The 5 Ridiculous Lies You Were Taught In History Class…
April 7th, 2008
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I found this article which is right on the money when it comes to the myths that have found their way into history books. It is a little bit American-centric (in terms of the history classes) but still worth reading. I’m very pleased to find that number 1 on the list is the whole story of Ben Franklin and the kite experiment. There are varying accounts as to whether Franklin actually flew a kite at the time of a thunder storm in order to determine if there was electrostatic buildup in the air, but one thing is for sure and that is that he was not flying a kite that got struck by lightning. If he had been, he would be severely injured and quite possibly killed!
I remember actually arguing about this in 12th grade history class. The story came up just as a passing mention of Franklin’s involvement with science but the details were as bogus as ever: The kite was hit by lightning (it wasn’t); A key on the kite attracted the lightning (it wouldn’t); the lightning came down the wet kite string but Franklyn was insulated by a length of dry twine (that would not work). Of course, lightning does not seek metal, it seeks ground and if it comes down a wet kite string it will not simply stop at the end where there is a key. Rather it will find the next best path to ground. If there happens to be a big bag of saltwater (such as a human) standing next to the key, then that will likely be the path it takes!
Oh yeah: There are four other good myths to read about too!
This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Education, History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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April 7th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
The best quote from the link:
“There’s actually a good reason why it’s a bad idea to include Robert Ripley among the references in your advanced university thesis. The famous bizarre trivia “expert” never cited his sources, and the various “facts” he presented throughout his career were an amalgamation of things he thought he read somewhere, heard from somebody, or pulled out of his ass. The feature’s title probably should have been: Believe it or Not! I Get Paid Either Way, ****s.
I used to get into so many arguments when I was young when I challenged something written in that stupid feature.
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April 7th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Actually, one thing I have wondered about the Franklyn thing: Since kids love to experiment and play and build things, I’m wondering if any hapless kid has ever tried to recreate the experiment based on the idiotic and inaccurate information given. That would be very dangerous if it has been done!
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April 7th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I do know that it’s bull that Einstein failed math as a kid, but I have heard a lot of accounts of him, some of which seem to be reliable and direct, which indicate he had a lot of problems throughout his life with organization, language, memory and other issues.
One thing I remember is that he took an unusually long time to learn English even though he had been schooled in it. He apparently also had a tendency to do things like go for long walks and forget his way home or to completely forget appointments. It is said he took a while to learn how to read.
I have heard a lot about there being speculation that he had a bad case of ADD and perhaps dyslexia as well.
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April 7th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Yes it is true that Einstein was horrible at remembering things and that is apparently how some of the iconic “absentminded professor” comes into play as the iconic image. He was also terrible at spelling and he liked to play the violin but did so very poorly.
Of course he was brilliant as well, but I think that many now consider the idea that he had ADD to be just about proven.
Some info:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980907140525data_trunc_sys.shtml
Of course he was still a genius on things he set his mind to especially regarding science and math where he had uncommonly good skill. A lot of the thing with ADD is that people can be very good at something in general but either loose focus on it or just make stupid errors that they should know better than making.
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April 7th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I’ve read elsewhere that Washington was rather vanilla as Founders of Nations go and that probably this was the biggest stroke of luck the young Republic had. Were he the larger-than-life type that often leads revolutions he may well have tried to set himself up as an autocrat and the problems that would have caused might have led to a break up of the new union.
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April 7th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
If I may add a few others:
The Pilgrims were not celebrating Thanksgiving in November 1621, it was just a harvest festival. If it had been thanks to god it would have been subdued and no Indians would ever be invited. Also, they were not always as friendly with the natives as made out to be. They stole from them and later broke treaties. The fact that the local Indians were so tolerant and sometimes helpful with them may have had to do with conflict with other tribes and seeing an advantage of having allies with guns and metal. Or they may have just had a lot of patience, but it wasn’t as Rosie as it is made out to be.
thumbs down in the colosium did not mean “kill” it meant “throw down your sword” and there was probably no thumbs up but rather a covered thumb or some other gesture.
Thomas Crapper did start a plumbing company which did create some innovations relating to toilets but he did not invent the flush toilet.
A lot of the supposed history of Julius Ceaser especially relating to his murder is not really historical account but rather comes from Shakespeare’s play.
Neil Armstrong did not wish Mr Gorski good luck while on the moon.
PT Barnum did not say “There is a sucker born every minute”
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April 7th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
The world is round – like a DVD! :> :> :>
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April 7th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
DV8: IMHO Washington *did* qualify as “larger than life.” One of the more remarkable things he did was to voluntarily step away from power, when he had the opportunity to hang on to it. This puts him head and shoulders above any of the career politicians that infest our government today.
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April 8th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Burya Rubenstein said:
If you mean round and flat then… no. If they want to teach kids it’s a sphere? Well, not really but considering the other crap our kids are taught I figure telling them the earth is a sphere is close enough. At least approximately right. There are better things to complain about. As long as they don’t plan on calculating the orbital manuvers of any satellites or designing any GPS systems or anything they’ll be fine. Those who do plan on doing that can find out the truth when they get to engineering school.
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April 8th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I don’t think I remember us ever going into the geometry of earth in school beyond it being round. I don’t think anyone asked if by round they meant curved or spherical. For that matter, I’m not sure they ever made a point about it not being a disc. That was a while ago though so I could be wrong.
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April 8th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Another big lie is the Charles Dickens standard of living during the industrial revolution. Here’s some movies taken in 1904 inside the Westinghouse factory:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/papr/west/westhome.html
I don’t see anyone wearing rags or child labor except some apprentice engineers here. I’ve done a lot of research on early industrial factories and this is not atypical.
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May 21st, 2009 at 10:35 am
Interesting post and thanks for sharing. Some things in here I have not thought about before.
I’m going to bookmark this page so I can return and keep reading.
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