# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/41 "2012-05-16T17:06:47Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > There is a persistent belief that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand started WW1. > This was a minor incident..it was more of an excuse for Kaiser Wilhelm to start the war. Wilhelm had been planning a war against France for years-his personal journal recorded his thoughts on this (August 1914)..“now or never”. > Wilhelm knew that this was the best time to attack France-if he waited, the balance of power would shift away from Germany. > He had planned it all along-the assassination was a good excuse to get things rolling. It may get reduced to that belief, but every written account I’ve seen indicated the assasination was just a trigger, the straw that broke the camel’s back, not the cause of the war. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/42 "2012-05-16T17:15:58Z")
> [@Ashley\_Pomeroy](#): > > I remember catching one of those Oscar bait historical films on TV about Albert Einstein - like _Gandhi_, _Malcolm X_, you know. I can’t remember what it was called, but it was absolutely bizarre. The details of relativity were explained well, and the portrayal of Marie Curie was spot on, but it took place mostly in Australia and had Einstein inventing rock and roll! Which can’t be true, because he died only a few months after Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” came out. > > Also, fizzy beer long predates Albert Einstein. I admit he might have developed a more effective technique - atoms are a bit like bubbles, if you think about it - but I felt the film oversold that aspect of his career. I mean, the film was entertaining enough. Einstein was played by a talented, zany guy who must have died shortly afterwards, because I haven’t seen him in anything else, and his talent was too big to hide. Or contain within the body of one man. Are you being Serious? You should go to Yahoo to check out your facts. ---
**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:** [May 16, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/43 "2012-05-16T17:54:40Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Are you being Serious? You should go to Yahoo to check out your facts. Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/44 "2012-05-16T17:59:05Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Never mind the South Carolina plantation with free African American labor rather than slaves. It was too bad because I think there was actually a germ of an interesting story in _The Patriot._ Gibson’s character was a veteran of the French/Indian War and he was haunted by his own brutal actions to the point where he did not want to fight the English. It might have been a more interesting story had he wrestled with his humanity while sliding into his former brutish self while fighting for independence. There were a few plantations like that, but they were such a minority that it’s kind of objectionable to create a character in the deep south in that time out of that, it smacks of “creating the unambiguously noble hero.” One of the Founding Fathers from my neck of the woods, George Wythe, actually practiced what he preached and ran a plantation of freedmen. Lots of FFs deplored slavery and a few even freed their slaves in their wills (once they were done with them), but Wythe freed his slaves in his own time, and tried to grant the ones who stayed on with him a share of his estate when he died. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/45 "2012-05-16T18:01:24Z")
> [@Lord\_Mondegreen](#): > > The movie U-571 has the US Navy capturing the first Enigma machine rather than the Royal Navy. Whether this is major or minor is probably up for debate, and the side you take in the debate is probably almost entirely dependant upon which side of the pond you come from. 🙂 I believe that lip service was paid to history with a caption at the end. It said something like the movie was fiction but several Enigma machines were captured by both British and Americans and the film was dedicated to them. ---
**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 16, 2012, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/46 "2012-05-16T18:16:13Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > (I’ll forgive _Amadeus_; Prague is so beautiful & all that music really was Mozart’s.) and the costuming:D ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/47 "2012-05-16T18:21:34Z")
But what about _U-571_? The British were the first to capture an Enigma machine, not the Americans. _gets punched in the face_ > [@RealityChuck](#): > > Are you being Serious? You should go to Yahoo to check out your facts. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/48 "2012-05-16T18:29:18Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Are you being Serious? You should go to Yahoo to check out your facts. You know, I thought you were wooshed… until I checked IMDB and “re-learned” that the lead in that movie was not played by Pauly Shore. Well played. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/49 "2012-05-16T18:46:22Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > _Braveheart_, previously mentioned, was pretty much end to end inaccuracies. Even people who knows very little about Scottish history must’ve noticed when the words “Battle of Selkirk Bridge” appeared onscreen and the bridge was conspicuously absent. Stirling Bridge. And I do not believe the words “Battle of Stirling Bridge” appear on screen; IIRC it just said “Stirling.” Battles are often named after geographic features that didn’t feature prominently in the battle. The Battle of Bunker Hill was not fought on Bunker Hill, the Battle of Midway was mostly fought so far from Midway that you could not even have seen the island. The Battle of Stirling Bridge as it was actually fought had effectively the same outcome, but would have been less heroic-looking. People never seem to have problems with the Scottish wearing clan tartan kilts, despite the fact that this is about as historically accurate as having the soldiers in a World War II epic using phasers and spaceships. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/50 "2012-05-16T19:12:07Z")
