historical myths people somehow still believe

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It annoys me so much when people claim all the French do is surrender. It's just obscene. I'm not even any bit French, but I'm just a history buff. I feel it's partially due to the fact Americans inherited the English hatred of France.
While England and France became allies mid 19th century, due to the rise of Germany, the US never had that relationship, at least for the average person. I mean, the UK and France would have joined the Confederate's in the American Civil War if not for the Union's victory at Gettysburg.
Also, not necessarily history, but more so stereotyping. I just can't wrap my head around the whole idea that Europeans will hate on Americans if they see them. It just seems very isolationist this view, that all foreigners hate Americans. I think it's less so people at one nationality over the other, and more so hatred of that certain government.
 
I mean, the UK and France would have joined the Confederate's in the American Civil War if not for the Union's victory at Gettysburg.
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Ironically this is actually a myth. The only time Britain came close to considering intervention was if Lee had won another major victory during the Sharpsburg/Antietam campaign. Even then the proposal on the table was to offer to mediate a peace between the two sides, and if that failed recognise the Confederacy. The foreign secretary did suggest however reinforcing the forces in Canada as he probably knew that this may lead to conflict with the Union.

After Lee's strategic defeat during that campaign, the reversals elsewhere and the emancipation proclamation the British backed away from offering any tangible support for the Confederacy. At best a victory at Gettysburg for the south would have possibly resulted in the British government being a little more lenient with the likes of the Laird Rams under construction in Birkenhead at the time (they were eventually seized in October). It would never have brought European intervention by itself.
 
Jabarto said:
The Mongol invasion of Europe is kind of a fascination of mine. If it's not too off-topic, can you elaborate on this?
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Well, I'm not expert. IMO the succession issue certainly plays a part. The Empire at the time was already nearing its limit of expansion and was already beginning to break up. For several years after the death of Ogedai there were infighting between the different factions and branches of Genghis Khan's family, at times exploding into full scale civil war. No one wanted to risk another adventure into Europe, an area of dubious importance, in such tumultous circumstances. The Mongols, and more specifically the western breakaway region known as the Golden Horde, did attempt several more excersions into Europe, mostly raids, but by this time the momentum of the 1230s and 1240s have been lost. The Golden Horde did not have the resources to conquer and hold large chunks of Europe. It was busy fighting the Il-Khanate and internal rebels, and the Europeans had learnt to deal with the Mongol attacks and inflicted several defeats on them by the end of the century.

And then there's the question of whether the Mongols would actually succeed in conquering Europe in the first place had they chose to go ahead with it, or if Ogedei Khan had not died then in the middle of Batu's and Subutai's campaign. Winning battles like Legnica or Muhi against regular armies was one thing, waging a sustained prolonged campaign that includes pacifying the unfamiliar countryside and besieging numerous castles and walled cities is quite another. Indeed the Mongols had some trouble in Hungary against castles and Magyar irregular. That's not to say that a Mongol conquest of Europe is impossible; indeed, the conquest of the Jin and later of the Song illustrated that they're more than capable of taking heavily fortified cities, or fighting in unfamiliar terrain far from the steppes. But there's plenty which could go wrong, and it won't be a quick conquest. Certainly the Mongols probably wouldn't simply overrun all of Europe had Ogedei lived a little longer.
 
Soda7777777 said:
While England and France became allies mid 19th century
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I take issue with the myth that "England" and "Britain" are synonymous when referring to the sovereign entity. :mischief:

Also, the Entente Cordiale wasn't signed until 1904 and Britain and France were pretty hostile towards each other over Fashoda only a few years before that.
 
Myth: England became awesome after the Armada
Myth: Mary was a Catholic bump in the long and inevitable road to English Reformation
Myth: England was relevant or influential to European politics in the 16th century
 
BuckyRea said:
Oh, from another thread here in CivFan, I found out that the Israelites were never slaves in Egypt. Man, where do these crazy myths even get started?!
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In the 19th century, it was fashionable to argue for a late, Levantine, origin for Israel. Then in the early 20th century, a lot of work done on a possible 'apiru=ibrw (Hebrew) connection and Asian (=Middle Eastern) populations in Egypt, so the scholarly consensus thought that a slave revolt fitted into known Egyptian social conditions. In the last 20-30 years, the pendulum has swung dramatically back the other way, and it's again fashionable to explain Israel's origins without any Egyptian sojourn ("minimalism"). In the early 80s, John Bright wrote:

"There can really be little doubt that ancestors of Israel had been slaves in Egypt and had escaped in some marvelous way. Almost no one today would question it."

