# 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:** 23
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2026, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/441 "2026-01-06T15:33:25Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > I think by the time you’re using the word Viking to describe people living in settled kingdoms for a couple of generations or more you’ve gone beyond “a certain kind of expeditionary force”. To my knowledge, when people talk about “The Vikings”, they’re referring to the invaders and/or their culture/homeland of origin. Once they’re successfully settled and are no longer raiding or “viking”, then they’re referred to with the more proper ethnonym for that time and place – the Danes, or the Norse, or the Rus, or whatever. ---
**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:** [January 6, 2026, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/442 "2026-01-06T15:35:45Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Once they’re successfully settled and are no longer raiding or “viking”, then they’re referred to with the more proper ethnonym for that time and place – the Danes, or the Norse, or the Rus, or whatever. Are they? Always? I mean, I literally just quoted a mainstream popular history magazine very much not doing that, did you not notice? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2026, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/443 "2026-01-06T21:33:04Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Are they? Always? I mean, I literally just quoted a mainstream popular history magazine very much not doing that, did you not notice? Honestly I can’t really tell what point you’re trying to press here. You started out seeming to suggest: > [@Stanislaus](#): > > There was no such people as “the Vikings”. Which is true inasmuch as they didn’t call themselves “the Vikings” as an ethnoym, and their contemporaries generally didn’t either, but nowadays we often do. What’s the proper term once they’re settled? It varies, but in England the settled era was referred to as _Danelaw_ and the settlers as Danes, which is still a very common term of reference. I’m just observing that when people want to be more specific then they’ll often use specific names other than Vikings. I have no interest in a black-and-white characterization as to whether either term is universal or correct. Yes, you found a periodical that does it one way, and you can find many other sources that do it differently. ---
**Author:** ![Ancient\_Nerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed655f/32.png) [@Ancient\_Nerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Nerd)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2026, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/444 "2026-01-10T06:51:19Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I can get squeaky clean with a five-gallon bucket of water If you had to carry that bucket of water a mile or two, would you do it every day? What about the kids? Don’t they get baths? Who caries their water? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2026, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/445 "2026-01-10T13:50:35Z")
> [@Ancient\_Nerd](#): > > If you had to carry that bucket of water a mile or two, would you do it every day? Again, we are talking here not about medieval soldiers or pilgrims or wandering beggars, but about medieval **peasants**. Sedentary agriculturalists living in permanent settlements. It is probably obvious why such settlements tend to be established a lot closer to water sources (or to develop their own water sources by digging the village well, for example, or setting up irrigation systems) than “a mile or two”. [ETA: That said, of course there still are many people in settled communities in traditional rural societies in water-precarious areas who **do** walk miles a day for water, especially women and girls, including children as young as 5. And yes, they routinely use some of that hard-won water to wash themselves.] ---
**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:** [January 10, 2026, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/446 "2026-01-10T14:14:18Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Honestly I can’t really tell what point you’re trying to press here. I guess its basically that @Kimstu is right, Viking was an occupation not a demonym and consequently saying that e.g. the Lindisfarne raiders, the Kievan Rus, Duke Rollo of Normandy, and King Canute are all Vikings is a bit like saying Cicero and Pope Bonuface II were both Romans. There just isn’t a through line that connects them in any meaningful way. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2026, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/447 "2026-01-10T14:25:23Z")
Also, Magna Carta was not any kind of constitutional watershed, didnt establish any new principles amd indeed as a feudal contract barely counts as constitutional document at all. Robert the Bruce wasnt a gallant champion of Scottish Independence seeking his rightful throne, he was an Anglo Norman noble with an eye to the main chance who wasn’t above inflicting some pretty serious devastation on regions of Scotland that supported rival aristos with much better claims to the throne. Sparta wasnt some uniquely martial polity producing an unstoppable warrior citizenry. Its actual record in wars is pretty patchy, Thermopylae in particular was a catastrophic defeat. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2026, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/448 "2026-01-10T15:55:25Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Magna Carta was not any kind of constitutional watershed, didnt establish any new principles amd indeed as a feudal contract barely counts as constitutional document at all. It was certainly a myth that it represented a watershed moment as a guarantor for individual liberties and freedoms. This myth apparently arose in the 1600s as a supposed ancient precedent against absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings. But it is notable that it was the earliest pushback in medieval England against absolute monarchy. Of course, it only gave rights to the nobility (i.e. the barons), not the commoners. Still, it was a pretty radical idea for the time that the monarch’s power could be infringed upon in an way whatsoever within his domain. > [@Stanislaus](#): > > Thermopylae in particular was a catastrophic defeat. That was the ultimate result, but it was pretty notable that a small force of Spartans and other Greeks (including the famous “300”) were able to hold off a force of several hundred thousand Persian soldiers for a week by defending a narrow pass before being outflanked…to the point that it is still being talked about 2,500 years later. