# Historical inaccuracies that are not minor **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 16, 2012, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057 "2012-05-16T03:11:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/181 "2012-05-26T20:52:20Z")
> [@Dan\_Norder](#): > > I think that once you accept the notion that dogs can talk you give up the right to complain that what they are saying is unrealistic. > > Of course it’s unrealistic. It’s a talking dog. [So what is Goofy?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/978/if-pluto-is-a-dog-what-is-goofy) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/182 "2012-05-26T20:53:46Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Possibly a winner. Jonathan Rhys Meyers actually had washboard abs in his first scene with Catherine Howard. The real Henry was well over 300 pounds by that time and had all manner of physical infirmities (many of them probably related to diabetes but assigned to other causes). The way I heard it, Henry VIII suffered a bad jousting injury, gave up on physical exercise because of the pain it caused him after that, and that’s why he bloated up. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/183 "2012-05-26T20:56:44Z")
And then there’s [Benjamin Frankin and the Gout.](http://www.bartleby.com/109/3.html) > [@](#): > > FRANKLIN. Eh! Oh! eh! What have I done to merit these cruel sufferings? > > GOUT. Many things; you have ate and drank too freely, and too much indulged those legs of yours in their indolence. > > FRANKLIN. Who is it that accuses me? > > GOUT. It is I, even I, the Gout. > > FRANKLIN. What! my enemy in person? > > GOUT. No, not your enemy. > > FRANKLIN. I repeat it, my enemy; for you would not only torment my body to death, but ruin my good name; you reproach me as a glutton and a tippler; now all the world, that knows me, will allow that I am neither the one nor the other. > > GOUT. The world may think as it pleases; it is always very complaisant to itself, and sometimes to its friends; but I very well know that the quantity of meat and drink proper for a man, who takes a reasonable degree of exercise, would be too much for another, who never takes any. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2012, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/184 "2012-05-26T21:01:43Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > He did a lot of fucking. That’ll make you popular in France 😛 [The Master Speaks:](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2522/whats-the-true-story-on-benjamin-franklin) > [@](#): > > _He was an absolute stud._ I know you meant this figuratively, but let’s face it, the one thing everyone thinks they know about Ben is that he was a rake. Was he? Probably not. A legendary self-publicist, Franklin liked to give the impression he was a great womanizer, but he was in his 70s and troubled by gout while serving as an envoy to France, alleged scene of his most celebrated conquests. While he was charming and popular with the ladies, and it’s not beyond belief that he got physical with a few of them (if women find Jack Nicholson sexy, anything’s possible), there’s little evidence of any Casanova-like proclivities. As a youth he patronized brothels and sired an illegitimate son (who became royal governor of New Jersey — proof of how far being a bastard can get you in this world, or anyway in New Jersey). For what it’s worth, he never formally married his partner of 44 years, Deborah Read, with whom he had two more kids. Still, most scholars think stories about Ben’s romantic exploits and legion of little Franklins are exaggerated. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2012, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/185 "2012-05-27T05:30:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The way I heard it, Henry VIII suffered a bad jousting injury, gave up on physical exercise because of the pain it caused him after that, and that’s why he bloated up. He was 44 when he had the accident and already had more than middle aged spread going, though he was sleek compared to his later years. The lack of exercise and comfort eating after the accident (and living in a time when people literally drank beer like it was water [for good reason]) and his increasingly gargantuan appetite turned him into a morbidly obese prematurely old man by the time he was 50. Medical historians estimate his weight at above 380 pounds by the end of his life, and copious accounts of his health maladies (including constant and increasing thirst, violent irritability, infections that would not heal) are consistent with diabetes (as is massive weight gain for that matter). Accounts in recent years suggest his death was more likely attributable to diabetic kidney failure and other natural causes than the syphilis which was the previous diagnosis. (Google _Henry VIII diabetes_ will bring up references to the articles.) ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/186 "2012-05-28T03:15:21Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Having grown up near New Brunswick, and seen the still-extant tavern at which they would have stayed, this scene always fascinated me. When the film played in nearby East Brunswick, this line brought down the house. > . But I have an aunt in New Brunswick … Tell her to keep up the good work! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/187 "2013-08-08T14:30:14Z")
Any WW1 movie which portrays Generals as stay in Chateaus types. Dozens of British Generals were killed in the war. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/188 "2013-08-08T16:12:26Z")
So not one general stayed in such accommodation, ever? General Pershing did. And Harry Truman wrote of the palatial accommodations he and his fellow officers including generals stayed in in France before going to the front. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/189 "2013-08-08T17:30:30Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > So not one general stayed in such accommodation, ever? General Pershing did. And Harry Truman wrote of the palatial accommodations he and his fellow officers including generals stayed in in France before going to the front. Where did I say that? ---
**Author:** ![Longshanks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Longshanks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Longshanks)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/190 "2013-08-08T17:42:03Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > As you say, a HUGE percentage of that film was just plain silly. But for me, the silliest part was the oiled-up Spartans at Thermopylae fighting in little more than jock straps! > > I suppose that appealed to the gays and 98-pound nerds who flocked to see it, but in reality, the Spartans who fought at Thermopylae were heavily armored from head to toe- that’s precisely why they were so hard for the lightly armored Persians to dislodge. As well as that most people ignore the fact that over a thousand of Sparta’s allies from Thebes and Thespiae stayed behind with the 300 hundred Spartans to hold the pass at Thermopylae. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/191 "2013-08-08T19:31:34Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Where did I say that? You certainly seemed to be saying that. You gave _“Any WW1 movie which portrays Generals as stay in Chateaus types”_ as an example of a historical inaccuracy. If some generals were staying in chateaus - which was true - then it’s not inaccurate. