“What is history, but a set of lies agreed upon?”
————– Napoleon Bonaparte (supposedly)
Needing a break from the doom and gloom, I hope this is a fun and educational post. Then again, most people hate if their favorite myth is challenged. So, I expect some “you’re full of shit” responses … as if I care. I didn’t verify the stories. Do your own homework. I’m not providing links. Do your own homework. Besides, maybe only 5% of you click on them anyway. So, let’s get going.
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AMERICAN MYTHS
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GUN FIGHTS WERE COMMON IN THE VIOLENT WILD WEST
We believe this myth because of one reason only; the power of TV to create perceptions. How many murders do you suppose these old western towns saw a year? How about five? That was the most murders any old-west town saw in any one year. Ever. Most towns averaged about 1.5 murders a year, and not all of those were shooting. You were way more likely to be murdered in Baltimore in 2008 than you were in Tombstone in 1881, the year of the famous gunfight at the OK Corral (body count — 3) …. and the town’s most violent year ever.
As for the traditional Western gunfight as depicted in movies, the inaccuracy of handguns at the time would have made quick-drawing skill irrelevant: It was simply so unlikely you’d hit a guy on the first, second or third shot that it didn’t really matter which guy got out his gun first. Forget about “fanning,” rapidly cocking a single-action revolver between rounds like Clint Eastwood does in A Fistful of Dollars. You’d be lucky to hit a henchman if the duel took place in a closet.
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“WAR OF THE WORLDS” – WHEN AMERICANS WENT BAT-SHIT CRAZY
How stupid do we think Americans were back then? Orson Welles’ radio production supposedly plunged millions of Americans into mass hysteria, as frightened listeners overloaded phone lines, fled cities, rushed to warn their loved ones, rioted and even attempted suicide for fear of the alien attack. Life Magazine even ran a photo of a farmer defending his land against the Martians, shotgun in hand. Newspapers happily jumped on reporting the panic in the days and weeks afterward, and even Adolf Hitler commented on the supposed hysteria. Something to the effect of, “An army of futuristic war machines trying to take over the planet.”
The reality? Total bullshit. Life Magazine just had the Mr. Shotgun Guy pose for it. Most of the War of the Worlds freak-out was exactly as fake as that photo. There’s no doubt that SOME people thought the broadcast was real. Radio was still new and a fake news broadcast had literally never been done before.
Reports of people immediately flying into a panic–attempting suicide, hallucinating alien death rays or fleeing to the countryside with guns in hand—were all anecdotal stories told second hand with no names attached. And although the phone lines to the studio were unusually busy that night, mixed in with the people asking for information, were people praising or complaining about a show that seemed like it was clearly designed to create a mass panic. FACT is; people back then would have reacted in exactly the way we would today: flipped to another station, called somebody to ask what was going on, or just looked out the damn window. Why did this myth take hold back then? Same reason 9-11 Truthers exist …. a good portion of the populace thrives on Bullshit.
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“NO IRISH NEED APPLY” SIGNS WERE COMMON.
There is a core of truth to this, but it is exaggerated in collective memory. Yes, Irish Catholics faced discrimination. “No Irish Need Apply” newspaper advertisements existed. Workplace signs were not common, but Irish were effectively barred from “better”occupations and shunted into low-paying factory work and domestic service.
Well know historian Richard Jensen stated in “The Journal of Social History”; —- ““The fact that Irish vividly ‘remember’ NINA signs is a curious historical puzzle. There are no contemporary or retrospective accounts of a specific sign at a specific location. No particular business enterprise is named as a culprit. No historian, archivist, or museum curator has ever located one; no photograph or drawing exists. No other ethnic group complained about being singled out by comparable signs. Only Irish Catholics have reported seeing the sign in America—no Protestant, no Jew, no non-Irish Catholic has reported seeing one.”
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AMERICA BECAME INDEPENDENT ON JULY 4, 1776
Probably not 1 in 1,000 Americans knows the following. The American Revolution raged for another seven years after July 4, 1776. Independence from England was finally granted on September 3, 1783 when Britain’s George III and US leaders signed the Definitive Treaty of Peace.
[Bonus: During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress in 1774 chose Peyton Randolph as the first President. George Washington was actually America’s 15th President, albeit the 1st elected by the people.]
