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Disappointing History
#1
Disappointing History
Has there ever been a really mad cool bit of history that was always presented to you as a fact, then you were let down when you discovered it wasn't so?

For me, it was berserkers.  Great, huge, hairy mindless Vikings, so caught up with battle-lust they couldn't tell friend from foe!!  Feeling no pain, swording about like a windmill in a whirlwind, flattening enemies by the dozens - HACK, SLASH, CRUNCH, STABBITY-STAB!! You know - howling, raging, roaring, shield-biting berserkers!!

No such animal.  *sigh*

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#2
RE: Disappointing History
I think I've said elsewhere that when I was in high school a neighbor told me that FDR had rigged the whole Pearl Harbor raid and the Pacific War?

The movie version of "winning the west" was certainly a load of bullshit that I wasn't aware of until I dug into it.
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#3
RE: Disappointing History
Yeah, Jesus!

ROFLOL
No God, No fear.
Know God, Know fear.
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#4
RE: Disappointing History
(February 5, 2019 at 7:49 pm)ignoramus Wrote: Yeah, Jesus!

ROFLOL

When I did the required historiography* class at Purdue we got to suggest one book for the next class. I suggested the New Testament.



*Definition of historiography
1a : the writing of history
especially : the writing of history based on the critical examination of sources, the selection of particulars from the authentic materials, and the synthesis of particulars into a narrative that will stand the test of critical methods
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#5
RE: Disappointing History
Finding out that George Washington actually did tell lies.
-- 
Dr H


"So, I became an anarchist, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."
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#6
RE: Disappointing History
(February 7, 2019 at 5:07 pm)Dr H Wrote: Finding out that George Washington actually did tell lies.
Check out his win/loss ratio in battles.
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#7
RE: Disappointing History
The predictive failures of the pythias at delphi.  You kind of assume that to have been such an influential oracle you would at least have to be good at guessing...?

Not so much.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#8
RE: Disappointing History
(February 7, 2019 at 6:33 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: The predictive failures of the pythias at delphi.  You kind of assume that to have been such an influential oracle you would at least have to be good at guessing...?

Not so much.

That scam was customer-oriented.
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#9
RE: Disappointing History
When I was a kid, my dad had a friend who not only taught at the same high school, his fellow teacher owned a movie theater. Everyso often my mom and I got free tickets to see movies. 

So one day she takes me to a nature documentary. I see a fawn being born from a mother deer. Problem is it was a profile shot, so I thought that the fawn was coming out of it's ass.

So the following Monday, on the school bus, I proudly proclaimed my "knowledge" of where babies come from, and the older kids on the bus laughed their asses off. It took the female bus driver, pulling me aside to correct me.
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#10
RE: Disappointing History
Well, I think one of the most disappointing things I learned about history was that the classic plague doctor costume was actually barely used:





I was extremely dissppointed to read Gregory Porter's history of the Great Plague of 1666 and finding the reality of that particular outbreak was a lot less fascinating than Fredrik Knudsen made it out to be. Their plague doctors didn't even have beaks!
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.

[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]

I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
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