Examples of falsification of history

This is somewhat like the debate over who first discovered the New World. What people forget is that the important part wasn't finding America (someone was bound to stumble across it eventually). The important thing was finding it and getting the Old World to act on that discovery. That's what marks Columbus's achievement as more important than Leif Ericksson's.

In the same way, the important thing wasn't achieving powered, heavier-than-air flight (a Roman candle can do that) but in achieving powered controlled flight. In that respect, the catapult was largely irrelevant, since it has nothing to do with the control aspect of the flight, just the propulsion. Now, if Brazilians take a measure of pride in Santos Dumont's achievements (and they were no small achievements -- Santos Dumont was a very important figure in early aviation), in the same way that Norwegians take pride in the achievements of Leif Ericksson, well, I don't have a problem with that.

Paaskyden - there is a species of "history war" going on in Australia as we speak.

I will have to return and give you references after work - but, to summarise.

Long ago, little Australians were taught that the Aboriginal people here (if mentioned) pretty much did not resist "settlement" and that their poor state today was the result of culture shock - ie that their culture was overwhelmed by the more advanced one and they were just sort of fading away. Tasmania (which had lost pretty much all its native inhabitants) was given as an archetype of this. It suited thre political climate of the time.

Research was done in the sixties and seventies and eighties - and a new picture emerged - one of resistance and pretty much deliberate genocide - Tasmania was given as an archetype of this. It suited the political climate of the time.

Now - some historians are researching and challenging this view - and countering it - saying that the evidence for massacres and deliberate genocide is very poor and exaggerated. Tasmania is given as an archetype of this. It suits the political climate of this time.

This is real academic and political warfare!

I will be back, and give you some references.

Oh Our Dear Wabbit . . .


The accounts of the early explorers of Austrialia, such as Sturt, Flinders, Bass, Eyre, Kennedy and many, many others, when they survived to give the account, report hostility and violent attacks by the aboriginal inhabitants. A similar pattern seems to me to have played itself out in English-speaking North America, and in those portions of the Americas which the Spanish explored. An initial reaction of the aboriginal inhabitants was either pity for or contempt of the starving, newly-arrived people, whose pale countenances often convinced the aboriginals that they were very ill, even thought this was not necessarily true. Many examples can be adduced in North America of the aboriginals feeding and offering other types of assistance to the first settlers.

However, if the reaction were contempt, and the Jamestown settlement in 1607 in what is now Virginia is a sterling example, the newcomers might be subjected to frequent attack and near constant harrassment. In the example of Jamestown, the newcomers unwittingly chose the shore of the Chesapeake which was inhabited by warrior societies--which circumstance was forced upon those tribes by the active, violent aggression of their relatively recently arrived neighbors, the Potomacs and the Susquehannocks. Those tribes, along with the local tribes, were all competing for the limited resources available, and which had been much reduced both by the rapid increase in aboriginal population as "new" tribes moved south, by the wanton, benighted destruction of some of the ecosystems in the earlier, abortive Spanish colonies in this region, and specifically in the first decade of the 17th century, by a prolonged period of drought. For more than a decade, the Jamestown settlement lost about 90% of its population each year. The constant arrival of new settlers was all that kept the colony populated--and it caused a justified alarm among the aboriginal. As time passed and the Virginia company failed, the Royal government took over the enterprise, and, increasingly, the new arrivals were "yoemen" farmers and itinerant agricultural laborers, who were becoming surplus population in England as the pace of enclusure sped up, and more and more of the rural "peasantry" were thrown out into the road. These people were, however, physically heartier stock than the "gentlemen," and "quasi-gentlemen" who had made up the first colonists of the Viriginia Company. Warfare became more deadly for the aboriginal, and they retaliated with more fury. This eventually lead to the 1622 war, which was general throughout the Tidewater, and for which the debacle at Martin's Hundred has become an archetype. More than 20% of the casualties sustained in that summer of war fell among the roughly 150 settlers there.

