# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/141 "2014-11-18T21:23:00Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > “The UnSub is a white male, aged 25-40, probably employed in a profession that requires heavy labor, because he has to have a lot of upper body strength, and this isn’t his first kill, because there are no hesitation marks. The axe was not a weapon of opportunity. It’s his personal possession, and meaningful to him.” Lt. Van Buren: “Well, find out who had a beef with this guy.” \ \ TOWER OF LONDON 15th CENTURY 10:07 a.m. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/142 "2014-11-18T21:23:01Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Do you have a cite that is not from that goofy Egyptian archaeologist? 🙂 Not exactly “contractors” (that implies a money economy that did not exist yet). Rather, what appears to be the case is that a small number of relatively high status professionals were assisted by a rather larger number of “corvee” labourers drawn from the countryside as a whole. > **[BBC - History - Ancient History in depth: The Private Lives of the...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/pyramid_builders_01.shtml)** > > Dr Joyce Tyldesley reveals the people behind some of the world's most famous strictures. So not “slaves”, but rather “payers of their labour tax”. [I think we can safely dismiss the Zahi Hawass ‘they did it as volunteers out of love for the pharaoh’ explanation. :D] ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/143 "2014-11-18T21:33:42Z")
Thanks, Malthus. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/144 "2014-11-18T21:39:37Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > TOWER OF LONDON > 15th CENTURY > 10:07 a.m. Hah! I lol’d. Out loud. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/145 "2014-11-18T23:00:51Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > “Hitler was an atheist.” – WHAAA??? > > I hear this much more frequently now that we have more tea-partying history-rewriting people with a microphone. Clearly they’ve never read Mein Kampf or noticed the SS belt buckles with “God With Us” engraved in German on there. And these history-rewriting people are members of or sympathetic to the modern Tea Party movement how? I also wasn’t aware that the comment “Hitler was an atheist” was so rarely made before the Obama presidency. ---
**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 18, 2014, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/146 "2014-11-18T23:36:53Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > So not “slaves”, but rather “payers of their labour tax”. [I think we can safely dismiss the Zahi Hawass ‘they did it as volunteers out of love for the pharaoh’ explanation. :D] So, they weren’t slaves, they were just men who had to do back-breaking, unpaid labour under threat of violence by privileged elites ? So glad we nuanced that one up 😃 ---
**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 18, 2014, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/147 "2014-11-18T23:39:15Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > WWII was won by three things- Soviet manpower, American manufacturing and British pigheadedness. If the Brits had rolled over, the Soviets would have been alone, and would likely have collapsed- in fact Stalin reportedly almost did so. > > The Russian contributed the most men, the Yanks the most money and the Brits were in it the longest. Blood, gold and time is the way I’ve heard it most succinctly expressed, from the Soviets, Americans and British respectively. The western Allies were also largely responsible for roflstomping the Luftwaffe, so without the air offensive over Germany (using Britain as the unsinkable aircraft carrier, British time) they’d face comparatively crap Soviet Air Forces. Oh, and with no Lend-Lease (there’s that American cash again) there’s no studebaker trucks to advance the Red Army as far as it would have gone. That’s why I say in the OP one nation claiming the sole credit for Hitler’s defeat is on my list. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2014, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/148 "2014-11-19T00:55:00Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > A nitpick: > _Henry VIII left the Catholic Church because the Pope would not grant him a divorce from Catherine of Aragon._ > > No. He could have gotten a divorce in England without ever having to appeal to the Pope. He left the Catholic Church because the Pope would not grant him an _annulment_, which would allow his heirs with a new wife to be legitimate. Also, Pope’s granted annulments for childless/sonless marriages all the time- Eleanor of Aquitaine’s marriage to Louis was annulled for that reason- so it was a reasonable request, but Henry’s was denied largely due to secular reasons, among them: > 1- The Pope had granted special dispensation for Henry to marry his brother’s widow and to say that the marriage was invalid because she was his brother’s widow was a dangerous precedent > 2- Catherine’s nephew had the Pope surrounded and it wasn’t a great idea to piss him off. > > _History is all about the bass, about that bass._ > > No, in fact history is sometimes about the treble. I heard he left because he was worried about the influence the catholic church was having on his country, the pope acting as a monarch with property on his land. