ITT: Historical misconceptions you believed for a long time

>America didn't lose vietnam

>All peoples and cultures are equal.

>A duke got shot

but that's literally what happened

I feel the same, but stop and think about it for a second. It's already complicated enough to convince most of the kids and teens that they must be taught history. Can you imagine how titanic the effort would be if you start the course telling them nothing you're gonna teach them can be trusted 100% and you're at best teaching a summary of the limited consensus?

That wasn't the only cause though.

>the romans was white

>Egyptians were black
no seriously

>Even in the AP classes they didn't even fucking discuss the complicated start of world war I, they basically just said "A duke got shot."
We started WWI with the Congress of Vienna and the teacher was constantly apologizing about how much he had to simplify.

What a gross misunderstanding of Einstein's relativity.

Einstein used Gaileen relativity as one of the axioms to derive special relativity. Galileo did not make equations of motion that were Lorentz invariant, and he definitely did not write the Einstein Equations of motion that described spacetime in Riemannian curvature.

You seem to know absolutely nothing about what Einstein did. He did not go:
DUDE ALL INERTIAL REFERENCE FRAMES ARE THE SAME LMAO

They weren't?

>the Treaty of Versailles was too harsh and caused WWII
>the Wehrmacht was just fighting for its country and didn't participate in atrocities
>WWI was a bloodbath because the generals were incompetent

There are plenty of others, but those are some of the big ones. History as taught by popular culture and high school is shit, so you end up with tons of misconceptions by the time you get to uni

Being white has about as many vague quantifiers as being a continent, it's just a meme.

it's not?

Yeah I know that, White is a very blanket term.

What I mean is did they really not LOOK white? As in pale?

but they're not..

That the Mongols left Europe because Ögedei died

yeah I know. but I used to be one of those retarded WEWUZ supporters back in middle school.

No. You see the first romans was ruled by kings who was black. Tarquinius superbus the last black king of rome was overthrown by the whiteys who ruled rome for a couple of centuries. Until sulla the great black general overthrew the whiteys and exterminated them in the social war. Now blacks was running rome again and a whitey wasnt seen in the region again until it was sacked by alaric and the whiteys eventually killed or sent the black romans to africa. Julius caesar was black

lmao, thankfully you got over it m8

>native americans had nations and centralised governing
>america contributed the most to ww2
>hitler only had one testical

>Tarquinius superbus

KEK

>Medieval Europe was organized according to 'the feudal system'
>All Holocaust victims were gassed in camps
>England never had a revolution

I think I might have just read enough for today.
It's time to stop posting.

Too complex for Veeky Forums

That being contrarian is almost as retarded as believing things taught by the "mainstream"

please explain briefly, otherwise I might just have to assume these "other reasons" are nothing more than trivialities that did contribute to the war, but weren't really all that significant

>He did not go: DUDE ALL INERTIAL REFERENCE FRAMES ARE THE SAME LMAO

That was literally my point

>Ireland was conquered by the English
Ireland was conquered by the Normans under Henri II

Looks like french posting hours are here late

Wait, are you saying the natives did or did not have those things?

>The American revolution was the first successful revolution in history

What do you mean? Do you seriously believe the war started just because some archduke who nobody liked got shot?

Franz Ferdinand's assassination was just a pretext for Austria to crush Serbia, which they had been wanting to do for some time. Nobody actually cared about him, the Austrians were actually quite happy to have him gone. There were a bunch of other factors in the run up to the war that contributed to tensions in Europe that made war more likely as well. How much detail do you want?

America DIDN'T lose Vietnam

this.

>Napoleon was an evil dictator

look up the Iroquois Confederacy.
also before disease came by accidental way of Columbus, this was much more common

I do think it was an important catalyst, yes, although I am aware plenty of other factors were also in play. But for the purposes of telling someone what/how WW1 started, the intentionally shallow "muh duke and then muh alliances" suffices.

My question though, is that what were these other factors exactly from your perspective (bullet-points preferably), and if they were equal to or even greater in significance.

>just google it lol

This isn't a matter of historical knowledge -- I am aware of what happened. I am just curious on what your input would be personally, and briefly too.

FF's significance was that he was the main voice of the anti-war sentiment in war-hungry Austria. His death wasn't the cause of the war, but his existence was one of the last obstacles to it happening.

TL;DR
Nationalism reached extremist levels
Some power hungry generals (Moltke in particular) didn't give a shit about diplomacy
Wilhelm of Germany was a jealous idiot who didn't realize what he was starting
and France wanted revenge for Franco-Prussian War
Also alliances and the damnable Balkans

Fair enough, but I would still defend that the assassination of the duke is a key catalyst and isn't really a misconception, as much as it was just memorable.

Had the duke not been assassinated, no doubt war might still have occurred, only delayed.

I agree, the true problem with teaching teenagers is that teenagers are insufferable cunts.

You're a pretty demanding guy, but I'll play along. BTW I'm not the same user as the one who originally listed it as a misconception.

