# What historical events have slipped down the memory hole? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 13, 2022, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478 "2022-12-13T19:46:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/121 "2022-12-20T16:12:36Z")
Yup, it sort of made sense in a ‘what’s the difference’ kind of way. But if you look at the ad-hoc change, well… ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/122 "2022-12-20T16:30:52Z")
There was supposed to be a single threaded rod that tied all of the platforms together, but it was too expensive to ship these long rods as they were longer than the trailor transport, so some non-engineer decided to cut cost and use several shorter rods offset from each other between the platforms, this added a moment force between the two rods and caused the fasteners to fail. And yes, we studied this in my Statics class in college. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2022, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/123 "2022-12-20T16:37:54Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Of course, that was just one of several conflicts in colonial/imperial territories post-WW2 - Palestine, Kenya, Cyprus, Aden, and the “Confrontation” with Indonesia over North Borneo. Yes, there’s a definite pattern there. > [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Constant issue over here: I can remember complaints that too many youngsters finish school have “done” the Romans, the Tudors and the Holocaust and not much else in history (don’t know how fair that was - my niece teaches history, and I know she’s developed a unit on slavery that’s used in a number of schools). > > But also there’s the whole “culture wars” debate about whether and how you should teach the “[Our Island Story](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Island_Story)” or “[Good Thing/Bad Thing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_and_All_That)” narrative, or the sort of [Arthur Bryant conventional wisdom](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Bryant#Historian), or something more critical and nuanced. Yes, even when you face the fact that there is Too Much History and you are going to have to be selective about what you teach you very quickly run into the questions of how you present what you do teach and why you’re teaching it. The last being the most important and the driver of what gets selected and what doesn’t. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2022, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/124 "2022-12-20T17:11:39Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I read about the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse in a book about engineering failure by [Henry Petroski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Petroski). That’s where I first heard about it too. What a great title for his book: _To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design_. > [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > There was supposed to be a single threaded rod that tied all of the platforms together, but it was too expensive to ship these long rods as they were longer than the trailor transport, so some non-engineer decided to cut cost and use several shorter rods offset from each other between the platforms, this added a moment force between the two rods and caused the fasteners to fail. It wasn’t the moment that caused the failure, but the doubling of the load on the upper nut and box beam. The Wikipedia article cited above has a good description of the issue. When I taught physics, we went through an analysis of the loads. I thought it was a good application of statics. I then used the analogy that the original design was analogous to two children each holding on and supporting their weight on a vertical rope, one above the other. Each child only has to support their own weight. The design was revised such that it would be like if the lower child was instead holding onto the legs of the child above them instead of holding onto the rope independently. The failure point then is the grip of the upper child on the rope because they are now supporting twice the load as before. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/125 "2022-12-20T17:14:49Z")
As I remember from his book, one practical problem with the design is that the upper walkway would have to be suspended temporarily with the long threaded rods running through it vertically, and then the nuts would have to be threaded up, dozens of feet, before they reach the bottom of the walkway. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2022, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/126 "2022-12-20T17:18:39Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > As I remember from his book, one practical problem with the design is that the upper walkway would have to be suspended temporarily with the long threaded rods running through them vertically, and then the nuts would have to be threaded up, dozens of feet, before they reach the bottom of the walkway. Exactly. The original design had serious constructibility issues, which is why it was changed in the field. Unfortunately nobody checked to see how the changes affected the loads. Or everyone assumed somebody else had checked. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2022, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/127 "2022-12-20T17:36:52Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > I attended grade school in California and remember the Native Peoples being covered. We even went to a Native American museum as part of a field trip. There was also more about the Spanish explorers, Sir Francis Drake, and the Russians’ attempt to colonize California (e.g., Fort Ross). Same, we did a lot of units on the Miwok, and even visited a recreation Miwok village. They never taught us what _happened_ to the Miwok, though. I learned that from a Ken Burns documentary. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/128 "2022-12-20T19:51:09Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Constant issue over here: I can remember complaints that too many youngsters finish school have “done” the Romans, the Tudors and the Holocaust and not much else in history… To be fair, there is only so many hours in which to teach History, you can’t get _everything_ in. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/129 "2022-12-21T00:32:31Z")
In 2008, I was quite shocked at how few people knew that Sarah Palin was not the first woman to be chosen as a vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket. That was Geraldine Ferraro, in 1984. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/130 "2022-12-21T00:43:20Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > My brother moved to Kansas City about 5 years after this happened, and vaguely remembered that a big disaster had happened there and asked someone about it. He was told that it was something not brought up in polite conversation. It’s not that it was forgotten. Many people there knew the victims. So it wouldn’t be appreciated to bring it up in casual conversation. You’d have no way of knowing who was close to a victim. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/131 "2022-12-21T00:50:11Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > I’m surprised nobody’s mention the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed World War One. It basically fell out of popular memory, at least until the Covid19 pandemic. Then you weren’t around or paying attention during the swine flu outbreak in 1976. It was brought up constantly. It’s the reason everyone panicked. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/132 "2022-12-21T00:54:55Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > So I’m torn between wanting to know what wacky BS they were referring to, but also not wanting to launch a CT hijack in this thread Don’t feel bad. When Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene are 2 of the people pushing a conspiracy theory, you know it’s not worth wasting brain cells over it. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/133 "2022-12-21T01:57:17Z")
And that is completely understandable. It’s just that people who were not from there may not know about it, unless they have taken the aforementioned classes. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2022, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/134 "2022-12-22T00:13:42Z")
Granted, I was 12 years old in 1976, but I knew about swine flu and was interested in what was going on around it. Anyway, the previous summer, Legionnaire’s disease had been discovered, and while we know now that it is not a new disease, nor is it transmissible person-to-person, that still wasn’t proven, and I really think people were frightened enough by LD to take swine flu seriously. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2022, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/135 "2022-12-22T01:56:38Z")
The Battle of Manila in World War II. It was a pretty unnecessary battle, only a few months before V-E Day. The Philippines had been all but bypassed. The Japanese general had wanted to abandon surrounded Manila, but garrison inside the city disobeyed and decided to make a fight of it. The Japanese fought until the last man, and Manila was totally devastated during the battle; called the 2nd-most destroyed city after Warsaw. 100,000 Manila civilians were massacred by the Japanese during the battle; more than the Bataan Death March, Babi Yar, Katyn, and even Hiroshima’s blast. Yet, I’d wager this enormous destruction and massacre is but a footnote in the Pacific War, stuck between Iwo Jima and Okinawa. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478.md?page=6)