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/192 "2013-08-09T13:58:10Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Please try to support this argument. What, specifically, do you want supported? That the assassination was not the cause, but a “minor incident”? That Kaiser Wilhelm was looking for an excuse to start the war? The politics of Europe were very unstable at the time. The Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires were breaking up, Serbia had gained independence and been through two wars. _History’s Worst Decisions_ by Stephen Weir has this to say (p. 109 - 115): > [@](#): > > The Western powers were mightily sick of the unstable Balkans in any case by now. The Austrians sought to take advantage of this by annexing Bosnia completely in 1908, and indeed were fighting Serbia off and on through to 1911. The Russians were as alarmed by this as the Austrians were by the Serbian and Greek land grab of Macedonia in 1913. Meanwhile, fear of German expansionism had led Britain, France, and Russia to form an alliance. The Russians formally abandoned their close relations with Austria and Germany. Though this was not widely realized at the time, the Berlin government had made it clear to the Viennese leadership that no more diplomatic compromises would be reached. > > [snip] > > The warmongers in Berlin and Vienna, who couldn’t care less about Franz Ferdinand, jumped at the opportunity. Serbia, which had done nothing more than be the home of Colonel Apis, was blamed, and given impossible conditions to fulfill, and then invaded anyway. The [History Channel](http://www.history.com/topics/the-death-of-archduke-franz-ferdinand-and-the-outbreak-of--world-war-i)has a web page that says: > [@](#): > > After Serbia appealed to Russia for help, the czar’s government began moving towards mobilization of its army, believing that Germany was using the crisis as an excuse to launch a preventive war in the Balkans. I think most historians agree that the assassination might have been the trigger, but it wasn’t really the cause. Germany was expansionist, the Balkans were a powder-keg, Europe was a collection of mutual-aid alliances stacked against each other, and Serbian nationalists were trying to claim territory. Throw into that mix a political insult as justification, and it’s a cascade effect. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/193 "2013-08-09T14:21:48Z")
I would disagree with _“Serbia, which had done nothing more than be the home of Colonel Apis, was blamed, and given impossible conditions to fulfill, and then invaded anyway.”_ The reality was that the Serbian government was guilty. You had a terrorist organization running operations in Austria-Hungary and assassinating Franz Ferdinand. And the people running the organization are Serbian military intelligence officers. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/194 "2013-08-09T17:28:45Z")
It wasn’t out when this thread was started but there are lots of inaccuracies in _The Lone Ranger_, from the Golden Spike Ceremony being moved to Texas down to the number of stars on the flag, but much this can be attributed to Tonto being an unreliable narrator and not right in the head. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/195 "2013-08-09T18:57:49Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > It wasn’t out when this thread was started but there are lots of inaccuracies in _The Lone Ranger_, from the Golden Spike Ceremony being moved to Texas down to the number of stars on the flag, but much this can be attributed to Tonto being an unreliable narrator and not right in the head. A bird brain, you could even suggest. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/196 "2013-08-09T20:03:54Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Not by the standards of the day it wouldn’t. In a world where you were lucky to live to 40 or 45, people got married and started having children at a very young age. […] After the age of five, they were treated like little adults and expected to work and (ASAP) marry and start having children of their own. This was the only way humans could hope to survive as a species prior to the 19th century. > . That’s not accurate. The age of marriage in Europe during the renaissance/classical eras was much higher than usually believed. Generally late teens/early 20s (with men marrying at an older age than women). Early marriages were only common in the aristocracy. I don’t know if people would have been truly shocked by the marriage of a 13 yo to a middle-aged man, but spring/autumn unions were generally perceived negatively (see the custom of organizing charivaris during such marriages). ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/197 "2013-08-10T20:04:28Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/198 "2013-08-11T02:31:09Z")
Thought I’d chuck in something that was on my mind after reading some of the reviews of “The White Queen,” a Starz miniseries that premiered tonight, based on Philippa Gregory’s recent novels about the Cousins’ War and Wars of the Roses. Many of these reviews make a derisive mention of the fact that the characters don’t look “dirty” enough for a series set in this time period–clean hair, clean clothes, teeth not rotten, the castles and houses a little too clean, etc. That’s actually a criticism that comes up in many discussions of historical accuracy in movies and TV. But the thing is…isn’t that kind of the point? That kind of realism could probably only go so far before it became off-putting (though I can see where it would have its place in certain kinds of movies). Plus, if that level of hygiene was commonplace, then it would stand to reason that people living in that era would hardly take notice of it. So you could make a case that by not making an issue of it, portrayals like that allow us to see it as those back then would have seen it. I dunno…what do you guys think? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/199 "2013-08-11T02:52:46Z")
Agreed… A “realistic” portrayal of the era would have damn near everyone sporting smallpox scars all over their faces (and arms, and wherever.) Modern audiences would find it distracting. Distancing. Off-putting. Historical accuracy is good, to a point. But some details are best glossed over in the interest of the audience. We don’t need to visit their privy, either. Would a movie about the Great Age of Sail really be improved by showing sailors going out to the fore-chains to poop? Nah. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/200 "2013-08-11T04:05:06Z")
I gave a talk on Scottish clothing and weapons to a group of high school students that were studying MacBeth. The teacher wanted me to focus on Scotland c. 1000-1300. The first thing I did was ask if any of the students had seen _Braveheart_. When a bunch of hands went up, I told them to forget everything they saw in that movie. The kilts, the tartans, the armor, the weapons, the tactics, the wode, jus primae noctis, the Bruce’s background, Wallace’s training, the entire battle of Stirling… It’s like they did no research at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057.md?page=11)