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BUNKER HILL WAS ONE OF THE KEY BATTLES IN THE REVOLUTION
Bunker Hill had no major effect on the Revolution. The battle was small, involving only a few thousand men altogether, the battle didn’t change the war in any particular way or introduce some new way of warfare. The British were about to withdraw from Boston anyhow even before the battle.
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BENEDICT ARNOLD HATED AMERICA
He loved America. His betrayal was tit-got-tat, because he felt America betrayed him first.
He was arguably America’s best general. On numerous occasions he saved America from total defeat. The most notable being the Battle of Saratoga where he disobeyed orders and turned defeat into victory. That victory turned the tide of the war and led France to ally itself with America.
He never received any credit for his achievements. Lies were spread about him throughout the army and scandals erupted. Even George Washington, whom Arnold thought was his friend, abandoned him and gave credit to Arnold’s victory at Saratoga to Horatio Gates, a man who nearly lost the revolution at Saratoga had it not been for Arnold. Arnold was demoted to a small garrison post The sense of complete betrayal and insult angered Arnold, and led him to betray America.
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BEN FRANKLIN FLIES A KITE IN 1752
No. The experiment was done by French scientist Jacques de Romas in 1753. When De Romas asked the Paris Academy of Sciences to acknowledge that he had been the first to successfully complete the experiment, the committee agreed, provided Franklin didn’t provide details demonstrating that he had priority. Franklin was uncharacteristically silent on the subject.
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THERE WERE 13 COLONIES
As settlements were founded, each new city was recognized as its own colony: for example, Connecticut contained 500 distinct “colonies” before they were merged into one in 1661. Sometimes colonies were mashed together into mega-colonies, like the short-lived, super-unpopular Dominion of New England, which incorporated Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine, plus New York and New Jersey for a couple of years. Colonies also split, like Massachusetts, which spawned New Hampshire in 1679. And some colonies weren’t colonies at all: while it’s often listed as one of the
But on to 1775. There weren’t even 13 colonies then. Delaware wasn’t technically a colony or a province. Designated “the Lower Counties on the Delaware,” it had its own assembly but fell under the authority of the governor of Pennsylvania until it declared itself an independent state in August 1776. So technically, there were just 12 colonies in 1775 and 13 states in 1776.
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LIZZIE BORDEN – AMERICA’S FIRST WOMAN AX MURDERER
Do you have to be over 50 to recall this childrens’ poem? — “Lizzie Borden took an ax/ And gave her mother forty whacks / And when she saw what she had done / She gave her father forty-one” — First of all, the father was axed 11 times, mom 19 times. Lizzie was found innocent of the crime after a mere one hour of jury deliberation. Folklore says the rhyme was made up by an anonymous writer as a tune to sell newspapers. Lizzie was relatively well off when she died — $50,000 in the bank in 1927 — but the community ostracized her even after the trial, and only a handful of people showed up at her funeral.
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EVERYONE WAS KILLED AT THE ALAMO
The official Alamo website tries to correct this persistent myth: “It is true that nearly all of the TEXANS UNDER ARMS inside the fort were killed in the March 6, 1836, attack. However, nearly twenty women and children, who experienced the twelve days of siege leading to the final assault, were spared and allowed to return to their homes. The survivors also included Joe, the slave of William B. Travis. The best-known Alamo survivor, Susanna Dickinson, was sent to Gonzales by Santa Anna with a warning to the Texans that the same fate awaited them if they continued their revolt.”
[BONUS: The Americans who died at the Alamo weren’t defending liberty— they were protecting slavery.]
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EDISON INVENTED THE LIGHTBULB
No. It was invented a full 40 years earlier, in 1840, by British Astronomer and Chemist, Warren de la Rue.
Edison was actually a nasty and ruthless little fucker … a Bill Gates type. Edison did not invent many of the things attributed to him. He was very good at stealing, improving, and patenting many ideas before their original inventors were able to. He expended much effort discrediting other inventors in order to gain popularity for his own.
[BONUS: In 1862, at the age of 15, saved the life of a 3 year old boy playing on train tracks … right in the path of a runaway freight car. The boy’s father happened to be the station’s telegraph operator. He was so grateful to Edison that he took him under his wing, and trained him in telegraphy, sparking the inventor’s lifelong love affair with all things electric.]
