Common Historical Misconceptions

[Neutron]

That the Wright brothers are the fathers of aviation and were the first to fly.

In fact it was one of my fellow country men who built the glider that did so by the name of Sir George Cayley who in 1849 launched said glider piloted by a 10yr old boy. This was the worlds first flight.

A John Stringfellow a man from Sheffield built a craft made of silk thus unable to fly out in the open and in 1848 his machine took flight, flying less then 10 metres, though due to it being unmanned, is the worlds first powered flight he was not the first to fly in a powered vehicle.

So the Wright brothers were simply the first to fly a powered plane. Unfortunately beating one Percy Pilcher to that title due to Pilcher suffering from a bad case of death due to a glider crash. In 2002 his design for a plane - only partially contructed before he died - was built and shown to be better the the Wright's flyer.

 

[Nassirisimo]

Eh? Mao was plenty of evil himself. Thats no excuse. Nazism is worse because the only reason its death tolls didnt turn out worse than communism is that Hitler was stopped. The death rate per annum in the 40s was several times worse for Nazism, and the Nazis did plan the slaughter of hundreds of millions in East Europe.

Well, I always reckon Mao was more stupid then evil. Don't get me wrong, I think he was evil, but most of the people who died in the great leap forward and other related tragedies died not because Mao paticularly wanted to, but because the policies were so poorly designed.

 

[Beedok]

Eh? Mao was plenty of evil himself. Thats no excuse. Nazism is worse because the only reason its death tolls didnt turn out worse than communism is that Hitler was stopped. The death rate per annum in the 40s was several times worse for Nazism, and the Nazis did plan the slaughter of hundreds of millions in East Europe.

I think Nazis are worse as their goal was to kill millions, whereas the communists killed millions to read their goal (whatever it was...).

 

[Fiver]

For me the Nazis remain as Evil Geniuses. After all, if you look at what they did in the field of technology in WW2 :
-They created the V1 and V2, the first missiles ever used

The German government (among others) was researching missiles long before the Nazis came to power. The Nazis just coopted existing research.

-How they industrialized death in the Shoah was successful to the point it scares everyone to the death.

That takes bureaucrats, not evil geniuses. And the Khmer Rouge was a lot more efficient at self-extermination.

-The Enigma machine was the best coding machine ever created in WW2... The Allies would have had more problems decrypting german codes had they not accidentally discovered one in a sinking u-boat.

The Enigma was patented before the end of WWI. The German military adopted it years before the Nazis came to power. The Nazis had nothing to do with it.

The Poles figured out the Enigma in 1932. That was no lucky accident, but a combination of hard work and spying. Hitler wasn't even Chancellor of Germany yet.

-The Germans had by far the best equipped army before the beginning of WW2.

An awful lot of the Panzers that the Germans used Poland, France, and Russia were developed and built by the Czechs. Unfortunately, the Munich Agreement handed over the Sudetenland, including the Skoda Armament Works.

 

[archaeogeek]

For me the Nazis remain as Evil Geniuses. After all, if you look at what they did in the field of technology in WW2 :
-They created the V1 and V2, the first missiles ever used
-How they industrialized death in the Shoah was successful to the point it scares everyone to the death.
-The Enigma machine was the best coding machine ever created in WW2... The Allies would have had more problems decrypting german codes had they not accidentally discovered one in a sinking u-boat.
-The Germans had by far the best equipped army before the beginning of WW2.

They started the war with poor logistical trains that couldn't handle spring/fall mud, and no tank that could even put a dent in a KV1 or reliably kill (even hurt) a T34, and the soviet tank could pretty much run circles around the early panzers.
As for the rest, the Shoah doesn't require genius, it requires collective lunacy and efficient bureaucrats.

 

[xchen08]

For me the Nazis remain as Evil Geniuses. After all, if you look at what they did in the field of technology in WW2 :
-They created the V1 and V2, the first missiles ever used
-How they industrialized death in the Shoah was successful to the point it scares everyone to the death.
-The Enigma machine was the best coding machine ever created in WW2... The Allies would have had more problems decrypting german codes had they not accidentally discovered one in a sinking u-boat.
-The Germans had by far the best equipped army before the beginning of WW2.