> [@Soylent\_Juicy](#): > > My first thought was Disney’s _ **Pocahontas** _ - wasn’t the real Captain John Smith a middle-aged man and Pocahontas a 14-year-old girl? Which in reality would make him a bit of a pedo. In addition to which there’s a lot of discussion as to whether the incident of her sparing his life ever even happened. John Smith wrote about it many years later, by which time he’d already told an almost identical story that happened in Turkey, and it’s known that he was a notorious liar to begin with. (Among other things, he depicted himself as a poor orphan abused by his foster parents- he was middle class and he was grown and long gone from home when his parents died.) The frustrating thing about Smith is that he _did_ have some adventures, some of them probably really the swashbuckling Jack Sparrow sort involving Turks and possibly the Countess Bathory (yep, the Blood Countess- there’s a good chance he really did enter her service) and “red Indians” and other sorts, but he also liked to gild the lily, so it’s impossible to know which of his tales is true and isn’t. Adding to the melee of fact and fiction is that some Indian tribes _did_ have a ritual similar to the one Smith depicted- it was less an “actually going to kill you” thing and more like a baptism into the tribe- so it could have been that. And Pocahontas does seem to have been particularly beloved by her father, [the chief usually known to history as] Powhatan, which was an achievement considering he had dozens of children and gave many of them away. On the other other hand, some biographers believe she may have been married or betrothed to a tribe member by the time she married John Rolfe as well. (In a case of ‘sometimes there is some truth to the romantic side of history’, while her marriage to Rolfe [a grieving widower when he met her] certainly had advantages for both sides, he seems to have genuinely loved her as well, possibly more than she did him.) Pocahontas probably would have seen some of Shakespeare’s plays enacted as she stayed in an inn frequented by actors in England. It was also an inn where disease spread a lot, which led to her death. In any case, Pocahontas definitely _did_ know and like John Smith when he was in Virginia. There’s no evidence she was in love with him. ---
**Author:** ![Animastryfe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Animastryfe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Animastryfe)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/51 "2012-05-16T19:20:02Z")
> [@I\_Know\_Nothing](#): > > Haven’t read it but I hear War and Peace has Napoleon burning down Moscow when all evidence shows the Russians did it, a myth widely believed in Russia today. This is wrong. I read it last year and, using Wikipedia to refresh my memory, in the book it was the Russian Count Rostopchin who ordered the burning of Moscow. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/52 "2012-05-16T19:25:31Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > But what about _U-571_? The British were the first to capture an Enigma machine, not the Americans. And the Brits seem to forget that the Enigma code was first cracked by the Poles. Earlier, simpler machine, but same principles. ---
**Author:** ![magnusblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@magnusblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magnusblitz)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/53 "2012-05-16T19:31:58Z")
I think the creators of _Pocahantas_ admitted that they purposely ignored history and based their movie on the mythological story that includes the Smith/Pocahontas romance. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/54 "2012-05-16T19:40:48Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > and the costuming:D Not long ago I watched _Amadeus_ with a bunch of cut scenes restored. They were so bad that they managed to ruin the entire movie for me. I will never watch it again. ---
**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:** [May 16, 2012, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/55 "2012-05-16T19:41:14Z")
> [@I\_Know\_Nothing](#): > > Haven’t read it but I hear War and Peace has Napoleon burning down Moscow when all evidence shows the Russians did it, a myth widely believed in Russia today. Tolstoy is actually very careful about his history in War and Peace. When I read it, for a course, I did a report about his handling of Napoleon. Tolstoy only uses accounts of Napoleon’s actions and words as reported by others, but he fiendishly gives them a different interpretation than is usually assigned to them. Tolstoy wanted to point out how slippery a thing History is, and how little influence an individual has in it, and how easily misinterpreted it is. He has a grand theory of History as the Result of Integrating the Differentials (people) to produce the final result, which is sort of like Isaac Asimov’s "Statistical Mechanics: model that became “Psychohistory” in his “Foundation” series. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/56 "2012-05-16T20:20:28Z")