Bright was never everybody's cup of tea (I was flatly forbidden to read him!), but minimalism is hardly the settled judgment of the ages. At one point, minimalist scholars were seriously questioning the Davidic monarchy too, until relatively clear archaeological evidence turned up. I'm not an expert, but I think that "crazy myths" is rather overdoing it.
 
civ_king said:
People still think Galileo was tortured to get a confession, IRL he was treated pretty well
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If I correctly recall, he was given a presentation of the torture equipment, which was a usual prelude to the torture itself, and then he recanted his theories. Also he was in house arrest for the rest of his life, I think.

However, common view of Galileo as a martyr of science isn't that correct. He for example was kind of begging trouble by writing the pope as "Simplicus" in one of his books. Also it isn't so simple that the church believed in age old dogma, and Galileo challenged them with science based on observation. Galileo's research was much based on the works of scholastics and thought experiments, and much of the opposition against it was because the observations didn't support it (one reason for this was that he didn't have law of inertia like Newton did).
 
Lord of Elves said:
I take issue with the myth that "England" and "Britain" are synonymous when referring to the sovereign entity. :mischief:

Also, the Entente Cordiale wasn't signed until 1904 and Britain and France were pretty hostile towards each other over Fashoda only a few years before that.
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This true. Even while typing that, I realized that it was wrong. But then again, it was at an ungodly hour, and I was only half paying attention. But still, Britain does refer to the union of Scotland and England, as well as the island itself.
 
I can't believe nobody has mentioned the myth of short Napoleon.

Also a myth is that important history ends with the fall of Rome and picks up when Columbus and other explorers want to get to India/China. Everything east of Europe is unimportant garbage that played no role in important history until we get to China and Mongolia.
 
taillesskangaru said:
The Ottoman and Qing Empires fell because they stubbornly refused to adapt to a changing world.
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Actually, in regards to the Qing Dynasty, they did fall because they stubbornly refused to adapt to a changing world.
There were at least 3 different attempts to reform the system of Qing China.
Self-Strengthening Movement
1895 Reforms
Post Boxer Reforms

Even though the Self-strengthening Movement did improve part of China's technology, most of the reform was superficially and rather weak.
Firstly, most of the reforms were targeted at military technology. The Qing Government, although convinced that they were behind the European nations, were only willing to reform their armies and navies. They believed that the Chinese system was inherently correct and all they needed to do was to use 'barbarian' technology against the 'barbarians' and once they expel them from China, they can return to the peace and harmony of otherwise 'superior' Chinese culture, system and governance.

Thus, most reforms out of the military, like industry and transportation, were very weak, most of the accepted only half-halfheartedly. And there was absolutely no attempt to change the education system or way of governance, which Meiji Japan had shown, was a very key aspect to modernisation. To the Chinese, all that non-military reforms were inferior to 'Confucian China'. Strike one win for conversatism

The 1895 Reforms was initiated by the Guangxi Emperor in the aftermath of China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese war and the Dowager Empress' semi-retirement. To Beijing, clearly self-strengthening did not work and the Emperor believed serious and true reform was needed. And while the Guangxi Emperor ordered for true reform, the reforms were incredibly outrageous in the context of 1895. Most of the bureaucrats knew that such reforms were impossible and didn't carry them out, waiting for the conservative backlash to take place, namely, the Empress Dowager's coup back to full power and Yuan Shi Kai's betrayal of the Emperor and him, siding his Beiyang Army to the Empress.

The Post-Boxer reforms were a bit like the 1895 reforms but scaled down in terms of radicalism. However, by this time, it was too late.
 
That the Byzantine empire was the land of totalitarian orthodoxy and stiffling of all free thought. It wasn't the most open-minded of societies, but it wasn't so boring, either. That misconception can be sometimes met among Russian people who go a bit too far in being tired of all that "Third Rome" propaganda.
 
Terrance888 said:
People still believe the Columbus was the first from the Old World to get to the Americas.

The first middle-ages nation to hit America was Ming China.
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Oh hey, here's a myth in this very thread! This is getting a lot of currency lately, unfortunately, among both the public and academics.

