People Are Sharing The Most Common, Incorrect Myths About History They Can Think Of, And Reading Each One Is Validating Of My Own Annoyances
Recently, people over on Twitter were prompted by user @sewistwrites to share their (least) favorite historical myth pet peeves, and there was SUCH a variety.
Tell me about a common historical myth that makes your hackles rise. I don't mean actual disinformation like Holocaust denial; I mean stuff like "Napoleon was short!"For me it's probably "corsets were torture devices for the rich" and "romantic love is a very modern concept."
— Amy Colleen (@sewistwrites) December 7, 2023
As someone who also gets mad at a lot of these, the responses were incredibly validating. So, here are some of the best:
1.
That the Irish famine was about potatoes https://t.co/CU40eOBH0d
— lissa (@melissabreenx) December 10, 2023
In reality, the so-called famine was perpetrated by the British Empire, which forcibly removed food from Ireland and stopped the United States from supplying aid. According to the New York Times, "The million-plus Irish who starved to death did not die from lack of potatoes. They died from lack of food; from the gunpoint removal and export of the abundant wheat, oats, barley, beef, mutton, pork, poultry, eggs, butter, milk, fruit, and vegetables that they themselves produced... The 'famine' ended in 1849, when British troops stopped removing the food."
2.
OH! How could I forget!? That "Kids These Days" are lazy/rude/mischievous compared to older generations. Socrates was complaining about how books were rotting kids' brains and they weren't respecting parents in the BCE!!
— ♿️Maestro Fluger(he/him) 🇧🇴+🇺🇲 (@nfluger) December 7, 2023
Man, I hate when children contradict their parents, chatter before company, and gobble up dainties at the table! Things totally didn't USED to be that way!
But actually, the quote is not Socrates'. Rather, it was written by a young man named Kenneth Freeman, a student at Cambridge, and published in 1907 in an essay (over 300 pages long) entitled Schools of Hellas: An Essay on the Practice and Theory of Greek Education. Mr. Freeman was writing about Hellenic education and attitudes toward the youth, but was not quoting Socrates in the passage in question.
If you want to read some bitchy, contemporary stuff about the youth and Socrates, I recommend Aristophanes' Clouds!
3.
"Everybody died at 30" ... my dudes, I beg of you to understand averages and childhood mortality. "Everbody was so much healthier before modern food" ... thinner isn't the same as healthier and a bunch of those old timey diseases were just sparkling vitamin deficiency.
— Maggie Koerth (@maggiekb1) December 7, 2023
4.
That people in Columbus’ time believed the earth was flat. It was commonly known to be round. Why would Columbus think he could get to India by sailing west if he believed in a flat earth?
— Dallin Stuart (@DallinStuart) December 7, 2023
Greek philosopher Pythagoras first proposed the idea of a round earth around 500 B.C. According to NASA, a Greek named Anaxagoras in the 5th century B.C. figured that "the shape of the Earth's shadow on the Moon during a lunar eclipse [could be] used as evidence that the Earth was round."
5.
Thinking that people used to say "ye" rather than "the" in English (e.g. ye olde pub)It was written that way because the printing equipment imported from the continent didn't have the letter "thorn" for printing "þe"
— James Deardenayake (@TechnocratGames) December 9, 2023
Þe Olde Alphabetical Misconception. JUSTICE FOR THE THORN, my favorite out-of-date English letter. Icelandic still uses it, though!
6.
The life expectancy thing has been mentioned a lot but DEFINITELY THATAnd calling Shakespeare or KJV “Old English”No, that’s Early Modern. You can read it and mostly know what it says.
— Amber Adams 🧶☕ (@wannabesongbird) December 8, 2023
7.
“The Catholic Church killed Galileo for saying the earth goes around the sun” they didn’t, though! I don’t know if it counts as a myth so much as a thing people get wrong a lot, but it bothers me.
— ~Tilma Swinton~ (@RhyminCarly) December 8, 2023
Apparently, he died at the age of 70 after succumbing to a fever.
8.
"Pink for girls, blue for boys" didn't start until the 1940s
— Chris Nodima 🍄 (@chrisnodima) December 9, 2023
This is true, according to the Smithsonian, and pastel hues went through a number of weird rules in the decades leading up to the '40s, like "blue [being] for blue-eyed babies, [and] pink for brown-eyed babies." The moral of the story? Rules are fake, dress your kid how you want.
9.
That divorce rates are higher in recent decades because "back in the day, people worked on their marriages and didn't just give up" 🙄 like no, women were seriously oppressed then and had few options compared to today (although we still have work to do)
— Resist and Persist ✊️🇺🇦🏳️🌈♀️ (@SkeelMagnolia) December 7, 2023
Fun fact: The US didn't have no-fault divorce until California adopted it in 1969; the last state to adopt it was New York in 2010.
10.
Everyone wore drab colors during the Medieval eraRome fell in the 400s (it actually fell in 1453)
— David Zsutty (@DavidZsutty) December 9, 2023
The medieval world was much more colorful than it looks on TV!
The second is true DEPENDING on your opinions of the Byzantine Empire. (But this writer says it counts.)
11.
This one bugs me a lot! Yes, due to poor diet/stunted growth people 100-150 years ago were *often* (not always) smaller. But looking at clothing alone often employs survivorship bias. Medical records (like those of Civil War soldiers) are a better way of guessing averages.
— Amy Colleen (@sewistwrites) December 7, 2023
12.
Samurai didn’t use guns which is a huge thing that comes up in a lot of western written stuff set after 1600 despite the Tokugawa Shogunate literally gaining its foothold due to the use of firearms. This is 100% not a thing in actual Japanese Jidai Geki. https://t.co/HcAp2m8OdL
— Kevin Fox michigrim.bsky.social (@Michigrimk) December 10, 2023
I didn't know this, but apparently, guns have "been part of samurai history almost as long as the katana." (Also for reference, jidaigeki are Japanese period dramas.)
