# Historical myths DEBUNKED! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 19, 2025, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251 "2025-08-19T02:56:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2025, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/341 "2025-10-24T00:59:33Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > I think you are absolutely correct in this assessment. > > IIRC. Which is not a given. I agree. I was alive when this happened and “drink the koolaid” started its popularity after the disaster. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/342 "2025-11-11T01:52:26Z")
Another myth that is really just an Urban Legend- Large Navy ship demands other yield, the other is really a light house. Never happened and in fact really cant. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/343 "2025-11-11T03:35:14Z")
I believe you, but why can’t it? ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/344 "2025-11-11T03:51:05Z")
It’s not even an urban legend. It’s just an old joke. ---
**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:** [November 11, 2025, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/345 "2025-11-11T09:42:53Z")
> [@Rilchiam](#): > > I believe you, but why can’t it? Ships and boats are lit a certain way, with a red light on the port (left) side of the ship and a green light on the starboard (right). They are shielded so If it’s headed toward you, you see both colors. The lights burn steadily. A lighthouse is white light, and is usually not steady. Each lighthouse in an area has the lights flashing in a different pattern (often there is a lense that’s turning at a specific speed). No sailor could mistake steady red and green lights for a flashing white light. Even if they were colorblind, they could see the difference. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/346 "2025-11-11T14:54:13Z")
The story only makes sense in the context of a ship that completely lacks modern nav gear or even primitive radar. So something from around WW-I at the latest. Lighthouses also aren’t equipped with **[Signal lamp - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_lamp)** nor radios. So how is the big tough ship commander communicating with the humble lighthouse keeper? It’s glurge to its core. Pitifully bad glurge about hubris and nemesis. So dumb. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/347 "2025-11-11T17:55:40Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Ships and boats are lit a certain way, with a red light on the port (left) side of the ship and a green light on the starboard (right). They are shielded so If it’s headed toward you, you see both colors. The lights burn steadily. > > A lighthouse is white light, and is usually not steady. Each lighthouse in an area has the lights flashing in a different pattern (often there is a lense that’s turning at a specific speed). > > No sailor could mistake steady red and green lights for a flashing white light. Even if they were colorblind, they could see the difference. Thank you, > [@LSLGuy](#): > > Lighthouses also aren’t equipped with **[Signal lamp - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_lamp)** nor radios. So how is the big tough ship commander communicating with the humble lighthouse keeper? > > It’s glurge to its core. Pitifully bad glurge about hubris and nemesis. So dumb. Yep. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/348 "2025-11-11T19:44:29Z")
It’s not glurge, it’s a joke. It’s not intended to sound real, it’s intended to sound funny. I first came across it in Asimov Laughs Again, a book of jokes. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/349 "2025-11-11T20:02:53Z")
There was an apocryphal story about a submarine on the surface entering or leaving port that was requested to give way by a fishing boat over the bridge-to-bridge radio. This was supposedly because you can only easily see the sail (aka the conning tower) of the submarine at a distance—both visually and by radar—so the sub looks like a much smaller vessel, as opposed to a 6,000+ ton warship that is [constrained by draft](https://www.ecolregs.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=196:vessel-constrained-by-her-draught&Itemid=505&lang=en) in the channel. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/350 "2025-11-11T20:17:48Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > It’s glurge to its core. Nope, not even close. Glurge is cloying and overly sentimental. What in this joke is sentimental? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/351 "2025-11-11T20:58:36Z")
Agree it doesn’t fit the typical usage of “glurge”. I probably stretched that word past its breaking point. Thanks for the ding. Glurge is, as you say, oversentimental. But it also usually has a moral to the story. Which moral is laid on thickly with a trowel. It was the thick moral message of hubris and nemesis that struck me as glurge-like. I’m not sure what’s a good word for a story that beats the reader over the head with whatever life lesson / moral? Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2025, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/352 "2025-11-11T21:06:47Z")
Fable ---
**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:** [November 11, 2025, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/353 "2025-11-11T21:29:59Z")
> **[Anvilicious - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Anvilicious)** > > A Portmanteau of anvil and delicious, anvilicious describes a writer's and/or director's use of an artistic element, be it line of dialogue, visual motif or plot point, to so unsubtly convey a particular message that they may as well etch it onto … > “Heavy-handed” for the new millennium. Extreme polar opposite of subtlety. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/354 "2025-11-12T07:54:29Z")
Why don’t lighthouses have radios? You’d think they’d be useful for search and rescue, at least. ---