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2026, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/449 "2026-01-10T16:45:47Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Which is true inasmuch as they didn’t call themselves “the Vikings” as an ethnoym Except they did of course, just as a job title not a ethnic description. Viking meant people who went raiding across the sea. The term became one of the ones used by other Europeans to describe all Norse people in that era. In that respect it’s no different to any other term used to describe a historical ethnic group (e.g. Welsh just means foreigner in Anglo Saxon) In the passage that stated this thread the term used would have been Dane. But that is no more accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2026, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/450 "2026-01-10T16:54:14Z")
Egyptians used slave labor to build the great pyramids. The laborers were not slaves. They were mostly skilled workers (where skill was needed) and farmers working in the off-season when they could not grow crops. Einstein failed math. He didn’t fail at math. > The theoretical physicist did fine in math, but he did flunk the entrance exam to the Zurich Polytechnic Institute on his first try at age 16. The exam was given in French, which Einstein wasn’t fluent in, and records show he passed the math section but failed the language, botany, and zoology sections. - [SOURCE](https://blog.gale.com/myths-debunked-5-widely-believed-tales-about-historical-figures/) ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2026, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/451 "2026-01-10T18:06:14Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Except they did of course, just as a job title not a ethnic description. If you need to restate it for clarity, fine, but it’s the same as what I said earlier. At the time, “Viking” was synonymous with “raiders” and would be used as such to describe raiding parties. Not as an ethnonym a.k.a “ethnic description”. Once they established an occupation and brought in long-term settlers, those settlers obviously weren’t called Vikings because they were settlers not raiders. They were called by the ethnonym of whoever they were or wherever they came from. In Britain during their occupation it was Danes, who lived in the Danelaw and demanded tribute referred to as Danegeld. In modern times, it’s academically acceptable to refer to Vikings as a people and culture, because viking (raiding) is why we best know them, same as how we refer to Beaker people by the pottery they made. Almost certainly they didn’t name themselves after the beakers they made, but we do, because that’s what they’re best known for nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2026, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/452 "2026-01-10T18:27:06Z")
> [@Ancient\_Nerd](#): > > you had to carry that bucket of water a mile or two, would you do it every day? People - no, women - still do just that today. Every day. And [for 3 or more miles](https://theconversation.com/women-still-carry-most-of-the-worlds-water-81054) _on average_. They still do it. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2026, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/453 "2026-01-10T19:02:52Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Robert the Bruce wasnt a gallant champion of Scottish Independence seeking his rightful throne, he was an Anglo Norman noble with an eye to the main chance who wasn’t above inflicting some pretty serious devastation on regions of Scotland that supported rival aristos with much better claims to the throne. Yeah, sorta (I mean he probably was born and mostly raised in Scotland), though really they all were. The Scottish royal court had been ‘Normanized’ since the 12th century and the Anglo-Scottish border was a completely permeable, mostly peaceful sleepy backwater. Most of the major Scottish noble families of at least the Lowlands (but also plenty of Highland families) were Norman in origin and many of them held land on both sides of the border. Some had an almost even split of estates like the Quincy Earls of Winchester. The senior and wealthier sept of the Bruce (Brus) family had been entirely based in England, [but they died out in the late 13th century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_III_de_Brus). ---
**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:** [January 10, 2026, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/454 "2026-01-10T19:46:19Z")
> [@robby](#): > > But it is notable that it was the earliest pushback in medieval England against absolute monarchy. Of course, it only gave rights to the nobility (i.e. the barons), not the commoners. Still, it was a pretty radical idea for the time that the monarch’s power could be infringed upon in an way whatsoever within his domain. It wasn’t the earliest pushback against a king’s power, monarchy in the middle ages was in no way absolute amd never could be, the kingdom was not regarded as the monarch’s domain, the idea that there were limits on the monarch’s power was not radical but occurred in earlier centuries and across Europe. > [@robby](#): > > That was the ultimate result, but it was pretty notable that a small force of Spartans and other Greeks (including the famous “300”) were able to hold off a force of several hundred thousand Persian soldiers for a week by defending a narrow pass before being outflanked…to the point that it is still being talked about 2,500 years later. The whole point of choosing a narrow pass was to enable the small force to hold off a larger, that was the entire strategy. And it failed after only 3 days of fighting because the Spartans left a path open allowing the Persians to come round behind them. Herodotus specifically says that no one looked to see the pass lost so quickly and it clearly threw the whole Greek grand straegy into disarray, not least because the remining Spartans’ immediate reaction was to abandon half of Greece and start trying to build a wall across the Corinthian isthmus which a) not exactly bold warrior and b) dumb strategy because ships exist. The reason it’s famous 2,500 years later is Greek propaganda plus Victorian myth making. