proved Ethel acted as an accessory and played a role in the recruitment of her brother for atomic espionage.
There is, however, another view in that Wikepedia article:
Victor Navasky, editor and publisher of The Nation , has also written several editorials highly critical of John Earl Haynes’ and Harvey Klehr’s interpretation of recent work on the subject of Soviet espionage. Navasky claims the Venona material is being used to “distort … our understanding of the cold war” and that the files are potential “time bombs of misinformation.”[9] Commenting on the list of 349 Americans identified by Venona, published in an appendix to Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America , Navasky wrote, “The reader is left with the implication—unfair and unproven—that every name on the list was involved in espionage, and as a result, otherwise careful historians and mainstream journalists now routinely refer to Venona as proof that many hundreds of Americans were part of the red spy network.”[9] Navasky goes further in his defense of the listed people and has claimed a great deal of the so-called espionage that went on was nothing more than “exchanges of information among people of good will” and that “most of these exchanges were innocent and were within the law.”[10]
According to historian Ellen Schrecker, “Because they offer insights into the world of the secret police on both sides of the Iron Curtain, it is tempting to treat the FBI and Venona materials less critically than documents from more accessible sources. But there are too many gaps in the record to use these materials with complete confidence.”[67] Schrecker believes the documents established the guilt of many prominent figures, but is still critical of the views of scholars such as John Earl Haynes, arguing, “complexity, nuance, and a willingness to see the world in other than black and white seem alien to Haynes’ view of history.”[68]
I’ve never heard of anyone disbelieving Pliny’s account at any time.
And certainly not contemporary Romans. A major volcanic eruption in Italy itself, the destruction of city, and tens of thousands of refugees, is not an obscure event. Pliny’s account is the only eyewitness account that’s survived, but there would have been many more that haven’t survived.
People have always been familiar with volcanic activity, especially in Italy and the surrounding regions, where there’s plenty. In later times anyone could travel to the area and see the lava flows and surrounding ruins, even before the excavations.
(I second the recommendation of Mary Beard’s book.)
More Nazi history, but the Reichstag Fire of 1933 was immediately seen to be by the outside world as just a false flag pretext for Adolf Hitler and his new Nazi Government to purge the country of Communists and other political rivals, as the Nazi’s blamed it on a random crazy man with supposed Communist Party connections. You’ll still frequently see the Reichstag Fire used along with 9/11 as examples of False Flag Attacks on conspiracy forums.
Of course most historians now agree the Reichstag fire wasn’t a false flag, but it was immediately used as an excuse by Hitler to take total power in Germany.
Gorillas were thought to be myth or the tall tales of the natives.
A racist bullshit history which turned out to be accidentally slightly accurate, turn of the last century it was believed by some “historians” that ancient Egyptian (and Greek, and Mesopotamian and Indus Valley) civilisation had been founded by an ancient “Nordic race” which had disappeared, something attributed to miscegenation.
This is not accepted by anyone reputable anymore, but it turns out some famous Kings and Queens were foreigners; like Ramses II.
Heyerdahl’s specific theory about the South American colonization of Polynesia has definitely not been vindicated (as opposed to evidence for limited Polynesian-South American contact).
As I understood it:
The general though was that Julius was guilty, and the government threatened to charge and execute his innocent wife too if he didn’t flip and confess. It was believed to be a game of chicken, Julius did not flip, so the US executed an innocent mother to make a point.
Venona intercepts showed that she was an active but minor participant, and had helped with things like typing up his reports - so guilty.
IIRC, the thing Pliny described was the pyroclastic flow (?), that a wall of hot gasses flowed down the mountain. This was not something many people had lived to witness and was unusual compared to normal lava flows and hot ash that we can see regularly with places like Etna.
This debate about the Vesuvius eruption that buried Pompei reminds of reading as a child that the eruption of Thera around 1600 BC that helped collapse the Minoan civilization on Crete was considered a myth and inspired Plato describing the destruction of Atlantis.
There is a very good documentary called Heir to an Execution which was done by the granddaughter of the Rosenbergs. Her father was 100% convinced they were innocent (at least in 2004) when it was made. She was raised to believe this was the undisputed truth. She then looked into it herself (including an interview with a coconspirator) and reached the conclusion they were guilty with Ethel to a much lesser extent. It did make her angry that their ideology was more important to them than their son who could have easily been able to grow up with at least a mother if they had just admitted the truth. The information they passed was not as important as it was made to seem at the time but they were hoping to help the USSR to defeat the US. It’s been a few years but that’s how I remember the documentary.
He described the cloud of the eruption as being like an Italian pine tree:
He says the whole area was covered by heavy clouds of smoke and sulphurous fumes and a rain of pumice and small rocks. He himself was at Misenum across the bay, less affected, where there was only a heavy fall of fine pumice covering the whole area ‘like a snowfall’.
His uncle was in command of a small fleet stationed there, and ordered the ships to put to sea and sail across to the coast at the foot of the volcano to take off people fleeing. At Oplontis the coast was blocked by a large rockfall, so they landed at Stabiae. But there was a very strong wind blowing towards the shore (no doubt due to the volcano), and probably high waves, and the ships couldn’t get off again.
His elderly uncle died, probably from breathing problems, since he seems to have had asthma, but many others escaped by land along the coast towards Surrentum – with cushions tied over their heads because of the falling stones, their faces covered because of the dust and fumes, and carrying lanterns and torches because it was so dark.
They were all some distance away from Pompeii, which was destroyed by a pyroclastic flow. It seems that most of the population had already fled from Pompeii by the time it arrived, so the casts of bodies we see were only the last few still remaining.
As I recall, Ethel at least was offered the opportunity to escape execution if she’d reveal what else she knew about atomic program espionage, but refused. While I think they could have taken the death penalty off the table regardless, I’ve also never understood how ideology could’ve been more important to her than staying alive for the sake of her sons.