Commerce was common among the aboriginals of the North American continent, a kind of pack-what-you-can-on-your-back and go walk-about kind of commerce. There is abundant evidence for this in the records of the Hudson's Bay Company, the correspondence and journals of the Jesuits who went out to Thunder Bay and then spread out among the Huron and the Algonquian tribes, and in the correspondence and journals of the Moravian Missionaries (who filtered west out of eastern Pennsylvania, and often moved unmolested even in the midst of raging war, because the Indians became convinced that they were all infected with lunancy [how else explain their suicidal peregrinations?] and therefore sacred and immune). It took very likely less than a generation for almost every band from Hilton Head to Father of Waters to become at least vaguely aware of the arrival of pale-faced people with terrible and murderous magic at their disposal. I find it hard to imagine why anyone would wonder why there was near constant warfare between a set of tribesmen just arriving in a technological age, and a set of tribesmen relatively recently arrived in a Neolithic state. I stronly suspect that someone cleverer than i could make a case from the dispassionately viewed records of the colonization or attempted-colonization of the planet by Europeans that these wars were inevitable, and that "genocide" was often the, sometimes intended, sometimes unintended consequence thereof.

Samuel de Champlain* is the father of Quebéc, whether one means the city or the "province" (i personally think nation would be a better term). Champlain rather quickly and readily made friends with the Ottawas, and thereby, the more civilized of the Algonquian tribes (Champlain and La Salle both report that there were Algonquian-speaking tribes living on the rocky shores of the lower (northeastern) banks of the St. Laurent who were primitive savages in comparison to the relatively affluent Algonquian tribes of the Lakes). As a result of this diplomacy, Champlain and three companions soon set out with an Ottawa war party, which had news of an Iroquois war band in the upper Lakes region of what is now New York. The Iroquois, being a politic and sanguinary body by nature, took the grossest umbrage to the conduct of the French, and blamed them fully for their defeat, and the consequent indignity of having their captive warriors tortured eaten by the Ottawa. (*[/color] The site here linked is of rather dubious value--see for example the account it gives of this fight as compared to what one will find in Parkman--for which what i've written above is a précis . . . more or less.) There was thereafter, war in every generation between the French and the Iroquois. Even the great Louis de Baude, Comte de Frontenac was never free of the menace of their implacable emnity. In the great age of the exploration of the west--which ought to bear the name of René-Robert-Cavelier, le Sieur de La Salle--the French spread into what is now the heart of America. People such as Hennepin and le Père Jacques Marquette all provide a brief lifting of the curtain on that prehistoric time in the lives of the aboriginals. One of La Salle's loyal officers, Henri de Tonti, recounted the attempt of the Iroquois to exterminate the Illiniwek (known to the French as the Illinois). The Iroquois had become so obsessed with the destruction of the French, that they had, in political convocation, determined to engross the fur trade of the Great Lakes through the simple expedient of exterminating the tribes thereof. It was to prove a disaster for all concerned, and for none more than it was for the Iroquois.

I have little doubt that word of the new pale strangers spread very quickly through the last dreamers awakening from the Dream Time in that last decade of the 18th century in Oz. I have little doubt that when Sturt fought aboriginals, the terms of the field and the rules of the game were already in place, with the locals determined to wipe out this new human virus, and virus intent on using just as much gunpowder as it took the make their way across the countryside. Historical truth does not truly exist, but neither is there much truth for us to hang onto in the courses of our lives. We exercise judgment about our contemparies and the human race as it now exists. The evidence of history is no more nor less reliable than the media we now consult, and we all manage to convince ourselves of what we would most fondly care to believe at all events.

"Fadism" in history is about as exciting as, and about as meaningful as, the deepest pyschology of cyclical trends in fashionable clothing. The study of why people come to believe that of which they wished to be convinced, however, is a far more engrossing read than mere shifts and smoking jackets.


(For an enchanting read on the history of the French in North America, see the seven volumes of the 19th century American historian, Francis Parkman. Modern specialists will have much to carp at--and there is no fuller and no more comprehensive a read on this important and little regarded period in the European history of my native continent. For a grim and rather honest (for aught that i know) account of The First Fleet (awfully grim when reduced to a list of names and sentences, no?) and it successors until the end of the penal colony, see The Fatal Shore, by Robert Hughes, and then be sure to finish the job with Beyond the Fatal Shore[/i]. To begin to learn something about the aboriginals who fell before this relentless human tide, start with the Dream Time.