There are numerous Chinese records from the time, basically none of which assert that Zheng He or associates ever reached the New World. Most of the other evidence for Ming voyages to the New World is circumstantial or completely fabricated, and the Chinese voyages were not really of "discovery" so much as an attempt to assert dominance over previously known maritime regions.

Of course, the idea that Columbus was the first has been obliterated years ago. You'd honestly be hard pressed to find a historian who didn't think Leif Erikson's Vikings made it to the new world (and those you did find should be kicked out of their jobs). I would also note that the Vikings predated plausible Ming China voyage times by four hundred years. There's also quite a decent possibility (one which I've come to accept more and more over the years) that Polynesians made it to the Americas. Incidentally, this last one explains a lot of the "better" "evidence" for the "Chinese voyages" without the huge holes that any Ming discovery theory has.

And in the end, the Vikings at least aren't really all that important, except as an academic point: the Vinland expedition did absolutely nothing in the grander scheme of things. Columbus was the one that really linked Old World and New.

The Polynesian theory is significantly more important, but, as I noted, rather less firmly established.
 
Yui108 said:
By the Muslims considered to have sparked the Crusade, I am wondering, do you mean the Fatimids with their claimed offences against Jerusalem, or the Seljuk wars with Rome? Jerusalem at the time was ruled by a client state of the Fatimids, who had recently wrested it from the Seljuks. But if I decode your statement assuming you are narrowly referring to Manzikert, I am going to assume the first group mentioned is the Fatimids, the second group the Seljuks, and the third group being the Roman Empire. First issue, completely unprovoked isn't true. Let's ignore Al-Hakim's destruction of the Holy Sephulcre and the increased restrictions on Christian pilgrims (admittedly slighter than many have led readers to believe) and the complete apathy the Muslim government treated brigandry towards Christians in the 11th century. After Manzikert it seems completely reasonable that the Catholics would be concerned about the continued existence of the Romans (with whom a great deal of ecumenical solidarity still existed), after repeated defeats at the hands of the Turks. Additionally, the Crusader Army fought both the Seljuks and the Fatimids. They even were forced to fight the Danishmends.



Don't, and no it isn't.



Saying the "Muslims" were trying to conquer the "Christian" world makes no more sense than saying the reason America was founded was to genocide Indians. Also saying Asia-Minor was conquered by Islam is just wrong. Literally wrong. There was a brief occupation of parts of it by the Seljuks after Manzikert for a short time, but nothing significant enough to be considered a conquest, or even close. His reference to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople is startlingly irrelevant. And just as easily as I can say the Christian Crusades to the Levant were reactive, it is just as easy to say they weren't defending anything besides the territorial integrity of the Roman Empire (which wasn't a stated goal, merely a consequence of taking the land-based route), which in the long-run they did far more hurt than help to.
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saying the "Muslims" were trying to conquer the "Christian" world sounds better than the Muslims were trying to conquer a very large land area which is heavily dominated by Christians. So, he oversimplified it to an audience while pandering to an audience.
Atticus said:
If I correctly recall, he was given a presentation of the torture equipment, which was a usual prelude to the torture itself, and then he recanted his theories. Also he was in house arrest for the rest of his life, I think.

However, common view of Galileo as a martyr of science isn't that correct. He for example was kind of begging trouble by writing the pope as "Simplicus" in one of his books. Also it isn't so simple that the church believed in age old dogma, and Galileo challenged them with science based on observation. Galileo's research was much based on the works of scholastics and thought experiments, and much of the opposition against it was because the observations didn't support it (one reason for this was that he didn't have law of inertia like Newton did).
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The presentation of the instruments was a mere formality since torture was prohibited ~30 years prior. His house arrest wasn't so bad considering he had servants

His proof for motion was a tide a day, yes one tide... The Church was fine with the Heliocentric theory as a predictive model, but he demanded it be taken as absolute truth. The knock out argument to the Heliocentric was the lack of observable stellar parallax, this argument was delivered by Aristotle...
 
