# Historical myths that reallly get on your tits **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 16, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744 "2014-11-16T02:14:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [November 16, 2014, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/21 "2014-11-16T08:42:04Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > There’s also Teddy Roosevelt’s cavalry charge up San Juan Hill. It was not on horses as commonly believe but on foot. I’ve read two versions of why this was. One was that the horses were being shipped on a separate boat and had not yet arrived. The other was that the horses were on the same boat, but Teddy was too impatient to wait for them to be unloaded. But the charge was on foot. I think the main reason was simple military sense. You don’t sent mounted cavalry against rifles. You’re just making yourself a bigger target. You advance on foot so you can stay down close to the ground and have less chance of getting shot. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/22 "2014-11-16T09:43:43Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Not only is it not necessary (there are plenty of women archers who didn’t “give their left tit” for their art), but none of the ancient Greek depictions of Amazons show them without one breast. The whole thing seems like a case of Folk Etymology gone wild, with a side of male fantasizing. Well, there’s the fact that they -very probably- weren’t real people… and the breast thing is traced back to a contemporary writer ([Justinus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_%28historian%29)). For once it’s not something Renaissance wankers cooked up about their most favouritest imaginary place. [QUOTE=Son of a Rich] Can you imagine the amount of salt it would take to render all of Carthage’s fields unable to grow crops? Not to mention the value of salt back then. [/QUOTE] There’s also the fact that it was rebuilt in Julius Caesar’s time and reached 500k inhabitants soon after (\*sorta \*big by the demographics of the era :p). Which doesn’t mesh too well with an utter, final, irrevocable destruction of the land in the 2nd BC. * * * As for me : “Muhammad/the early Muslims converted people to Islam by the sword !”. Um, no, no they really didn’t. In fact the Omeyyad caliphs were kind of annoyed that non-Arab populations they ruled over would even want to convert - as dhimmis they represented a solid cash base. As Muslims they wouldn’t have to pay capitation taxes. You do the math. There are even instances of local amirs outright \*reversing \*conversions. You want religious heavy-handedness in that era, you wanna take a look at Byzantine policies. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/23 "2014-11-16T10:41:43Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > One that almost literally hits the OP’s title is the idea that the Amazons burned off one breast so that they could shoot arrows more accurately. > > Not only is it not necessary (there are plenty of women archers who didn’t “give their left tit” for their art), but none of the ancient Greek depictions of Amazons show them without one breast. The whole thing seems like a case of Folk Etymology gone wild, with a side of male fantasizing. Well, modern-day female archers use [chest guards](http://http://www.3riversarchery.com/easton+chest+guard_i2465X_baseitem.html) to keep the bowstring’s path clear. Similar equipment may well have been used by women archers of ancient times, spawning the idea of Amazons without left breasts. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/24 "2014-11-16T10:51:59Z")
I seriously hope it won’t get on my tits, as they aren’t that big, but the only description of any Parliamentary structure that my class got between SPQR and la Bastille was of the French Ancien Régime at the time of the French Revolution. The same applies to many people of other ages and from other countries, based on conversations in the last 20sh years. It leads people to think that every Parliament in Europe, between Sweden and León, Portugal and Russia, the 5th and 18th centuries, was exactly like that very-short description of a very specific situation and time. Watching people’s faces as you ask them a few leading questions about their own location (or the former colonial power) can be fun, at least when they do have enough hints and brains to eventually rebuild what their situation was like at different times. > [@Urbanredneck](#): > > That the pyramids were built by aliens. In fact it seems almost every great piece of ancient work is said to be built by aliens. They dont give our ancestors nearly enough credit for brains. I don’t think I’d ever agreed with you so much. I think some people need to have less faith in aliens and more faith in humanity: we’re not all as stupid as they are! ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/25 "2014-11-16T12:15:47Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Well, there’s the fact that they -very probably- weren’t real people Actually, [the Amazons _were_ real](http://www.newyorker.com/books/joshua-rothman/real-amazons). ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/26 "2014-11-16T12:38:03Z")
“NASA spent millions of dollars on a space pen , while the Russians just used pencils. We’re so stoooopid…” [Um, no.](http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp) ---
**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 16, 2014, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/27 "2014-11-16T13:01:28Z")
Pretty much everything about WWII. No, it was not that the Japanese were all set to fight to the last man, woman, child and field mouse, and then the two atomic bombs changed it. Yes, they played an important part, but it was one of several important events, including the Soviet entry into the war, something which the US had requested. MacArthur did not invent the concept of island hopping, he just claimed credit for it. The strategy was already thought of prior to the war. It was the Marines who did the island hopping, anyway. Also, the Philippines should have been island hopped in that it didn’t need to be all reconquered. ---