Hmm, that's a pretty big list of common misconceptions right there.

1) Von Braun openly admits that he owed much of his work to Goddard. And quite frankly, neither the V1 nor V2 were useful weapons, the latter costing more in materials and effort than it can inflict in damage, and both being too inaccurate for military or industrial targets, and too expensive for effective terror attacks.

2) The Enigma machine was very much obsolete by Western Allied standards by WWII. The American SIGABA for instance was vastly more complex and secure.

3) It's already been pointed out that the German military was not the best equipped at the beginning of WWII. Moreover, what little advantage they had was from being the first to begin rearmament, and got a major windfall from looting conquered states, but then quickly started falling behind Britain and the Soviet Union even before American Lend-Lease started flooding in.

 

[Rex Romanum]

Another common misconceptions, especially for "non-western" people (like me) is that some of famous European Wars were fought between one power VS one power...examples:

-Hundred Years War: England VS France
The fact: England, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Portugal, Navarre, Flanders, Hainaut, Luxembourg, Holy Roman Empire, Denmark VS France, Castille, Aragon, Genoa, Scotland, Bohemia, Majorca

-Anglo-Spanish War (1585): England VS Spain
The fact: England, Dutch Republic VS Spain, Portugal

-Thirty Years War: Protestants/Lutherans VS Holy Roman Empire
The fact: Dutch Republic, Sweden, Bohemia, France, Saxony, England, Brandenburg-Prussia, Ottoman Empire, Denmark-Norway (1625-1629) VS Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Bavaria, Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Croatia, Spain, Denmark-Norway (1643-1645)

-Seven Years War: Britain VS France
The fact: Britain, Prussia, Hanover, Iroquois Confederacy, Portugal VS France, Russia, Sweden, Saxony, Spain

-Napoleonic Wars: France VS the rest of Europe
The fact: France, Holland, Kingdom of Italy, Etruria, Swiss Confederation, Kingdom of Naples, Bavaria, Saxony, Denmark-Norway, Ottoman Empire VS Britain, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Sardinia, Papal States, Sweden, United Kingdom of the Netherlands

 

[Rudi Maxer]

Nazis were evil geniuses.

No, they were a bunch of racist freaks who took control in country leading in several technologies and with plenty of capable scientists. Crediting nazis for V2 or enigma has as much sense as crediting democratic or republican party for Moon landings and internet.

 

[Space Oddity]

That takes bureaucrats, not evil geniuses. And the Khmer Rouge was a lot more efficient at self-extermination.

Better at it? Quite possibly. Efficient? Not in the least. The Khmer Rouge had very little centralization or methodology in its killing. It was essentially a lot of squabbling local chiefs all operating on vague, horrible dictates from the Angkar. The whole messed-up system largely worked on an assumption that the Khmer Rouge knew what to do, and if they did it long enough, utopia would result.

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

3) It's already been pointed out that the German military was not the best equipped at the beginning of WWII. Moreover, what little advantage they had was from being the first to begin rearmament, and got a major windfall from looting conquered states, but then quickly started falling behind Britain and the Soviet Union even before American Lend-Lease started flooding in.

I'm surprised that nobody mentioned yet how for the entire duration of the war, the Germans relied greatly, if not mostly, on horse-drawn wagons for transportation. That's a sign they weren't very well equipped at all.

 

[Atom]

-That there was no metalworking in Mesoamerica. There was... it's just complicated, and really dependant on where it was in Mesoamerica. The Tarascans had good bronze-work, and it really differed from there.
-That the Maya collapsed solely because of Environmental collapse. The reality is more complicated, although nobody can agree on exactly how it was more complicated.
-That Native Americans are always doomed to failure. Always. That's just bothersome. Ther were certainly periods where Native Americans could have succeeded in remaining independant.
-The same goes more for Africa.

