Okat, this thread is not for modern Urban Legends- we have Snopes and Brunvand for that. I mean myth out of history- and NO RELIGIOUS MYTHS.Please.
Atlantis- there is no Atlantis, they will never find Atlantis, they cant find it- because Atlantis never existed. Plato made it up. It is a parable, a teaching story. Oh sure, Plato may- possibly- been influenced by some ancient historical event- but Atlantis is a myth.
Buried Pirate treasure. There is none. Pirates spend their loot, they didn’t bury it. Wine, women & song and that last is optional. Also the Captain didnt get much of the loot- each crewmember got a share- the Captain a double share, along with usually the quartermaster. Then the carpenter, gunner, etc each maybe 1.5 shares. Mind you yes, one Pirate Captain did bury a modest treasure- specifically to buy his way out of being hung- he was anyway, and they got the loot also. Sunken ships with treasure- lots of them, sure.
Oak island- there is no treasure, there never was any in the first place. The original tales have passed into legend and are doubtful, but even there- no one ever had a sniff of treasure.
The weather and climate/temperature in Valley Forge when Washington camped with his army for the winter wasn’t as awful as the frozen-tundra-always-snowing misery it is often portrayed to be. It was bad, but not that bad.
Nonetheless, I dare you to spend a winter in the Pennsylvania woods with 18th century gear such as the soldiers would have been equipped with. Sustained exposure with minimal provisioning and old-school medical care would take its toll on anyone.
I remember being told from grade school onward that the American public overwhelmingly questioned the acquisition of the Alaskan Territory and “the purchase was ridiculed in the U.S. as ‘Seward’s Folly,’ ‘Seward’s Icebox,’ and the seldom-heard epithet ‘Polar Bear Garden.’ “ The quote is from a 2012 Anchorage Daily News article.
However, a 2025 piece in the same periodical says, among other things: “… the nation was overwhelmingly in favor of buying Alaska, especially at that sticker price.”
Further down it reads, “unfortunately, the idea of Seward’s Folly as the actual response to the Alaska purchase is due to bad historians. The first serious history of Alaska was published in 1885, written by Hubert Howe Bancroft. He wrote that the land ‘was believed to be almost valueless.’ History textbooks picked up on the idea, copied one another, and soon every textbook in the country said the Alaska Purchase had been popularly decried as Seward’s Folly.”
You mention Atlantis. I believe related is something a friend and a nephew both believe in - some ancient worldwide civilization that was technologically advanced, built huge structures across the globe, and then vanished leaving no other trace. Not quite “Chariots of the Gods” aliens, I believe. There is some author whom believers think an expert on this. They point to supposed similarities between ancient structures around the world, cond claim we have “no idea” how some such structures were built.
I don’t understand this thread. Are we savoring delicious errors? Or just passing them along? 'Cause none of the examples posted have any credible citations for either reality.
Or are we just assuming Dopers always know the “real scoop” and this thread is just sniggering at ignorant rubes?
When I was in Boy Scouts, we hiked the Jockey Hollow trail at Morristown. In winter, no less. I had flat feet and fallen arches and wore unbroken hiking boots, leading to a LOT of blisters. I really commiserated with Washington’s troops.
I went back the next winter and did it again, but my boots were broken in by then. And I wore arch supports.
I ran into this in another forum last week. I was wondering on reddit if lane changes in intersections were legal in California or not. Half of the sources I found said that they were, the other half said that they weren’t–and this included supposedly reliable sources such as the CDMV site itself (and associated govt. sites) and various legal and driving education sites. Hell the snippet I found at the CDMV site even seemed to contradict itself.
You mention Charroux and Hancock (both of whose works I’ve read), and imply Erich van Daniken, but you ignore the grad-dadduy of them al, Frank Edwards?
Benjamin Franklin’s (indescribably dangerous) experiment with a kite and a key didn’t lead to Franklin discovering electricity. Rather, it was to demonstrate that electricity and lightning were both related to the same phenomenon. Electricity had been known about, however rudimentarily, for a while by Franklin’s day.