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WITCHES WERE BURNED IN SALEM
Only in the movies. They were all hanged, except one, who died while being tortured. The wide-spread knowledge of the event is somewhat unusual considering how few died, only 20 (of about 150 who were tried) —- 14 women, and the oft forgotten 6 men.
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WALT DISNEY DREW MICKEY MOUSE
Actually, Walt was a rather poor artist. Mickey was the vision of Disney’s number one animator, Ub Iwerks. He single-handedly animated Mickey’s first short film, Plane Crazy (1928), in only two weeks … a remarkable 700 drawings a day … before computers. However. when sound films began later that year, Walt Disney played Mickey’s voice.
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MYTHS OUTSIDE OF AMERICA
LADY GODIVA RODE NAKED
Zero evidence for this. The myth is that Godiva pleaded with her husband, Leofric, to relieve the heavy burden of taxes he had imposed on the citizens of Coventry. Leofric said he would grant her request if she would ride naked through the town. She agreed but prior to her bare-assing he ordered the people to remain indoors with their windows and doors barred. Loosening her long hair to cover her as a cloak, she mounted her waiting horse. The people obeyed her command because of their respect for her. However, one man did not …. a man called llpoh …. just kidding … his name was ‘Tom’ …. who just couldn’t help peeking at her fine titties …. and, this is the origin of the term “Peeping Tom”.
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NERO FIDDLED WHILE ROME BURNED
Poor Nero … always getting blamed for shit he didn’t do. If anything, he played the lyre — as the violin needed another 1,000 years to be invented. According to Tacitus, upon hearing news of the fire, Nero rushed back to Rome to organize a relief effort, which he paid for from his own funds. After the fire, Nero opened his palaces to provide shelter for the homeless, and arranged for food supplies to be delivered in order to prevent starvation among the survivors. In the wake of the fire, he made a new urban development plan. This wasn’t the first time “Rome burned”. The old city was a perpetual fire hazard of extremely crowded housing build of wood. Houses after the fire were spaced out, built in brick, and faced by porticos on wide roads.
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GALILEO DROPPED OBJECTS OFF THE TOWER OF PISA
Universally discredited by historians. Scientists had been dropping shit from the Tower for as long as 50 years prior to Galileo. The source of this myth is easy to trace. Galileo’s biographer and pupil, Vincenzo Viviani, mentions the experiment in his account of the scientist’s life. The lie has been repeated ad nauseum ever since.
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MYTHS ABOUT VIKINGS
—– Vikings were a nation. No. The Old Norse word víkingr denoted not a nationality, but occupation: a Viking was anyone, from any nationality, who took part in an overseas expedition.
—– Vikings wore horned helmets. Totally false.
—– Vikings’ preferred weapon was a massive double axe. No double-headed axe has ever been found from early medieval Europe. Viking axes were light and used single-handed. The most common weapons found on Viking sites are spears
—– Viking armies were huge. Based on archeological evidence for the size of their boats … 50 or so men … Viking armies numbered in the hundreds, at most.
—– Vikings were exceptionally cruel and bloodthirsty. Vikings were sometimes very violent … BUT they were not substantially different from their contemporaries. For example, at Verden, Charlemagne, ordered the beheading of 4,500 Saxons. Furthermore, plunder was only one among many other goals of their overseas expeditions. Vikings peacefully colonized Iceland, Greenland and many smaller islands. As explorers they crossed the Atlantic and reached America 500 years before Columbus. As international merchants of their time, they also peacefully traded with almost every country of the then known world.
—– Vikings don’t know shit about football. True.
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VAN GOGH SLICED OFF HIS EAR
Partially correct. Van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime. He only spent eight years of his life painting. He spent most of his life teaching and dealing art. Van Gough attempted a partnership with the post-impressionist Paul Gauguin. But Van Gogh had a mental breakdown which led to an incident where he threatened Gauguin with a razor blade. Later on that night, while brooding over the attack, van Gogh took the razor blade to his own ear …. but only a portion of his left lobe.
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NAPOLEON WAS A LITTLE SHIT
Napoleon was 5’7” …. actually taller than the average 18th century Froggie. True, Napoleon was called Le Petit Corporal (“The Little Corporal”), but that’s because early in his military career soldiers used it to mock his relatively low rank, not his stature.