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2026, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/455 "2026-01-10T19:52:19Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Magna Carta was not any kind of constitutional watershed, didnt establish any new principles amd indeed as a feudal contract barely counts as constitutional document at all. True. Rights given to the non-peers were trial by jury and maybe habeas corpus. > [@Stanislaus](#): > > Sparta wasnt some uniquely martial polity producing an unstoppable warrior citizenry. Its actual record in wars is pretty patchy, Thermopylae in particular was a catastrophic defeat. Only 300 Spartans there, but altho a tactical loss, it was a strategic win as the delay let the rest of Greece assemble an army. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Egyptians used slave labor to build the great pyramids. The laborers were not slaves. They were mostly skilled workers (where skill was needed) and farmers working in the off-season when they could not grow crops. True, mostly farmers and skilled workers, but the Egyptians did use slaves for many things. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2026, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/456 "2026-01-10T19:53:11Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Yeah, sorta (I mean he probably was born and mostly raised in Scotland), though really they all were Yeah, the whole thing is a lot more about aristos squabbling for power than it is about Freedom. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2026, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/457 "2026-01-10T21:03:59Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Only 300 Spartans there, but altho a tactical loss, it was a strategic win as the delay let the rest of Greece assemble an army That is what was meant to happen, it is not what did happen. The Greeks were in total disarray, the alliance was fracturing, the armies were unprepared, Athens had to be abandoned. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/458 "2026-01-11T01:26:29Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > That is what was meant to happen, it is not what did happen. The Greeks were in total disarray, the alliance was fracturing, the armies were unprepared, Athens had to be abandoned. But then there was the Battle of Salamis and the Battle of Plataea, where the Greeks whupped the Persians decisively. How much the example of the Greeks at Thermopylae affected those later victories has been long debated. > **[Battle of Thermopylae | Aftermath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae#Aftermath)** > > After the Persians' departure, the Greeks collected their dead and buried them on the hill. A full 40 years after the battle, Leonidas' bones were returned to Sparta, where he was buried again with full honours; funeral games were held every year in his memory. > With Thermopylae now opened to the Persian army, the continuation of the blockade at Artemisium by the Greek fleet became irrelevant. The simultaneous naval Battle of Artemisium had been a tactical stalemate, and the Greek navy was able ... _So almost immediately, contemporary Greeks saw Thermopylae as a critical moral and culture lesson. In universal terms, a small, free people had willingly outfought huge numbers of imperial subjects who advanced under the lash. More specifically, the Western idea that soldiers themselves decide where, how, and against whom they will fight was contrasted against the Eastern notion of despotism and monarchy—freedom proving the stronger idea as the more courageous fighting of the Greeks at Thermopylae, and their later victories at Salamis and Plataea attested.[[142]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae#cite_note-hanson-145)_ However, i will concede- _much debated_, hardly as universally as i first thought. ---
**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:** [January 11, 2026, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/459 "2026-01-11T02:57:46Z")
IMO … A cute just so story that makes the side of democracy & what would millennia later be called Westernism, heroic and wonderful. Unlike the chronically stupid, unimaginitive Cylon clone-like, and uniformly evil opposition. Can you say “B.S.?” I can. ---
**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:** [January 11, 2026, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/460 "2026-01-11T03:03:54Z")
There’s a persistent rumor that Igor Stravinsky was arrested on charges of “desecrating national property” for conducting his harmonically unorthodox arrangement of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Boston’s Symphony Hall: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/eBc-p2F1it8/maxresdefault.jpg "Stravinsky: The Star Spangled Banner (w. Score transcr. Breidenbach)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBc-p2F1it8) and that this mug shot was taken at his booking: [![](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/b6515a0/2147483647/strip/true/crop/475x614+0+0/resize/1760x2276!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fsites%2Fwosu2%2Ffiles%2F201607%2Fstravinsky_boston.jpg) ](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/b6515a0/2147483647/strip/true/crop/475x614+0+0/resize/1760x2276!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fsites%2Fwosu2%2Ffiles%2F201607%2Fstravinsky_boston.jpg) It’s a fun story, but the “mug shot” is actually a photo taken for his visa application. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251.md?page=24)