This should not be construed as a statement that the French had a superior or an inferior colonial system to the English. Theirs was radically different than the English. The colonies were under control of the ministre de la Marine, for what was to the French the obvious advantages of having the Navy control enterprises which could only be visited at the end of a long sea voyage. As the centuries long craze in Europe for hats made from beaver felt and the demand for exotic furs deepened, the lure of instant riches through the fur trade was irresistible young officers of the Canadian army (the Marine Ministry maintained a professional force of French troops recruited from the Canadian population--they were largely Basques and Gascognards) and the Royal Navy, and of course the petty officers of government. The corruption eventually became pandemic in society, to the point where the last governor, Vaudreuil, and the last intendant (roughly, "King's auditor"] Bigot were stealing the province blind, even as Louis Joseph, Marquis the Montcalm-Gozon marched out to meet his fatal wounds in the same battle which killed his rival James Wolfe, posthumous conquerer of la Nouvelle France.

Both the French and the Company of Gentlemen Adventurers Trading into Hudson's Bay however, had a major distinction in common. Their livelihood in the worst years, and their fabulous wealth in the best years, came from not colonizing the interior. Both the French and the HBC positively discouraged the settlement of the interiors of the continent. People like Cadillac at Detroit, d'Iberville at New Orleans, and "lesser" men along the mid-Mississippi valley were royally-favored exceptions which proved the rule. HBC only gradually penetrated the interior, and then in response to first the French (d'Iberville's claim to fame was to captured all of the posts of Hudson Bay during the Nine Years War in Europe), and then the Franco-English traders from Montréal, and finally the Americans coming up the Missouri. They only began to push their "factories" (company stores) inland to assure that they were always closer to the pelt and fur bearing regions than the competition. The trappers and traders, the coureurs du bois, don't like to see the settlers come, it spoils their party. By and large, the aboriginals of central and western Canada suffered far less from the advent of the ghost men in the great white birds upon the water. All of the central purpose of this enterprise, however, went bust in a season, when Albert, Prince and Prince Consort, decided to wear top hats made of silk on pasteboard rather than felt . . . so . . . perhaps mere shifts and smoking jackets might prove an interesting field of investigation as well.)

1) I think most of you already know this one, but is it really true Native Americans lived in harmony with nature? Not totally. Native Americans were people with high-principled cultures; to make room for villages and roads forests were burned, to build cities trees were cut down; some cities were abandoned because the population had ran out of natural resources. When hunting at buffalo's far more buffalo's were killed than necessary, out of fear surviving buffalo's would warn others. HOWEVER, the hunting on buffalo's by Native Americans was not the cause of the buffalo's near extinction. That were the white hunters, who managed to nearly kill all buffalo's in less than 50 years.

2) Fernâo de Magalhâes is often believed to be the first person to have sailed around the world. FALSE. On September 17th 1519, Magalhâes sailed out with 250 men from San Lucar, Spain. He was determined to sail around the world. However, Magalhâes was killed on April 27th 1521 in what we nowadays call the Philippines in a fight with the native population. It was his chief officer on the ship, Juan Sebastian de Elcano, who took the command, and under his leadership they reached San Lucar again on September 6th 1522, with only 18 men left.

3) It is often believed Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on a church door in Wittenberg. But is that really true? Historians doubt this. They believe Luther went the official way, and sent his theses first to the archbishop.

4) Cowboys: tough men with revolvers. True? In most cases not. There were few cowboys who could afford a revolver, and even if they had a revolver, most of them were not able to shoot with it. This required intensive training, and a lot of bullets - things they didn't have the time and the money for (bullets were too expensive).

5) Hitler invented the phrase 'Blitzkrieg'. True? NO. As Hitler said himself at November 8th 1944, he 'would never use the phrase Blitzkrieg, because it is an absurd word'. The phrase became well-known after an article in the American weekly Time on September 25th 1939, in which the German invasion in Poland was described as a Blitzkrieg. The first time the word was used however, was in 1935 in Germany, in the German Deutsche Wehr magazine.