**Author:** ![nicky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f0a364/32.png) [@nicky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicky)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/28 "2014-11-16T13:52:00Z")
Versailles was a terrible treaty which caused WW2. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/29 "2014-11-16T14:24:42Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Pretty much everything about WWII. No, it was not that the Japanese were all set to fight to the last man, woman, child and field mouse, and then the two atomic bombs changed it. Yes, they played an important part, but it was one of several important events, including the Soviet entry into the war, something which the US had requested. I think the 180 of this annoys me more, that the Japanese were \*just \* about to surrender when the bombs were dropped and if we’d have held off a bit then they would have been unnecessary. This is usually the result of confusing the term surrender with peace/ceasefire. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/30 "2014-11-16T14:45:07Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Well, there’s the fact that they -very probably- weren’t real people… and the breast thing is traced back to a contemporary writer ([Justinus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_%28historian%29)). For once it’s not something Renaissance wankers cooked up about their most favouritest imaginary place. FWIW, according to Wiki, Hippocrates also makes the claim: “They have no right breasts…for while they are yet babies their mothers make red-hot a bronze instrument constructed for this very purpose and apply it to the right breast and cauterize it, so that its growth is arrested, and all its strength and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right arm.” Ouch! ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/31 "2014-11-16T15:21:32Z")
The clain that the “noble savages” of North America could not possibly be responsible for the disappearence of nearly all the large mammals because they were too well attuned to nature. If you think the end of ice age doomed them, why didn’t it similarly doom European and Asian species? Ice ages were repeated every 100,000 years or so and they had survived all them, what was different? Human beings, that’s what was different. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/32 "2014-11-16T15:31:21Z")
That the Hawaiian Islanders happily and voluntarily chose to become American territory in order to throw off the yoke of an oppressive monarchy. The fact is, American planters overthrew the monarch, denied civil rights to the Hawaiians, and then asked Washington to take them in to avoid paying duties on their pineapple exports. Which the US did reluctantly. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/33 "2014-11-16T15:50:04Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > The myth of the Plymouth Colony and the Mayflower really pisses me off especially because I work not 20 minutes from it. The general idea is that the Pilgrims were Puritans who were the first European Settlers to permanently populate the modern day U.S. That is patently false and I am living proof. > > There are tons of problems with those ideas full stop. I am a direct descendant of the 1st colony at Jamestown that arrived staring in 1607 well before the Mayflower was ever conceived. I have the same last name and full documentation for it. I visited my ancestral homeland in Virginia last year (my great x grandparents plantation is still there and has several historicals marker both inside and outside the colony) and that was the real first permanent English colony and the Mayflower was just a Johnny Come Lately. Good luck getting anyone to accept that fact. After the Civil War, the major publishing houses based in Boston and New York rewrote U.S. history to exclude anything positive in the South and those myths persist to this day. The city of St. Augustine Florida would like to welcome that Johnny come lately Jamestown. St. Augustine, Florida > **[St. Augustine, Florida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Augustine,_Florida)** > > St. Augustine (/ˈɔːɡəstiːn/ AW-gə-steen; Spanish: San Agustín \[san aɣusˈtin\]) is a city in and the county seat of St. Johns County located 40 miles (64 km) south of downtown Jacksonville. The city is on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish colonists, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States. > St. Augustine was founded on September 8, 1565, by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Flo... > [@](#): > > Founded in September 1565 ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/34 "2014-11-16T16:19:40Z")
> [@Steken](#): > > Actually, [the Amazons _were_ real](http://www.newyorker.com/books/joshua-rothman/real-amazons). I know there are theories that they were Scythians or Roxolani or possibly Thracian, or possibly an isolated offshoot of these tribes, or… But that’s it : theories. There’s no archaeological evidence to date of a matriarchal or female-only society having existed there. Scythian and Sarmatian women did fight alongside their men - but that in itself isn’t absolutely remarkable or unique. The Celts, the proto-Vikings, the Picts, some Germanic tribes also had fighting females. Hell, even those arch-misogynists the Greeks had [at least one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_I_of_Caria). But that’s not the heart and soul of the Amazon myth : the salient point IMO is that they had nor needed \*no \*men, not that they were equal to them in some ways. [QUOTE=Son of a Rich] FWIW, according to Wiki, Hippocrates also makes the claim: “They have no right breasts…for while they are yet babies their mothers make red-hot a bronze instrument constructed for this very purpose and apply it to the right breast and cauterize it, so that its growth is arrested, and all its strength and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right arm.” [/QUOTE] Wasn’t he also the guy who wrote that women have fewer teeth than men, and a nomadic vagina that would move around their body and give them ill moods ? Or was that Aristotle, I forget ? If that was the same Hippocrates : not convinced he ever met \*a \*woman, let alone a whole tribe of them :). ---