The main cause of the war was perceived changes in the balance of power. Various preceding crises (Morocco, Bosnia, Balkan Wars, etc.) had convinced most European statesmen that war was inevitable at some point. The Austrians and Germans feared that the balance was shifting against them, so they resolved to start a war sooner rather than later while they still had a chance at victory. The German general staff had actually set a 1914 to 1917 window of opportunity when Germany could potentially defeat France and Russia, before the Russian military reforms made things impossible.

I disagree with a lot of this.

>FF's significance was that he was the main voice of the anti-war sentiment in war-hungry Austria. His death wasn't the cause of the war, but his existence was one of the last obstacles to it happening
FF wasn't that influential. Nobody in the Austrian government listened to him. His morganatic marriage made him an outcast at Court. He would not have been able to stop war.

>Nationalism reached extremist levels
The actual decision-makers were not much motivated by popular nationalism (which is greatly overstated anyway)
>France wanted revenge for Franco-Prussian War
Revanchism is mostly a meme by 1914. It was big in 1870s and 1880s, but after the Dreyfus Affair militarism was pretty discredited in France. Certainly the French government was not taking any proactive actions to take back Alsace-Lorraine in 1914.

I agree with you 100%. I suspect that the original user is long gone now, but nonetheless, I do feel that his remark of "basically in high school my teachers told me a duke got shot what a misconception!" was a bit unwarranted. They weren't wrong, it was just incredibly simplified reasoning appropriate for them being in fucking high schoolers with students that don't give a shit.

t. someone who had told high schoolers that a duke got shit muh uneven balance of power muh alliances

I grew up in Australia during John Howard's (Our Thatcher) reign and he took personal interest in completely fucking our History curriculum to make it more "balanced" in what would be called the "History wars".

>The Stolen Generation occurred sometime in the 1800s if not earlier. The Stolen Generation was just poorly implemented policy designed to help Aboriginal people

In reality, the Stolen Generation took place from about 1905, to get this, the late 1970s.
The Stolen Generation also, actively was a policy of eugenic cultural genocide

>"Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation, all native characteristics of the Australian Aborigine are eradicated. The problem of our half-castes will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white."

This was the purpose of the policy, that was still being carried out, in the 1970s. (And most Australians still think we shouldn't apologize to Aborginals because "Nobody was alive here when it happened)

The really fucked up thing is, The Stolen Generation basically continues too this day, while the official name of the policy was scrapped, still just going in and stealing Aboriginal Children and giving them to white people is still the norm particularly in Queensland. They even fabricated evidence on national television in the mid 2000s to justify it.

redflag.org.au/article/seven-years-how-abc-lateline-sparked-racist-nt-intervention

They tried very hard to avoid this in our school. All concepts with no dates.

Fair point. I definitely sympathize with you: I understand it is extremely difficult to make things simple enough for high school students to understand but also accurate.

But I do think oversimplifications still count as a sort of misconception, so the original user isn't totally wrong. The real problem I find with the "mud duke muh alliances" approach isn't so much that its factually incorrect, as it's incorrect in spirit: it seems to portray the whole thing as a comedy of errors where no one is really responsible, but in reality some people decided on war and took actions to bring it about.

Definitely high schools teachers aren't lying or anything like that though.

Gasoline can only come from underground Cache's (Coal to gasoline)

Quite right. The way I see it, is that anyone who actually cares about history would sense that a war with such magnitude as a world fucking war would immediately realize there's much, much more to the story than it seems, and thus would either ask privately about it or conduct their own little research.

Generally though, the average student learns what they need to learn to pass standardized tests. Ultimately, I blame the current state of certain school systems, but that's a different topic altogether for a different time.

oxygen is flammable

>there isn't a designated "good" or "bad" guy in a war
I'm happy I got this treatment in Elementary school, because, in Michigan, we were settled by the French who made friends with the Natives, and were taken over by the English, who we considered the baddies.
But then our founding Fathers were English, so we realized there was more depth to it. Except, they self-declared themselves as Americans to fight the English, so the English were still the bad guys, and then the War of 1812 was against the English.
It took me to 10th grade to realize that not all members of the Heer were fanatical, anti-semetic national socialists after playing some Resistance and Liberation as the Wehrmacht.
This then foiled out to every war, and that some people in ISIS are probably just people who want to live a normal life but have been impressed into soldiery.

>FF wasn't that influential
True, but I still feel his voice might have kept voice more lukewarm to conflict maybe not throw in so readily.

>Nationalism
>Revanchism
I mean at the public level, not so much the political level. Especially in republics, it's difficult to commit to such a war without the people.

>Alexander was a phaggot
He just had a real bro, no homo

there's literally nothing wrong with this, you race-mixing hating shitlord

>I mean at the public level, not so much the political level. Especially in republics, it's difficult to commit to such a war without the people
Sure, but most historians now agree that the people in the squares celebrating the outbreak of war were a small, vocal minority. Most people didn't want war (and even more so in France than other countries), but they accepted it because they felt their country was in the right and acting defensively and being forced into war by the other side.

Straight up lying is okay if it suits your agenda? Okay, user.

I also grew up in the Howard era, but I remember watching that movie 'rabbit proof fence' in school so idk.
Anyway it'd be sick to learn a little more about Aboriginal history.