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GANDHI LIBERATED INDIA
Partially true. Most historians agree that Indian independence was inevitable. Gandhi was just one of several independence leaders. The Indian National Congress was founded as early as 1885, when he was only 16. Many historians believe that India would have achieved independence sooner if they had focused on the more forceful methods that they had used 50 years earlier, rather than the slow process of Gandhi’s ancient ideals of ahimsa (non-violence.
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MISH MASH POTPOURRI
MAGELLAN CIRCUMNAVIGATED THE WORLD Nope. He only made it halfway. He was killed by natives in the Philippines. His second-in-command, Juan Sebastian Elcano, completed the circumnavigation
Helen of Troy was from Troy. No, she was actually a Spartan, who probably never set foot in Troy.
The Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure that can be seen from space . No, it can’t.
Jesus spoke Hebrew. No record of that. The Bible specifically says he spoke Aramaic. Greek was the secondary language of the region, it was the language of the common version of the Bible used by the Jews at the time, and since the NT teaches that Jesus read from the OT … it is very likely Jesus also spoke Greek.
Amazon women cut off their titties. Hellanicus, some Greek dude, started this rumor. He incorrectly imagined Amazon was derived from the Greek prefix a- (“without”) and mazos, a variant of mastos (“breast”). That’s like saying the word ‘addict’ means a man without a dick …or, dictionary.
Slaves built the pyramids. The number of historians who still believe this is virtually zero. Excavated skeletons show that the pyramid builders were actually Egyptians who were most likely in the permanent employ of the pharaoh. No evidence of Joo builders, either.
Pythagoras discovered the theorem bearing his name. Nope. It was known to the Egyptians and the Babylonians long before he was born
Ancient Greece was a great nation: Ancient Greece is not the name of a nation – it is the name of the region in which up to 1,000 individual cultures lived and worked alongside each other. Each culture had its own rulers, its own armies, its own independence from the others
“Thumbs up” meant a gladiator would live. Quite the opposite … ‘thumb up’ meant kill him! There was no ‘thumb down’ signal. If the thumb was concealed in a fist it meant let him live.
Henry VIII had syphilis. Unlikely. 16th century standard treatment for syphilis was mercury. Lists of money spent on medicines for Henry VIII exist. Mercury is never listed.
Baseball is a true American sport: No. Baseball was derived from “Rounders,” a game played in Ireland since the 15th century, which contains most of the basic elements of modern baseball
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POPULAR SAYINGS NOT IN THE BIBLE
—— A fool and his money are soon parted
—— God helps those who help themselves
—— Cleanliness is next to godliness
—— God works in mysterious ways
—— Spare the rod, spoil the child
—— Money is the root of all evil
—— Moderation in all things
—— Pride goes before a fall
—— Charity begins at home
—— This too shall pass
EVE ATE THE APPLE
No! She ate from the “fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil”. That means it could have been any fruit whatsoever … or not a fruit at all, but more of an allegorical meaning. The most likely origin of the belief has to do with Latin …. the Latin ‘malum’ means BOTH apple or evil. [Apple Story Bonus: Newton was not hit by an apple. The story was first published in an essay by Voltaire, long after Newton’s death]
Damn Stucky, that is some interesting shit. I come here to learn. Seriously. News to me.
Sooo…. The USA is solvent?
Like it. Like history
It is a sad day . I needed those cowboy myths. Now I know for sure there is no hope.
Re gunfights in the old west:
I have spent my working life in a town that began as an overnight camp on the Chisolm Trail. It’s the place where the infamous outlaw Sam Bass met his end. It happened like this…he was spotted and identified buying something in the General Store. Before he could leave town, a group of vigilantes gathered, approached him by stealth, and then shot him down in cold blood before he had a chance to defend himself. This was typical of frontier justice in the old west.
Re Benedict Arnold:
Eggs Benedict…you have to respect a guy who invents the most important food item for Sunday Brunch, regardless of his political indiscretions.
Van Gogh’s ear:
It has been postulated that Gauguin cut off his friends ear in a drunken brawl, and Van Gogh
covered for him, because that was a serious crime for which Gauguin would have gone to jail.
Henry VIII had syphilis:
Actually he had the French Pox.
Gandhi did not invoke non violence because he was non-violent; but because the British forcibly disarmed India and he had no other option: http://www.naturalnews.com/038372_Gandhi_nonviolence_right_to_bear_arms.html
“I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence,” Gandhi wrote in his famous work, Doctrine of the Sword.