> [@I\_Know\_Nothing](#): > > Haven’t read it but I hear War and Peace has Napoleon burning down Moscow when all evidence shows the Russians did it, a myth widely believed in Russia today. You should read it, because you hear wrong. Such a view would be inconsistent with Tolstoy’s ground-up granular view of history. Tolstoy on the burning of Moscow: > [@](#): > > The French attributed the Fire of Moscow au patriotisme feroce de Rostopchine, \* the Russians to the barbarity of the French. In reality, however, it was not, and could not be, possible to explain the burning of Moscow by making any individual, or any group of people, responsible for it. Moscow was burned because it found itself in a position in which any town built of wood was bound to burn, quite apart from whether it had, or had not, a hundred and thirty inferior fire engines. Deserted Moscow had to burn as inevitably as a heap of shavings has to burn on which sparks continually fall for several days. A town built of wood, where scarcely a day passes without conflagrations when the house owners are in residence and a police force is present, cannot help burning when its inhabitants have left it and it is occupied by soldiers who smoke pipes, make campfires of the Senate chairs in the Senate Square, and cook themselves meals twice a day. In peacetime it is only necessary to billet troops in the villages of any district and the number of fires in that district immediately increases. How much then must the probability of fire be increased in an abandoned, wooden town where foreign troops are quartered. “Le patriotisme feroce de Rostopchine” and the barbarity of the French were not to blame in the matter. Moscow was set on fire by the soldiers’ pipes, kitchens, and campfires, and by the carelessness of enemy soldiers occupying houses they did not own. Even if there was any arson (which is very doubtful, for no one had any reason to burn the houses—in any case a troublesome and dangerous thing to do), arson cannot be regarded as the cause, for the same thing would have happened without any incendiarism. > > ``` > * To Rostopchin's ferocious patriotism. > > ``` > > However tempting it might be for the French to blame Rostopchin’s ferocity and for Russians to blame the scoundrel Bonaparte, or later on to place an heroic torch in the hands of their own people, it is impossible not to see that there could be no such direct cause of the fire, for Moscow had to burn as every village, factory, or house must burn which is left by its owners and in which strangers are allowed to live and cook their porridge. Moscow was burned by its inhabitants, it is true, but by those who had abandoned it and not by those who remained in it. Moscow when occupied by the enemy did not remain intact like Berlin, Vienna, and other towns, simply because its inhabitants abandoned it and did not welcome the French with bread and salt, nor bring them the keys of the city. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/57 "2012-05-16T20:57:46Z")
This thread is afire with the fuel that feeds my dislike of historical fiction as a genre and the most common thing I hear from people who enjoy it: “I learn so much!” Great, I’m happy that you think so, but I’m willing to bet half or more of what you’re “learning” is complete bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/58 "2012-05-16T21:22:23Z")
> [@magnusblitz](#): > > I think the creators of _Pocahantas_ admitted that they purposely ignored history and based their movie on the mythological story that includes the Smith/Pocahontas romance. Though the sequel, in which she goes to London, does show her married to John Rolfe. (I have no idea if she dies in the sequel as she did in real life; it would seem rather depressing.) ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/59 "2012-05-16T21:59:56Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > This thread is afire with the fuel that feeds my dislike of historical fiction as a genre and the most common thing I hear from people who enjoy it: “I learn so much!” > > Great, I’m happy that you think so, but I’m willing to bet half or more of what you’re “learning” is complete bullshit. This was my complaint with the genre for a long time, but I think the Internet has greatly improved it. It’s now _very_ easy to watch a historical film and then pull up the historical inaccuracies. You get an entertaining film / miniseries, and actually DO learn something if you synthesize the corrections. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/60 "2012-05-16T22:03:32Z")
> [@typoink](#): > > This was my complaint with the genre for a long time, but I think the Internet has greatly improved it. It’s now _very_ easy to watch a historical film and then pull up the historical inaccuracies. You get an entertaining film / miniseries, and actually DO learn something if you synthesize the corrections. Films, yes. Mostly the people I interact with are fans of historical fiction novels. And not about to go researching anything on the internet. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057.md?page=4)