13.
"High heels were devised to hobble women" is my fashion pet peeve. Men wore them as well for a very long time!
— Kuri (@therealkuri) December 7, 2023
No one told me Louis XIV could DRESS... (Just kidding. Yes they did. I want that robe.)
14.
salt has literally never been "worth its weight in gold" or anywhere close !!!! in medieval england, it was cheaper than wheat!!! https://t.co/rlev5fKIKw
— weird medieval guys BOOK OUT NOW !! (@WeirdMedieval) December 9, 2023
15.
the idea that the Library of Alexandria burned down one day and half of human knowledge was instantly destroyed https://t.co/Vmv8DXVIX5
— chocolate (@heyguysitsmecg) December 9, 2023
You guys, people had other libraries. Like, there were tons of other libraries. Over the centuries, the library in question saw multiple fires, was defunded as well as attacked, and now no longer exists. But I promise we did not lose any information that would have had us on Mars or curing cancer by now.
16.
Witches didn't burn at the stake in the Middle Ages, but in the early modern times, 2-3 centuries after the medieval period. Plus most died by other means than fire.In the Middle Ages, burning at a stake was for the heretics, and only the most prominent ones (J. Hus, G. Bruno).
— Marta Kozłowska (@KozlMarta) December 8, 2023
17.
That the entirety of the Western European medieval period was brown and drab with cabbages or whole roast animals to eat, and no-one washed 🙄
— When You're Strange (@a_broomstick) December 8, 2023
Medieval Europeans took baths, people, regularly, and with soap!
18.
The concept of the Dark Ages.Read Saint Benedict, Boethius, Cassiodorus, Pope Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, Aldhelm, the Venerable Bede, Alcuin of York, John Scotus Eriugena, etc, and try to tell me that this was a period of unmitigated barbarism. https://t.co/nZ7HEx5AZV
— naD 🇬🇧🏴✝️ (@PatrologyVotary) December 12, 2023
19.
Anne Boleyn wasn’t some temptress ruled by ambition. She didn’t even want Henry - he pursued her doggedly and wouldn’t accept no for an answer. She was a deeply religious intellectual who used her time as queen to improve the lives of women and the poor. https://t.co/ldHt7iOvwl
— Sad Fuckers Club Chairman (Taylor’s Version) (@ohfortheloveof4) December 8, 2023
20.
Aztecs did NOT think Cortes was a prophesied return of Quetzalcoatl, or that the Spaniards were gods. Also, Cortes did NOT have a romantic relationship with his native teenage girl translator known as Malinche. https://t.co/Vz2BwiXcta
— Aztec Empire (@AztecEmpire1520) December 9, 2023
According to JSTOR Daily, "Cortés' own letters during the conquest make no mention of being mistaken for or interpreted as a god." Rather, the story can be attributed to Cortés' secretary, Francisco López de Gómara, who had himself never been to Mexico but in 1552 asserted the idea that the Spaniards had been seen as gods.
21.
"Armor disappeared shortly after gunpowder became common" It didn't. Armor was used extensively alongside gunpowder for 2 centuries. And even after that, some troops were still wearing armor, like sappers and cuirassiers.Heck, French cuirassiers wore armor in WW1 https://t.co/1vWPspkK3v
— YoritomoArt - COMMISSIONS CLOSED (Slot 1/4) (@yoritomoart) December 12, 2023
I didn't even know this was a misconception (nor had I heard the claim), but I love learning about things that I've never even thought about before. Cool to know!
22.
So many! The vomitorium thing. Nero fiddling. Everyone in the Roman Army wears red. Roman slavery not so bad. Christianity stole [pagan thing]. Republic to Empire = democracy to dictatorship. The Empire fell because of [21st century political anxiety].
— Passienus (@passienus) December 10, 2023
You guys know I had to put at least one Rome tweet in here. And these are all so, so frustrating!
23.
Widespread early teen marriages. Absolutely falsified by church marriage records and yet people insist
— ozymomdias has the same u/n on the azure expanse (@ozymomdias) December 7, 2023
(For clarity, the tweet is saying that the myth is easily disproven due to the fact that we have church marriage records, not that records were falsified.)
24.
the 1950s. like in general every idea people have about the 1950s is so fucking wrong because they are getting those ideas from fuckawful family sitcoms. its like if all anybody knew about the 90s was from Full House reruns https://t.co/Jre19XNpRB
— kalashnikaname 🇵🇸 (@ultrafuturist) December 9, 2023
25.
More of an attitude than a myth, but instances of "chronological snobbery" (i.e. "We enlightened modern people would never act like those barbarians of old") really grind my gears.
— Will Albers (@WJAlbers) December 7, 2023
This started with people in the Enlightenment looking down on medieval Europeans; most of the things they believed about them simply aren't true.
26.
White wedding dresses are about the “purity” of the bride. Which obfuscates that white wedding dresses flaunted wealth, because only the rich could afford a white dress that you would only wear once.
— GryffEndora #BLM #translivesmater #loveeachother (@GryffEndora) December 8, 2023
According to Vogue, "Laundering clothing was taxing in the 19th century, and white dresses were hard to maintain. Unlike today, wedding gowns were worn several times during a lifetime."
27.
Marie Antoinette never said “let them eat cake”. This is the hill I’ve chosen to die on.
— Heather Dawes (@hoorayheather) December 7, 2023
...Many, many historical pet peeves here. Feel free to share your own down in the comments! I love to read them, LOL. They can be about people, places, things, battles, parties, textiles, or anything else your heart desires. Your pet peeve may be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community post!