Gandhi also advocated justified violence over the “cowardice” of submission. Again, this is in his own words:
…Hence also do I advocate training in arms for those who believe in the method of violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor.
Gandhi also explains that someone who cannot use violence to defend themselves or their family is a helpless coward and a “worm.”
In his own words from the text Between Cowardice And Violence
…He who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honor by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully …
[When violence] is offered in self-defense or for the defense of the defenseless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission.
@KaD
Excellent quotes
Thanks, all. It took a few hours to put together.
Eddie … “Eggs Benedict” …. funny ……. did Julius invent Caesar Salad?
Keep the comments coming, folks.
Some of the most famous paintings of Bonapart showed one of his hands inside his lapel. Some say ‘heartburn’ gimmie a break. Anyone?
Caesar Salad was invented by an Italian chef in Tijuana.
Benedict Arnold didn’t really invent Eggs Benedict…but Santa Anna did invent chewing gum.
Nice post, Stuck. Very creative. Do you like that show “mythbusters”? probably.
Here’s a few myths you hear quite often:
The more you spend, the more you save
Eat all you want and lose weight
The Federal Reserve saved our economy
Stimulus helps the economy
We don’t pay that much in taxes
I don’t know many old doctors, but I know a bunch of old drunks/smokers.
Political correctness allows for a more civil society
There is such thing as a “free lunch”, free food, free housing, free medical care, free phones.
Politicians, lobbyists, lawyers have our best interests in mind
Divorce is sometimes good for a family
It’s not stealing if you don’t get caught
America is the shining beacon on the hill. We are just and righteous
Police are there to serve and protect
The government needs to spend $3.4 trillion dollars per year
We don’t have a spending problem, we have a revenue problem
Your neighbors will help you in a pinch.
You can trust the government, and they will also help you when you need it
O.K., a little cynical.
Mythbusters is one of my most favorite shows …. can get all episodes on Netflix, commercial free.
Eddie, thanks for clarifying the Eggs Benedict deal … you had me fooled there. 😯
The 10 greatest rock’n’roll myths
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,1415153,00.html
From strange deaths to blood transfusions and dubious fish-related practices, it’s time to debunk the tallest tales
Graeme Thomson
Sunday 20 February 2005
The Observer
1: ‘Mama’ Cass choking on a sandwich
When ‘Mama’ Cass Elliot died in her London flat in 1974 at the age of 32, a hasty postmortem suggested she had choked on her own vomit while chomping a sandwich in bed. At 5′ 5″ and 240 pounds, it was easy to believe that – like a female version of Monty Python’s Mr Creosote – Elliot had simply gambled on one mouthful too many. Not so. The coroner’s report after her death concluded that Cass died of massive heart failure, brought on by obesity and the strains of crash dieting. Though a sandwich may well have been found at her bedside, the autopsy revealed no evidence of food in her trachea. Tragically, it appears she died peckish.
2: Marilyn Manson starring in ‘The Wonder Years’
This fuels every parent’s fear that the most innocuous geek-child can go stone bad. Did the young Brian Warner (aka Mr Manson) play Paul Pfeiffer, goofy pal of Kevin Arnold, in the schmaltzy rites-of passage TV show? ‘It’s kind of irrelevant whether these rumours are true or not,’ quoth Manson. Well actually, Marilyn, it’s not irrelevant to Josh Saviano, who really did play Paul Pfeiffer.
3: The Beatles’ spliff in Buckingham Palace
Sometime after our four young heroes bounced into the Palace in October 1965 to receive their MBEs, John Lennon claimed they’d shared a toke in the loos. Not the most reliable witness – he once claimed he wrote ‘Eleanor Rigby’ – Lennon later ‘fessed up, admitting ‘we’d have been far too scared to do it’. McCartney, meanwhile, remembers simply having a ‘sly ciggie’ with the chaps to calm nerves.
4: Keef’s blood transfusion
Keen to clean up for a European tour, Richards reportedly replaced his poisoned old claret with an infusion of healthy blood in a Swiss clinic in September 1973. In reality, it was probably only haemodialysis, which filters impurities from the bloodstream. ‘Someone asked me how I cleaned up, so I said I had my blood completely changed,’ Richards said. ‘I was fucking sick of answering that question, so I gave them a story.’