Ajidica said:
Seljuk wars with Rome. Jerusalem was nominaly grouped in with the Eastern Churchs. However, I have a hard time assigning any hard blame to the Seljuks. The Pope calling the crusades happened almost a decade after Alexius had asked the pope for help. It is the opinion of Asbridge that Urban was looking for a way to assert the temporal authority of the church over the knights who had nearly unseated him.
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The offical call to the Crusades was made 24 years after Alexius's request for help, and while that is delayed there without a debt a cause-effect relationship. And the Crusades were Gregory's wet dream first, not Urban's. International coalitions took some time to organize the 11th century. Additionally, I am not sure what knights you are referring to. The Crusades may very well have been in some part a ploy to generate more power, both ecclesiastical and temporal, for the Papacy, but I see little affiliation with Investiture Crisis.
Ajidica said:
IIRC, Al-Hakim was quite unstable and soon overthrown.
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Yet I doubt this mattered to the Christians!

Ajidica said:
Really? The Schism happed around 40-50 years earlier and the Romans and Catholics had some bad blood between then over the past years.
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IMO (though I may be wrong) the Schism wasn't terribly deep, nor was reunification off the table for some time. The wounds were merely deepend and finalized by tension in Outremer, further disagreements between the clergy, and particularly the 4th crusade.


civ_king said:
saying the "Muslims" were trying to conquer the "Christian" world sounds better than the Muslims were trying to conquer a very large land area which is heavily dominated by Christians. So, he oversimplified it to an audience while pandering to an audience.
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However, those two sentences mean very different things. The first one paints the expansion of the Ummayuds and the Abbasids as a pronlonged jihad specifically targetting Christendom.
 
Geeze, don't you people like any fact-distorting myths? Y'know, the truth is kinda hard to take sometimes. Maybe people need myths in order to live sensible, happy lives.
 
BuckyRea said:
Geeze, don't you people like any fact-distorting myths? Y'know, the truth is kinda hard to take sometimes. Maybe people need myths in order to live sensible, happy lives.
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Ignorance is bliss eh? I can agree with this at times. I also believe that over half of recorded history is well told myths. But that's just me.
 
aronnax said:
Actually, in regards to the Qing Dynasty, they did fall because they stubbornly refused to adapt to a changing world.
There were at least 3 different attempts to reform the system of Qing China.
Self-Strengthening Movement
1895 Reforms
Post Boxer Reforms

Even though the Self-strengthening Movement did improve part of China's technology, most of the reform was superficially and rather weak.
Firstly, most of the reforms were targeted at military technology. The Qing Government, although convinced that they were behind the European nations, were only willing to reform their armies and navies. They believed that the Chinese system was inherently correct and all they needed to do was to use 'barbarian' technology against the 'barbarians' and once they expel them from China, they can return to the peace and harmony of otherwise 'superior' Chinese culture, system and governance.

Thus, most reforms out of the military, like industry and transportation, were very weak, most of the accepted only half-halfheartedly. And there was absolutely no attempt to change the education system or way of governance, which Meiji Japan had shown, was a very key aspect to modernisation. To the Chinese, all that non-military reforms were inferior to 'Confucian China'. Strike one win for conversatism

The 1895 Reforms was initiated by the Guangxi Emperor in the aftermath of China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese war and the Dowager Empress' semi-retirement. To Beijing, clearly self-strengthening did not work and the Emperor believed serious and true reform was needed. And while the Guangxi Emperor ordered for true reform, the reforms were incredibly outrageous in the context of 1895. Most of the bureaucrats knew that such reforms were impossible and didn't carry them out, waiting for the conservative backlash to take place, namely, the Empress Dowager's coup back to full power and Yuan Shi Kai's betrayal of the Emperor and him, siding his Beiyang Army to the Empress.

The Post-Boxer reforms were a bit like the 1895 reforms but scaled down in terms of radicalism. However, by this time, it was too late.
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Nonsense. The Xinhai Revolution was prefaced by a total top-down eradication of the Chinese educated gentry system to attempt to bring in schooling methods in a closer line with Western norms, and (much earlier) by the creation of the Western-model Beiyang Army and Navy (the latter of which sucked, but whatever...). These "post-Boxer" reforms, as you dismissingly referred to them, undermined the entire ideological authority of the state.

If the entire system of the educated gentry no longer was linked to the governance of the state, then to what was the governance of the state linked? And if the Emperor wasn't claiming to be the ruler due to the Mandate, then why was he ruler of China? Bayonets. And those bayonets brought down the imperial regime in 1911. Embarking on the "post-Boxer" education reforms may have been done at the behest of the European powers, with relatively little choice in the matter for the Qing; that does not change the fact that their enactment removed the only solid bloc of civil supporters that any Chinese regime ever had.
 
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