Hydrogen separates from Oxygen in a Vacuum.

i dont get it

This is the only we wuz copypasta that I find funny

Premodern streets were surely pretty filthy

Was boring in 1991 and I learnt far more about the rainbow serpent in history and the ANZACS during ww1 than ANY relevant history that would of shaped the landscape of this world

>Stalin was bad

>Historical misconceptions you believed for a long time.
That Ayn Rand is good literature, her ideas relevant, and her philosophy nuanced and groundbreaking.

Hey go easy on me, I was young and thought I knew everything.

Communism doesn't work
Ayn Rand is a cunt, but left libertarian doesn't actually work so..
Still like good ol George

???

...

Your mom doesn't work.

stolen generation was about helping the aborigines who were in a dire situation (mostly the kids who lived in terrible conditions)

it was very poorly done and the consequences weren't verified properly but at its core it was supposed to help

For the record, Orwell never fought for the CNT-FAI. He fought for the POUM. iirc this was because he was a member of a British socialist party that was directly affiliated with the POUM so he just kind of ended up with them when he landed in Spain. That specific militia fell under the banner of Trostkyism, which is why the communists threw them under the bus along with the anarchists. Although, in Homage to Catalonia Orwell remarks in passing that he would have preferred to have fought with Anarchists during the Barcelona May Days. So, yes, the anarchists were likely his preferred faction, and his writing definitely reflects a tendency towards libertarian socialism, but George Orwell wasn't a member of the CNT-FAI.

I know I'm being nitpicky but I just thought I'd share. I love me some Homage to Catalonia. Orwell's probably my favorite writer.

honestly who thinks this besides alt-wankers trying to strawman the left?

Bob Hawke was our Thatcher you retard
>Labor leader
>Fucks over Unions
Top jej

>peoples and cultures can be quantified in an objective way
the greatest meme of them all

Actually the French were mobilizing according to Plan 17, which did exactly that, with the ultimate goal of occupying Berlin.

They are though. Doesn't mean that a society doesn't shouldn't expect outsiders to adapt to their culture or fuck off. A human being has no rights except those which he secures for himself, either by participation in a society that protects those rights as part of its daily function or by securing them with force over those he interacts with, and there is nothing wrong with a society expecting you to act a certain way in exchange for inclusion in its protection.
t. anthropologist.

Everything's objectively equal on the abstract plane, the user that made that comment is obviously retarded and doesn't deserve your response that required intelligence to make while his required less than a kw of brainpower

But Montezuma considered the possibility that Cortes was Quetzalcoatl?

(Source: The Broken Spears)

What was with that? Why was so much lesson time in both primary and secondary school dedicated to a failed campaign that didn't really effect anything. The freaking Battle of Brisbane has had more of a contemporary effect on Australia than Gallipoli does. Not to mention that the content of said lessons (at least for myself) failed to explain who the enemy actually were and their motives.

My family didn't migrate to Australia until the 60s, which made those 20th century ANZAC dickpulls especially irrelevant imo. We got people from all the great civilizations in this country, surely the education system can detail some of their military history as well? You know...cuz they actually had conflicts that mattered?

> Einstein invented E=mc2

>The Renaissance was a leap forward for philosophy and science

>Ancient Sumerians lived in desert

This, but it's easier for alt-right goons to slap a value judgement on things they have little but here say knowledge of

I mean "Egyptians" is a dumb fucking blanket term for a group of successive states that ruled an area for millennia. So it's not actually incorrect to say they were black, because at different points the southern "Egyptians" (black) were in power, though for the most part it was Arabic lookin fellas

One about WWI incompetence really gets me, so much more involved than "lol meat grinder why did they do that haha dum dums"

What was the reason they left Europe?

If war would have no doubt still occured, he isn't a key catalyst. You said it yourself

There is only one primary source that states (the chronicle of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine) that the mongols left because the Khan died. The same chronicle also claims that the Khan had been killed by God to save Europe. Actual Mongol records disagree with this: a high minister and historian of the Mongol Ilkhanate, Rashid Al-Din claims that the Mongols started leaving Europe before they knew of Ögedei's death.

The more reasonable explanation for the Mongol withdrawal is that they became bogged down in expensive sieges, they had lost a lot of men, their European line was spreading thin and the Cumans were rebelling. The Mongols also had a hard time capturing cities were most of the wealth was.

Well memed friend

Not really. Montezuma's priesthood popularized this idea (successfully) to explain their and his failures, and it was picked up by Europeans who liked the "Europeans as gods" narrative

It was so hard that the economic fine proposed on Germany was reduced for multiple times. Their economy in the 20s was literally "America invest pls" and even moderate chancellors like Brüning gave up on even finding a solution because there wasnt one. Its economic claims when they were changed after Hitler came to power. But Hitler was a retard.
Versailles would have been great if France and Britain would have had listened to Wilson. Either that or France and Britain should have properly enforced it.

Is it true that the mongols European force was a scouting force as well, not even a full army, or am I remembering incorrectly?

>Hitler had brown eyes