5: Stevie Nicks having cocaine blown up her bum
It’s tempting to believe Fleetwood Mac’s queen bee followed her addiction to such deliciously depraved depths – but sadly, untrue. ‘That’s absurd,’ said Nicks in 2001. ‘Maybe it came about because people knew I had such a big hole in my nose. Let’s put a belt through my nose, because that’s how big the hole is.’ So she just talks through her arse, then. Maybe.
6: Robert Johnson’s pact with the devil
Famously, Johnson sold his soul to the devil in order to play guitar like a demon. You want prima facie evidence? How about ‘Me and the Devil Blues’, and the fact that young Robert was a poor guitarist whose improvement was remarkable. Actually, he used that little known voodoo technique ‘practice’, and was tutored by a bluesman called Ike Zimmerman. Not Satan.
7: Jacko and the elephant man
Reports surfaced in 1987 that Wacko had offered $50,000 for the remains of the Victorian patient Joseph Merrick, aka the Elephant Man. The offer may have been genuine, but Jackson doesn’t own the bones. Merrick’s organs were destroyed in an air raid on the Royal London Hospital during the Second World War. Casts of his head, an arm and a foot survived, but were not up for sale.
8: Sid checks in at Heathrow
Punk romantics believe that Sid’s mum scattered his ashes over Nancy’s grave in Philadelphia. It’s more likely that Ma Vicious arrived back at Heathrow with his remains. Malcolm McLaren claims she knocked them over in the arrivals lounge; hence the fanciful myth that Sid’s essence still circulates, wafting through the air vents and moving among the travellers.
9: Richey Edwards lives
Ten years on, Richey’s disappearance remains imbued with a Lucan-like mythology by those who love a good mystery. Given the extent of his problems – self-harm, alcoholism, anorexia – and the fact that numerous sightings have amounted to nothing, it’s safe to assume he’s probably no longer alive, sadly. But don’t expect the rumours to evaporate.
10: Led Zep and the mud shark
‘A pretty young groupie with red hair was tied to the bed,’ claimed Stephen Davis in Hammer of the Gods. ‘Led Zeppelin proceeded to stuff pieces of shark into her vagina and rectum.’ Not quite. Zep did catch sharks from the window of their hotel, but the pesce in question was actually a red snapper, while the perpetrator was road manager Richard Cole.
Leobeer
Did I read that Mama Cass entry correctly? She died with a pecker in her mouth??
Ozzie Osbourne really did bite a bat … but didn’t bite its head off.
“One night in Des Moines, someone threw a live bat onstage. Stunned by the lights, the bat lay motionless. Osbourne, thinking it was a rubber toy, bit into its neck. He was rushed to the hospital and tested for rabies.”
Alice Cooper : We’re on between the Doors and John Lennon. The end of our show was always the same, we’d open up two or three feather pillows and we had a couple of CO2 cartridges. Well one feather pillow will look like a blizzard on stage, three of them is just insanity, and in the middle of this all of a sudden someone throws a chicken on stage. I’m sittin’ there not even questioning who would even bring a chicken to a rock concert. We didn’t bring it, but, you know, there it is. There’s this white chicken on stage. I picked it up and I threw it back in the audience because I’m from Detroit and I’ve never even been on a farm, so I figured it would fly. And the audience tore it to pieces. The odd thing about it is that the first three or four rows of that crowd were all in wheelchairs. So, it was all the cripples that tore the chicken apart — they, basically, crippled the chicken. And the next day, I get a call from Frank Zappa and he says, ‘Did you kill a chicken on stage last night?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And he said, ‘Well, don’t tell anybody. They love it.’ He says, ‘You’re a legend already.’ That hit the UPI and AP press so fast it was ridiculous.”
Great post Stuck!!
And you did it without using the word without which men could not wage war.
The majority of BP posters are obviously very well read and should realize that vulgarity is the crutch resorted to by those who lack the ability to express themselves.
Not that I don’t occasionally make the same error.
Quinn has assembled a great bunch of thinkers and I feel honored to be able to express my opinions and adjust them according to the info posted by others on the site.
That was then, today is now. People thought differently then, read their books!
WE the people, have the experience to take us to the stars while the government program will take us into the dark ages. Release the regulations.