 

[archaeogeek]

-That there was no metalworking in Mesoamerica. There was... it's just complicated, and really dependant on where it was in Mesoamerica. The Tarascans had good bronze-work, and it really differed from there.
-That the Maya collapsed solely because of Environmental collapse. The reality is more complicated, although nobody can agree on exactly how it was more complicated.
-That Native Americans are always doomed to failure. Always. That's just bothersome. Ther were certainly periods where Native Americans could have succeeded in remaining independant.
-The same goes more for Africa.

Lack of metallurgy I'd generalize it to the entirety of the native americans; fledgeling "calcholithic" metallurgy existed in the north west too, and the Incas also had bronze. A lot of the issue was one of resources: iron is iirc rare in mesoamerica, while obsidian is common enough and pretty awesome for cutting.

 

[Snake Featherston]

That the Axis troops were inherently superior to those of the Allies in WWII. I've never understood how that works as surely if they were they would in fact have won that war.

Another pair of related ones will be treated separately. The first is that Grant was a butcher. General Grant's strategy was to force a battle in the open and crush the Confederate military opposite him with superior firepower and numbers. Lee was trying to trade space for time and hoped to secure that George McClellan and the Peace Democrats would win the election of 1864. As it was the attrition battles just helped to bolster the Union's already-growing strength and increasingly evaporated what was left of the Army of Northern Virginia.

The other is that the Union adopted attrition strategies in 1864. Grant as noted did not in fact do this, he had a grand strategy that was on the whole like that of McClellan's but unlike him had less fear of soiling his reputation on the battlefield with the risks of an actual fight. Sherman used a maneuver campaign and exploited the idiocy of General Hood, Grant's attrition struggles didn't help the ANV any at all.

Another is that the USSR won solely by virtue of We Have Reserves. Actually the Soviets won in the main due to adapting to and negating German tactics, reviving their own prewar tactics, and lots of logistical aid from lend-lease.

Another is that an independent Confederacy would somehow find in itself to abolish slavery when the OTL finally realized its policy toward slavery was contributing to its defeat in late March 1865.

One other is that the rise of Christianity and Islam both were inevitable and foreordained, and that Judaism will always become a non-proselytizing religion.

Oh, and that the great power in Eastern Europe will always be Russia and never Poland or Sweden.

 

[Grand Prince Paul II.]

-Thirty Years War: Protestants/Lutherans VS Holy Roman Empire
The fact: Dutch Republic, Sweden, Bohemia, France, Saxony, England, Brandenburg-Prussia, Ottoman Empire, Denmark-Norway (1625-1629) VS Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Bavaria, Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Croatia, Spain, Denmark-Norway (1643-1645)

Actually, it was even more complicated. Saxony was initial ally of the Emperor Ferdinand II and helped him to subject the rebellious Bohemians.

 

[SavoyTruffle]

That Russia will always unite.

 

[Cuāuhtemōc]

That the Confederacy would be able to annex Cuba, Hispaniola, etc and build a slave empire in the Caribbean which is really stupid. The South on its own at that time would've been a third world country.

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

I've railed against it in other threads recently, but I'll say it again here because the idea still keeps popping up. The idea that there ever was or ever could be in the past some form of "Celtic Unity" or brotherhood or whatever. Celtic is at best a very, very broad linguistic/cultural group. But some people think that in any time prior to the Victorian Era's rise in nationalism and romanticism of stuff like this, that nations like Ireland or Scotland would unite against foes like England because both share a Celtic background. Despite the fact that they had different feudal lords and different languages and fought constantly. That's not even the most ridiculous, at least Scots originally came from Ireland and some spoke some form of a Gaelic dialect, though most spoke Scots. The Welsh aren't even Gaelic or Goidelic at all, being Britons, dammit people, BRITONS! What average Welshman could even understand Irish? Let alone relate with them. Their cultures had for ages been very different and the Welsh/Irish had been fighting long before the Normans or even Saxons came to British shores. Hell, after the Normans came to British shores the Welsh joined them most willingly in shooting poor Irishmen. I'm surprised that so few people obsessed with this Celtic Union garbage take it to its logical extreme and suggest the Bretons, the Gauls, and the Galatians of modern Turkey for good measure join the Welsh, Irish, and Scots.

