My favourite is the story that there was mass panic over a radio broadcast of War of the Worlds where everyone thought a real alien invasion was happening. I heard this story as a kid and really thought this was a cruel prank played by the radio station.
In reality, they made it clear at the beginning of the broadcast, and twice during, that it was fictional. Not that many people were listening and most of the people who were, were aware it wasn’t real. A few idiots freaked out and it somehow turned into a story of mass panic. It was propaganda by newspapers to discredit radio.
Some poor young girl got knocked up and she didn’t want to say who the father was so she made up a story about how a spirit had impregnated her.
I think that one got way out of hand
Someone mistranslated Almah/Parthenos, the word for young girl, as virgin
Also known as the case of the oblivious husband
You mean Joe the cuck?
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The idea that eating carrots helps your eyesight came from WW2 Britain. It was an intentionally spread lie to cover up for the fact that they had radar.
Oh, I’ve got a carrots one, too. Rabbits don’t have a particular fondness for carrots. We just think they do because of Bugs Bunny. But Bugs eats carrots to imitate a Clark Gable scene in It Happened One Night, with the carrot substituting for a cigar. Over time the connection got lost and it just sort of became “rabbits = carrots”.
They don’t mind them, but they have no particular preference for them.
That’s not the only Bugs Bunny-related thing, either. “Nimrod” has come to mean “idiot” because of its use by Bugs. But that’s not the intended meaning in the cartoons. He specifically says it to Elmer Fudd. Nimrod is a Biblical figure, known for being a great hunter. He’s being sarcastic. But again the reference got lost and people just thought it meant “idiot”.
I don’t get how spreading the claim that carrots help your eyes covers up having radar, it feels non sequitur …
It’s the explanation for why the Allies could spot their planes in situations where they would otherwise not be easily visible. If it happens a few times you might write it off as luck, but if it keeps happening over and over you might get suspicious.
With that said, I don’t think they really bought the carrots thing. Both the Allied and Axis powers knew about radar and how it worked. It’s just the Allies figured out how to build and deploy their systems first.
It was counter intel propaganda
The British threw some bullshit out there to distract from the actual technology
I belive Remote viewing is similar.
I thought it was changing the light colour of the cockpit lights from white to green.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
The Boston Massacre.
9 officers were surrounded by like 300 angry Bostonians who were wielding clubs and other weapons and goading them to fire their weapons while throwing shit at them. The fact that the only punishment for the officers who killed five people following their trial (in colonial court defended by John Adams) was that two had their thumbs branded indicated how two-sided the situation was.
Paul Revere’s famous engraving depicting the incident was intentional anti-British propaganda used to advance the cause of the revolution.
There was a gap in [some military capability] during the Cold War, and the USA was losing it. Almost anything you stick in there, Russia was behind. They sometimes implied otherwise, but it’s rare that they ever were. Occasionally, they used everything they had to just about match.
By the 1960s, their navy was pretty good, though. Don’t let anyone tell you they were just a bunch of vodka drunk idiots. Not at that time, anyway.
At the opposite end of what this thread is about, Dr Strangelove is far more correct than it should be.
I like the part where we saw the MiG-25, freaked out because it looked very capable, built the F-15 to actually exceed those capabilities, and then only found out after the fact that the MiG-25 wasn’t nearly as good as we thought.
Similar to the Strangelove example - although not about history - know what medical professionals consistently say is the TV show which not only had the most accurate medicine, but also best depicts the social paradigm of working in the medical sector? Scrubs.
The cruiser gap as an example. Was never real, it only existed because of the US Navy classification system of time.
The US Navy would call ships frigate or destroyer leader when they had the size and capabilities of a cruiser in the Soviet navy. The 1975 Ship reclassification cleared it up and also made organization much easier than the dozens of confusing hull designation.
While Wojtek serving in the Polish army during the invasion of Italy is true, a lot of his exploits are exaggerated. I still love it though.
Him helping out is confirmed, and if I remember correctly, the story of him carrying artillery shells is among the confirmed ones. And yes, he did in fact drink beer. But no, he didn’t smoke cigarettes, on the account of being a bear. He ate them, though.
So many apocryphal stories are just the best…
At a dinner party, someone accused Winston Churchill of being drunk.
“That may be, madam, but you’re ugly, and I’ll be sober in the morning.”
Likely never happened.
But the one that breaks my heart is that there is no evidence Carthage was salted after being destroyed.
It definitely sounds like a much later story when salt and arable land wasn’t that important. Romans also made a colony on the ruins of Carthage just 20 years after the war.