While most of our publicly educated citizens have no idea that the Civil War for all practical reasons was over with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. or even the years the civil war was fought, it did not actually end on that day.
There were several later battles but the last battle of the Civil War was the Battle of Palmetto Ranch in what was then and for some reason still is Dimmit county Texas fought on May 12–13, 1865. The Confederate’s forced the union troops to retreat to Brownsville and heavily mauled them with little loss themselves. Shortly after it was discovered that the war was over so the victorious Confederates surrendered. The French Foreign Legion just over the border in Mexico kept tabs on the whole thing and may have supplied some artillery to the confederate forces hoping to stir things up a little in what had been relatively quiet region.
But they were not the last to surrender. The last Confederates to surrender were crew of the CSS Shenandoah on November 4, 1865. Being some somewhat confused they sailed to England and surrendered to the British.
wrt cass elliot’s death. it wasn’t her london flat. it was owned by a friend, musician and songwriter harry nilsson. he was often in the us for extended periods, and would lend the flat to friends. like keith moon. who died in the same flat, four years after elliot. both died at the age of 32.
nilsson sold the flat to pete townsend after mood od’d and died.
Well done, Stuck.
I was thinking “Steamboat Willie” as the origin of the mouse but remembered old misinterpretation.
Edison probably never heard of de la Rue but he sure did pluck from the work of Joseph Swan.
great post herr stucky.
TL;DR
..hmmm..vellly intervesting Herr Stuch.
BENEDICT ARNOLD HATED AMERICA ..Yep Bennie certainly got a raw deal in the history books , but at least his name wasn’t Mudd.
I had a neighbor who did wild west shootout shows and he pointed out that most people in the old west were shot in the back.
Ill cheer you up with the thought that its so easy to shoot someone when they first come out theyre front door.You just dont know who has his sights on you and from what distance.And the fact that your usually not wide awake in the early am.
I read this over the weekend and then came back and read with comments today.
Thanks to all, I love using brain cells on things like this.
And I love learning the truth behind the myths.
Nicely done all.
Not in full agreement on the Alamo – saying it was about “protecting slavery” is a pretty strong overstatement.
It was much more about the creation of an independent Texas republic – with slavery being a smallish piece of the puzzle (slavery was always an economic institution protected in politics rather than the other way around).
The slavery argument’s popularity has grown alongside the growth of Political Correctness.
“George Washington was ……. the 1st elected by the people.”
—-from Stucky’s article
Wrong. Washington was chosen as our first president LARGELY by electors appointed by the state legislatures. His election looked nothing like presidential elections today, where the people turn out in mass and directly vote for whomever is on the ballot or write in a name of their choice.
True, there were states like Virginia where voters (eligible voters back then were highly restricted and were basically free white males) turned out to vote on the electors of the state instead of them being appointed by the state legislature, but even then, not very many did so. Some 30,000 people voted in Virginia. A mere pittance when the population of the entire country was just over 3 million, which included an estimated 600,000 slaves.
Just to be even clearer before some nitwit corrects what I said above, yes, I know the electoral college still exists and that the president is NOT chosen by the direct vote of the people, but by electors, who are supposed to follow the will of the people by casting their vote for whomever won the popular vote in each individual state. Nonetheless, voting for the president nowadays is a far cry from what the election looked like when Washington was chosen.
I wish public education spent last time trying to teach us to draw and “be creative” and more time teaching us about important things.
Slavery was illegal in Mexico and a bunch of American immigrants moving in, demanding independence while owning a lot of slaves in total disregard of Mexican law was not something the Mexican state was very happy about.
Bottom line: The Mexicans were fighting to defend their country and to hold it intact. While Texans were fighting for certain freedoms and a more liberal judicial system. One of the more substantial and key freedoms they were seeking was the right to own slaves.
A book that covers this is “Alamo Traces: New Evidence and New Conclusions” The magazine Texas Monthly says “The result is possibly the most meticulously researched book [15 years] in the history of Alamania.”
MYTH: — Davy Crockett died fighting, swinging his rifle, “Old Betsy,” with a heap of dead Mexican soldiers at his feet.
FACT:— He was captured along with six other Alamo defenders and immediately executed.
Mexico as an independent country had existed for less than 15 years at that point. The Spanish built their empire on slavery, they just called it by a different name. (Religious conversion).
Great post, Stucky!