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2014, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/149 "2014-11-19T01:10:55Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > So, they weren’t slaves, they were just men who had to do back-breaking, unpaid labour under threat of violence by privileged elites ? So glad we nuanced that one up 😃 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Lemmytheseal2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@Lemmytheseal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemmytheseal2)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2014, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/150 "2014-11-19T01:12:33Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > And these history-rewriting people are members of or sympathetic to the modern Tea Party movement how? > > I also wasn’t aware that the comment “Hitler was an atheist” was so rarely made before the Obama presidency. You see things like it all the time on reactionary sites like Free Republic, which teems with Teabaggers. Bill O’Reilly made that claim. [Here’s a mention of a film by Ray Comfort, tying evolution to Hitler](http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/christian-liars-tout-ray-comforts-new-creationist-film-an-atheist-dismantles-it/) (commonly argued in such circles). There’s a lot more out there. ---
**Author:** ![Lemmytheseal2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@Lemmytheseal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemmytheseal2)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2014, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/151 "2014-11-19T01:19:13Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > So, they weren’t slaves, they were just men who had to do back-breaking, unpaid labour under threat of violence by privileged elites ? So glad we nuanced that one up 😃 > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > 🙂 If they weren’t technically owned, they weren’t technically slaves. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/152 "2014-11-19T01:34:50Z")
> [@Lemmytheseal2](#): > > If they weren’t technically owned, they weren’t technically slaves. Technically that merely makes them temporary slaves. ---
**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 19, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/153 "2014-11-19T01:58:50Z")
> [@Lemmytheseal2](#): > > If they weren’t technically owned, they weren’t technically slaves. I’m sure they were technically grateful to be so free 🙂 ---
**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:** [November 19, 2014, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/154 "2014-11-19T02:09:59Z")
> [@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. > > 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. There is that other myth. The Marines have great PR. Actually the majority of personnel and the majority of casualties were both from the U.S Army. Even when you leave out the Air Corps. > [@Sampiro](#): > > This one pisses me off because of a personal connection: > > _Rosa Parks was a setup._ > > The personal connection is that having gone to school in and lived in Montgomery for many years and known many people, white and black, who were alive at the time, several of whom knew the key figures on both sides of the Bus Boycott, I’ve heard this many many times from white people (including some in my own family who were there) and accepted it’s truth into adulthood. > > Totally true: It was a set up. Rosa Parks was a Timelord who traveled in time first to set up slavery and then Reconstruction and then Jim Crow all just so that she could get arrested and be catapulted to worldwide fame and middle class. > > It _is_ true that the NAACP (of which she was a secretary) and several civil rights activists _were_ looking for a test case. It _is_ true that she was perfect: > -Intelligent > -Articulate > -Free of scandal (no illegitimate children or criminal record or Communist affiliations like previous would-be test cases) > -NAACP connections > What was _not_ a set-up was the bus driver trying to force her to give up her seat by changing the seat she was in to white’s only. > Rosa Parks, like several other black people, had been kicked off the bus before by that driver and other drivers. > On this particular day (December 1, 1955) she did not feel like getting up or getting off the bus. I’ve read conflicting accounts as to why: she was tired, she was indignant, she felt “enough is by God enough”, she felt this was the case, etc… The correct answer is probably bits and pieces of all of the above. > As Rosa knew, there _had_ been talks of a test case but, as mentioned, the people arrested had proved problematic (Claudette Colvin was too young and then got pregnant, the Alabama State professor who had Communist party ties, and others). She did know of the need for an unimpeachable person to try it. > A piece of the puzzle that’s often missing is the Emmett Till connection: Rosa Parks had just that past Sunday been to a special memorial service for Emmett Till at which some of Till’s relatives had spoken and pictures of his famous mangled remains were shown. Add to this the murders that did not get nearly as much press as Emmett Till, such as the black voter in Mississippi who had recently been shot to death in front of witnesses on a courthouse square without any charges ever being pressed against his murderer: I don’t have the slightest problem believing her when she said “I was tired… tired of giving in”. > > So it was not a totally impromptu “Hey let’s start a civil rights revolution on this old bus!” moment, but it also wasn’t a “set-up” or anything like. > And what was Rosa’s reward? > She immediately got fired. Her husband got fired from his job on base because he mentioned something about “my wife” and that was said to be violating a warning not to discuss the Bus Boycott. They had to live on charity because they were unemployable. They had constant death threats and had to live in the back of their house with their windows boarded up. > Rosa sometimes spoke about her bitterness against members of the movement: there was a lot of misogyny in the black community and she was largely shoved aside by men in the movement while having to deal with the hate of the white community that ultimately forced her and her husband and mother to move to Detroit where they moved in with her brother and his enormous family (wife, 13 kids) in a small house until they could get on their feet financially. Add to this that the stress gave both her and her husband ulcers and her husband developed an alcohol problem. If it was a set up then she was the damnedest masochist in history. That’s the thing, I was taught the opposite myth when I was young. Rosa Parks was an innocent sweet old (42!) lady who was minding her own business when she suddenly got thrown into the civil rights movement. There is nothing wrong with the reality. It’s just not what this Yankee was taught. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2014, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/155 "2014-11-19T03:30:44Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > That’s the thing, I was taught the opposite myth when I was young. Rosa Parks was an innocent sweet old (42!) lady who was minding her own business when she suddenly got thrown into the civil rights movement. There is nothing wrong with the reality. It’s just not what this Yankee was taught. When I worked at the Little Rock Library, an illustrated kids book drew her as twenty at the most. I renewed Daisy Bates’ library card there. The truth dawned. I asked her, “Are you Daisy Bates?” She nodded and frowned. “THE Daisy Bates?” She nodded and stepped back. “May I shake your hand?” And she smiled and shook my hand. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2014, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/156 "2014-11-19T03:40:03Z")
> [@Lemmytheseal2](#): > > Let’s not forget China! Also, in per capita terms, consider Poland and Yugoslavia, among other places! Let’s not forget India either, source of the largest all-volunteer military the world has ever seen. Sure, they were fighting to repel the Japanese, but they were also fighting elsewhere, _in the midst of a famine at home_, doing the bidding of a government led by a Prime Minister with, in his staff’s words, “Hitler-like attitudes” towards them: > > [What Leopold Amery denounced as Churchill’s “Hitler-like attitude” to India manifested itself most starkly during a famine, caused by a combination of war and mismanagement, that claimed between one and two million lives in Bengal in 1943. Urgently beseeched by Amery and the Indian viceroy to release food stocks for India, Churchill responded with a telegram asking why Gandhi hadn’t died yet.](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/08/13/exit-wounds) Don’t forget Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. Or Mexico. Really, even though it’s called **World War II** , I think a lot of people underestimate just how many countries around the globe were fighting in it. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2014, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/157 "2014-11-19T03:55:56Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > On the Negro Baseball Leagues and Jackie Robinson. > > So really, MLB when they retired Jackie’s number 22 and made him such a hero, what they were really doing was a business decision. One to drive away their competition and at the same team, increase their audience. Their was nothing noble or altruistic about it. 1. Not 22. Speaking of baseball: McGwire and Sosa did NOT ‘save baseball’. Attendance went down the year after their HR race. The Red Sox did not ‘fail to win any World Series because they refused to integrate’. The Yanks won plenty of WS without any black players while others had integrated, and the Yanks won plenty after they integrated. Conversely, the Red Sox did not ‘make the World Series in 1967 because they finally integrated.’ They were plenty integrated in 1966, and they stunk. Corked bats appear to hurt performance and sliding head first into First Base slows you down. Those are facts. A .200 hitter today would NOT be a ‘God’ in 1916. First of all, humans arnt particularly genetically superior to people back then. In tiny ways maybe, but not a lot. Also, any health advantage one might have is going to be cancelled out by: Shitty environment Barnstorming Train travel Muddy spitballs with no backdrop thrown from a higher mound. More beanballs, dirtier play. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2014, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/158 "2014-11-19T05:55:08Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Obviously people whose livelihood depended on the Negro Leagues didn’t want them to cease operation, that’s hardly surprising. > > But I think you’re selling Jackie Robinson short. No one claims that he was the absolute greatest baseball player ever, or that he was somehow the driving force behind integration. What he did do was bear up with grace and dignity and charisma, very much in the public eye, under truly massive amounts of hatred. I’ll agree that he did well. My bigger point was that what the Negro league teams wanted was a league merger, not to have their best cherry picked. ---
**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 19, 2014, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/159 "2014-11-19T15:27:38Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > My bigger point was that what the Negro league teams wanted was a league merger, not to have their best cherry picked. But there’s no widespread myth that the owners of the Negro League teams wanted their best players cherry-picked. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744/160 "2014-11-19T16:04:10Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > So, they weren’t slaves, they were just men who had to do back-breaking, unpaid labour under threat of violence by privileged elites ? So glad we nuanced that one up 😃 They were “slaves” in the same way that American conscripts during WW2 were “slaves”. 😉 Or, indeed, all of us, who have to pay taxes - that is, pay part of the fruits of our labour under threat of violence by privileged elites. 😛 The difference between this and “slave” status is pretty clear: slaves are owned like property; people paying a tax (corvee; conscription, which is a kind of corvee; or in money) are not - they are simply working of a debt to the government that, in theory at least, uses that service or cash for the commonweal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-that-reallly-get-on-your-tits/704744.md?page=9)