**Author:** ![Soulcatcher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Soulcatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soulcatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/35 "2014-11-16T16:34:40Z")
That the Sherman tank was nicknamed Ronson during the war after a lighter brand due to a propensity to burn. Also in general the exaggerations of its inferiority (not that it didn’t have its issues). ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/36 "2014-11-16T16:41:31Z")
> [@nicky](#): > > Versailles was a terrible treaty which caused WW2. Wait, are you saying that’s TRUE or that’s a MYTH? Can you expand on it? ---
**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:** [November 16, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/37 "2014-11-16T16:41:42Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > You want religious heavy-handedness in that era, you wanna take a look at Byzantine policies. Or Charlemagne, one of the most unambiguous rulers who practiced “conversion by the sword” on a huge scale. It’d be considered genocide today. And yeah, I don’t know why people just assume religion changed so quickly in the Muslim world. For generations and generations Muslim rulers actually ruled over majority-Christian regions. Egypt I think was actually majority Christian for ages despite being Muslim ruled, to the point even today they have a sizable minority in the country (est 10% of the population.) They were a distinct branch of Christianity though, having rejected the 4th Ecumenical Council in 451; modern day Catholicism and Orthodox [well Eastern Orthodox following the traditional Patriarch of Constantinople] both fully accepted all the Ecumenical Councils up to Nikaea II in 787 and had various schisms culminating in a permanent break afterward. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/38 "2014-11-16T16:47:05Z")
When Washington crossed the Delaware to attack Trenton, he was able to win because the Hessians were all drunk or hung over from their Christmas celebrations. Nope. In _Washington’s Crossing_, David Hackett Fischer explained how the occupying forces had been kept on alert by partisan activity. There had been rumors of activity by Washington, but a nor’easter blew in & the Hessians were allowed to sleep. Surely, nobody would go out in such foul weather. The “drunk Hessian” story keeps cropping up… ---
**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 16, 2014, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/39 "2014-11-16T16:51:27Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > And yeah, I don’t know why people just assume religion changed so quickly in the Muslim world. For generations and generations Muslim rulers actually ruled over majority-Christian regions. Egypt I think was actually majority Christian for ages despite being Muslim ruled, to the point even today they have a sizable minority in the country (est 10% of the population.) They were a distinct branch of Christianity though, having rejected the 4th Ecumenical Council in 451; modern day Catholicism and Orthodox [well Eastern Orthodox following the traditional Patriarch of Constantinople] both fully accepted all the Ecumenical Councils up to Nikaea II in 787 and had various schisms culminating in a permanent break afterward. Not to mention how the Turks ruled the Balkans for 500 years, and only a small portion of population converted to Islam. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/40 "2014-11-16T16:54:04Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > “America saved Europe from the Germans, twice.” > [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > You’re right! It saved the world. Nope. WWI had been fought to a stalemate. Eventually, there would have had to be a negotiated settlement, and it’s possible that the onerous conditions of Versailles would not have been imposed on Germany. Without those conditions, it’s at least arguable that 20 years later, the Nazis would not have found a public mood fertile for their appeal. Instead, the late arrival of the Americans allowed the Allies to pursue a harsh surrender. It’s not obvious that this was a better result or that it “saved” Europe from Germany in either the short or long run. In WWII, the Germans were defeated by the Soviets. Period. The Nazis never had a chance against the Russians and regardless of their short-term success, the Germans could never have held out in the long run against the manpower and resources available to the Soviets. They would have defeated Germany and the long run, and, indeed, for all purposes had broken Germany by the time D-Day came around. D-Day and the subsequent Western Front activity was little more than a mopping-up operation. One could suggest that American entry into WWII prevented the Soviets from dominating Europe. In that case, it’s arguable that the Americans saved a good chunk of the world from the Russians or some Soviet-German settlement agreement, but not from the Germans. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744.md?page=3)