One of the more annoying things about this nonsense is how not a single Celtic Union proponent or believer that they were ever united suggests in ATLs the GERMANIC UNION OF GLORY! The only person I've heard of who suggested anything like that was Hitler though. But it is still a good comparison. We Scandinavians, English, Germans, etc all speak languages that are in the same language family. Hell, they are probably closer than some of the Celtic languages. So how come the UK sided with France (!?) against Germany not once, but twice? Or how Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have always been attacking or being attacked by Germany and England and eachother. I don't get it!

 

[Ze Kaiser]

Warrn G. Harding was an evil, rampaging, incompetent loon who wanted nothing more than to see America burn and single handedly engineered the Great Depression to do so.

No, Harding was incomptenet in many regards, but he was a pretty decent fellow. His "friends" on the other hand were not. They could play Harding like an electric guitar at a rock concert. Harding was actually quite shocked and enraged when he learned of the corruption in his administration, and the betrayal of his "friends" is speculated to have helped kill him. The Great Depression came from many other sources.

Woodrow Wilson was a perfect saint.

BS. The man was a racist without equal. He introduce Jim Crow laws to D.C. and segregated the government.

 

[Yorel]

Catherine de Medicis was a monster and an arch-catholic
In fact, she is one of the people who contributed to end the religious wars in France, also her role was less important than those of her son Henri III and Henri of Navarra (later Henri IV).
Also, if she was truly arch-catholic, why would she have tried to marry one of her sons, Francis of Alençon, to Elisabeth I of England, one of the main protestant rulers of the time?

Henri was the birth name of Henri III of France
In fact, his birth name was Alexander. However, he was christened under the name Henry. The same event happened with his younger brother Hercules, who was christened under the name Francis (in memory of his elder brother Francis II).

That the Iron Mask is only a fiction
The Iron Mask did exist, but his identity remains unknown to this day and this has made him the most known prisonner in French history. The fiction that he was the hidden twin brother of Louis XIV is only one of the many theories upon his identity and was popularized by french author Alexandre Dumas.

Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan are only fictionnal characters
While the characters of the books are fictionnal, they were based on real characters but who existed at different period of times. For example, D'Artagnan is based on Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore, Comte d'Artagnan.

After Ferdinand I of Austria's abdication in 1848, Franz Joseph I was the next line and that's the reason he got the throne
In fact, Ferdinand's brother and Franz Joseph's father, Archduke Franz Karl, was still alive at this point. He didn't get the crown because of the so called "women's plot" where his wife Sophia of Bavaria had him agree to renounce his rights to the throne, allowing Franz Joseph to become Emperor of Austria.

Queen Victoria is the only "Grand Mother of Europe"
In fact, that title could be given to other great female monarchs in History. Maria Theresa of Austria married her many sons and daughters to various European princes and princesses and thus her blood ran through some of the European royal families.
Josephine de Beauharnais can also have that title, as the children from her son (Eugene) married into various royal families, including Sweden and Brazil (which is a branch of the House of Braganza, who ruled Portugal).

 

[Snake Featherston]

Another few that irritate me.

Russians fight wars using sheer numbers. Actually that was not the case. The famous generals like Suvorov and Kutuzov did not in fact do this, and the only time they did so was WWI. They lost that war and and the Soviets were forced to embrace it due to desperation as they had never developed a defensive doctrine in the Interwar period.

That the Axis Powers were extremely efficient and modern. They were the latter, certainly, but not under any circumstances the former. The Nazis were extremely inefficient and their system was not adapted to a long war, albeit for the good reason that Germany couldn't win a long general war in Europe. Like their 1914 precursor the Nazis' policies led to expansion of the war beyond what their state could adequately handle and they were outproduced by the Soviet Union in December 1941.