**Author:** ![DETXL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/detxl/32/19366_2.png) [@DETXL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DETXL)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/355 "2025-11-12T08:36:25Z")
Today, at least, because there’s no one to use them. The [National Park Service page for the Boston Light](https://www.nps.gov/boha/learn/historyculture/boston-light.htm) notes that it is the only one in the United States that is still staffed, out of nearly 800 active lights, although even the Boston Light has been automated since 1998. ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/356 "2025-11-12T10:07:38Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Why don’t lighthouses have radios? They do, how else do you think they listen to the hip sounds of Erika Eigen? ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/357 "2025-11-12T11:58:15Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > It’s glurge to its core. Pitifully bad glurge about hubris and nemesis. To be fair, there are versions like this one I found online, and invoking Jesus makes you want to through your laptop out the window. > # **I Am a Lighthouse** > > The captain of a ship looked into the dark night and saw a light in the distance. Immediately he told his signalman to send a message, “Alter your course ten degrees south.” He promptly received a reply, “Alter your course ten degrees north.” > > The furious captain sent another message, “Alter your course ten degrees south. I am a captain!” Soon another reply was received, “Alter your course ten degrees north. I am seaman third class Jones.” > > The captain sent a final message, “Alter your course ten degrees south. I am a battleship.” The reply was, “Alter your course ten degrees north. I am a lighthouse.” > > We must not try to direct our own lives, but yield to the direction of Jesus. ---
**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:** [November 12, 2025, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/358 "2025-11-12T19:12:59Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Langley did have the first successful powered heavier-than-air flight. Of a small model unable to carry a human. Well, except for John Stringfellow’s in 1848 > In 1848 Stringfellow achieved the first ever powered flight using an unmanned 10 ft [wingspan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingspan "Wingspan") steam-powered monoplane, built in a disused lace factory in Chard, Somerset.[[5]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stringfellow#cite_note-5) Employing two [contra-rotating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra-rotating "Contra-rotating") [propellers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propellers "Propellers") on the first attempt, made indoors, the machine flew ten feet before becoming destabilised, damaging the craft. The second attempt was more successful, the machine leaving a guide wire to fly freely, achieving some thirty yards of straight and level powered flight.[[6]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stringfellow#cite_note-6)[[7]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stringfellow#cite_note-7)[[8]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stringfellow#cite_note-8) A [bronze](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze "Bronze") model of that first primitive aircraft stands in [Fore Street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fore_Street,_Chard "Fore Street, Chard") in Chard. The [town’s museum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chard_Museum "Chard Museum") has a unique exhibition of flight before the advent of the [internal combustion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion "Internal combustion") engine and before the manned, powered flight made famous by the [Wright Brothers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Brothers "Wright Brothers"). He built a tiny aluminum (!) motor to drive the propellors. > **[John Stringfellow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stringfellow)** > > John Stringfellow (1799 – 13 December 1883) was a British early aeronautical inventor, known for his work on the aerial steam carriage with William Samuel Henson. > Stringfellow was born in Attercliffe, England to Martha \[née Gillan\] and William Stringfellow, stone mason. Initially apprenticed to the lace making trade in Nottingham, c.1820 he relocated to Chard, Somerset to work as an engineer of bobbins and carriages for the lace industry, becoming so successful that he started his own company.... ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/359 "2025-11-12T19:28:51Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > To be fair, there are versions like this one I found online, and invoking Jesus makes you want to through your laptop out the window. Now that’s a glurgified version of the joke! Also, unintentionally accurate, in that it’s not Jesus whose directions should be followed, it’s just some dude in a tall building. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/360 "2025-11-12T19:41:30Z")
Now that I think about it it adds implausibility to impossibility. If the ship needed to move, the lighthouse operators _could_ be f-ing with the ship if they didn’t like the tone the captain took, but being coy about the situation the ship is in is counterproductive to their continued employment, since their one job is to prevent crashes. It reminds me of what _actually_ happened in the incident of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. The DM just laughed and said “hey, don’t you know what a gazebo is?” instead of allowing Eric to futilely try to attack it. Here, the lighthouse keepers would most likely be more explicit in their warnings more immediately. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251.md?page=19)