# Which historical events have been most misrepresented? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 22, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-historical-events-have-been-most-misrepresented/718288 "2015-04-22T15:05:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [April 24, 2015, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-historical-events-have-been-most-misrepresented/718288/61 "2015-04-24T17:48:08Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > And over here in America, the English Civil war is never, ever, ever mentioned, and NOBODY HAS EVER HEARD OF IT. We Americans invented the idea of not having a king in 1776. I was in my 20s before I ever heard the name “Oliver Cromwell”, and it was in a [Monty Python song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ1yPz14LrU). As a child of the 60s, I lucked out and learned about Oliver Cromwell – as I learned (or mis-learned) a lot of history – from the movies. 1970 saw the release of the Ken Hughes film **Cromwell** , starring Richard Harris (King Arthur and Dumbledore!) as the Lord protector of England. I think they were trying to cash in on the wave of British History Films Based on Stage Plays that had just given us _a Man for Al Seasons_ and _Anne of a Thousand Days_. Cromwell wasn’t based on a play, and probably suffered, as well, from being a topic we Americans didn’t know all that much about. But I loved odd history, and kinda liked the music (the only aspect of the film, IIRC, that won an Academy Award. at any rate, it was an opportunity to see some actors we knew or would come to know – Harris himself, Alec Guinness as King Charles. Robert Morley, Timothy Dalton (who was doomed at the time to play Historical figures – he had been in _The Lion in Winter_ and would be in _Mary Queen of Scots_), Charles Gray (Mr. Henderson/Blofeld! and The Narrator!), Patrick Magee, Nigel Stock (He’d been in _Lion in Winter_, too). ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-historical-events-have-been-most-misrepresented/718288/62 "2015-04-24T18:35:21Z")
I’d say the #1 most misrepresented thing I can think of in recent history is the US contribution to the European Theater in WWII (i.e. vs. the Germans). The Soviets bore the brunt of the ground fighting and tied up the lion’s share of the Wehrmacht in the East. When D-Day finally came around in mid-1944, the Soviets had been fighting the Germans tooth and nail for 3 years by that point, and were on the verge of crushing them altogether without US/British help. Certainly D-Day helped; I suspect Operation Bagration wouldn’t have been so successful had the Germans not been being pulled two ways, but even without that, it would have been overwhelmingly successful. The US contributions in the European theater that really mattered to the defeat of Germany were the merchant shipping, U-boat war, strategic bombing of Germany and eventually, the fighting in France & Germany. Fighting in N. Africa, Sicily and Italy were more along the lines of distractions to the Germans than existential threats. Yet popular history and media portrayals always make it seem like the US forces post D-Day won the war vs. the Germans. Similarly, in the Pacific, there’s precious little mention of the submarine offensive, strategic bombing and aerial mining that just about crushed the Japanese. It’s all about Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima for the most part, with some tiny sidelight bits about Peleliu, Saipan and Okinawa. And nothing about the British, Australian or New Zealander contributions either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-historical-events-have-been-most-misrepresented/718288.md?page=3)