The Egyptian pyramid wasn’t built by slaves. They were built by paid workers and evidence shows that they were treated well. Maybe they had some slaves but I think it’s more likely a kind of adoration for their God/pharaoh
Um, isn’t that slave story a point of pride for a certain religion?
If you’re talking about Judaism, the Torah never specifically mentions that they were building the pyramids, just that they were slaves in Egypt.
Hoo boy, bringing religion into a “false or exaggerated history” thread…
I remember hearing about it back in the 70’s. Mentioned to my dad and he said he heard about the invasion part (most people did not hear the warning part at beginning of the show as they tuned in late). My dad and his 2 brothers took off for a week to the bush (they lived in northern Ontario) saying let’s see what’s happening after that week. Take the story as you wish, could have been true or they liked spinning stories. Was easy to believe as when they were younger they did go to the bush fairly often.
Myth: “The Polish military committed suicidal cavalry charges against German tanks in WW2.”
The myth was originally spread by Germany as propaganda to emphasize how Germany was technologically superior. The myth has largely stayed alive because it has become romanticized into a heroic act.
The truth is that Polish cavalry charged German infantry, successfully taking ground against them. German tanks counter-attacked and Polish cavalry sensibly retreated but some were killed. Images of the aftermath were used to start the myth.
That’s crazy, They got me.l I should’ve known better, I’ve heard my share of derogatory polish comments
Actually in WW2, it was the German army that was ultra reliant on horses. Not as cavalry, but for transportation.
The truly mechanized side was the Allies. Canada alone made more trucks than all the Axis powers combined.
Also:
That the French are terrible at war. The French are actually insanely good at war, which is why like half the words of the military lexicon are French. They just got hoodwinked a couple of times.
Also also: The Spartans were invincible and all about freedom. No they weren’t on either count. They actually regularly got their asses handed to them and the reason they needed a huge army was to prevent internal revolt from their slave class. They just got that one pass and milked it for all it was worth and EVEN THEN they had a LOT of help from folks like the 700 Thespians.
They just got hoodwinked a couple of times.
I think that’s being unreasonably generous to the French. Their military was staffed with elderly officers, and they had very poor communications. They didn’t use radio very much and telephones were often cut, so they had to rely on motorcycle riders.
Also, for some reason they refuse to believe that the Germans would advance through the Ardennes, as they had the previous two times they invaded France.
Their army then essentially gave up, and they agreed to set up Vichy France, a collaborationist state that was very efficient at rounding up and deporting Jews to the gas chambers.
The French also refused to hand their Mediterranean fleet over to the British at Mers-el-Kébir, so the British sunk it rather than risk allowing the ships to be used by the Germans.
That the four good emperors of Rome, namely Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pious and Marcus Aurelius had a good thing going until Marcus by deciding to pass the empire to their adopted sons. Nerva was also there with his excellent decision to adapt Trajan out of everyone.
This is portrayed as an altruistic non-nepotism move when in reality they were all childless. Nerva and Antoninus specifically selected because they were old and childless and Hadrian was just straight up gay. They probably would have passed on the empire to their sons if they had them.
Jesus, Jews, Jerusalem, January, June, July…
The letter J wasn’t invented until the year 1524…
Which is why in Latin, “Jehovah” starts with an “I.”
That the USA saved europe in ww1 (they did in ww2 but they are also the once kinda at fault for it with forcing a weak democratic system on a weak germany), that they invented democracy (litterly italian republics and german hansiatic citys have been around for much longer at the same time as them)
That germany could have won ww2. No we could never have. Too much with too little resources.
The wehrmacht didnt so horrible things. Oooh yes they did. Where do you think the SS got the lists of the jews and who helped transport and kill jews and others?
Middle ages were all doom and dark. No they were pretty af!!
Middle Ages were probably not very fun as an average person, working hard 7 days a week. Also, no toilet paper.
They still werent all doom and dark. All grey. Only war.
Meanwhile, when Ghostwatch was on, people panicked even though it had been announced as a “Play on (BBC) One” for weeks.
I think it’s still on YouTube somewhere.
One woman famously sent the BBC a dry cleaning bill because her husband had literally shat himself
Oh Lord, that’s hilarious.
There’s a story about how Zhuge Liang, a general and strategist during the Three Kingdoms period, protected a city from a 150,000 strong enemy army by hiding his force of 100 soldiers, leaving the gates wide open and playing a lute atop them, in plain sight of the enemy general. The enemy saw that, thought “No way I’m falling for this trap” and retreated.
That never happened, but Cao Cao did pull a similar feat against Lu Bu - the town had dense forests nearby, where forces could effectively hide. Lu Bu retreated the first time, but came back the next day and attacked, only this time Cao Cao’s soldiers were actually hiding in the forest and fought Lu Bu.