Again, no reputable historian believes that Magellan, after having been killed in the Philippines, actually completed the voyage.


I have a lot of trouble believing this. A handgun would not have been the most expensive item in a cowboy's possession (both the horse and the saddle would have been more expensive). Furthermore, it's inconceivable that guns and bullets would have been prohibitively expensive; there was a brisk trade in both and a fair amount of competition in the industry (both guns and ammunition would have been sold through national catalog houses, like Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery Ward, as well as numerous independent dealers).

And being able to shoot with a revolver and being able to shoot accurately with a revolver are two entirely separate matters. Firing any weapon requires some degree of training, but to say that revolvers required "intensive training" is, I think, rather excessive. As it was, many of the legends of "deadeye" shootists facing off in the middle of the street are greatly exaggerated.


Considering that Hitler didn't have many original ideas to begin with, it's unlikely that anyone seriously thinks that he came up with the word "Blitzkrieg."

Though simple history books enlist Magellan as being the first person who sailed around the world. That is, on this side of the pond :wink: (for what I know).


You are TOTALLY correct here. Keep in mind I'm translating this from Dutch, but on the other hand that is no excuse: you are absolutely right on this one. What I meant was indeed cowboys being able to shoot accurately. The thing about the revolver and the bullets though is maybe hard to believe, but it is true, both according to the Dutch book ''Encyclopedie van misvattingen' (Encyclopedia of misconceptions) by Hans van Maanen, and his source, Das Ei des Kolumbus und andere Irrtümer (P. Lauer - Munich, 2000). Maybe it's about the definition of cowboys: they really mean cow-boys, so not only the John Wayne types.


It depends. I bet there are some people who believe that the phrase Blitzkrieg was first used by the Nazis when the war began. The invasion of Poland however was not called Blitzkrieg for the first time by the Nazis, but by Time magazine (as pointed out).

Joe,

More pedantry:

"Powered controlled flight" = Santos Dumont (at least, I bet there were others), he gave the dirigible (basically means "directable") its name, and showed that the flight could be controlled by flying it arround the Eiffel tower.

"Powered controlled heavier-than-air flight" = Wright brothers



Actually it is not irrelevant, as the charge is that the flight in 1903 was not a powered flight at all, but just gliding.

I don't buy into this claim, but it is not without its adherents. An eye-witness to the flight claimed it was just gliding and the powered flight was only achieved in the 1908 attempt.

The New York Times December 17, 1951





I do, their nationalism causes them to frequently practice revisionist history and claim Santos Dumont invented the airplane.

But if the catapult enabled them to pass a glide off as a powered flight the first time in 1903 then they have a point, because the powered flight in 1908 would not have post-dated Dumont's.

Craven: your pedantry may have been cute initially, but it has now grown tiresome. In any discussion of the Wright brothers' achievements, one may take it for granted that powered, controlled, heavier-than-air flight is being discussed. I would further add that we can also assume that we are discussing manned, assisted flight -- certainly, even Santos Dumont could not claim to be the first thing to become airborne, having been bested by some now-extinct aviation pioneers several million years earlier.


Alpheus Drinkwater was a weatherman and a telegraph operator. I'm not sure how that made him an expert on powered flight or why anyone should lend credence to his claim, made almost a half century after the fact, that the Wright brothers' plane did not make a powered flight until 1908. Perhaps Drinkwater would have us believe that, between 1903 and 1908, the Wrights, who staged numerous flying exhibitions around the country, were actually just gliding around on a plane with a motor and propellers as useless ballast.

Drinkwater may have been a estimable weatherman and telegrapher, but as an aeronautical observer he was, I would argue, certainly deficient.

Missed your nap time?

You may be frustrated with the pedantry (if so, my recommendation is to cease to indulge in it) but it may well have taught me one thing (still checking on it). I don't think they acheived their first controlled flight in 1903, manned perhaps but the Flyer 1 only flew in straight lines, the Flyer 2 was more manageable and the Flyer 3 (1905) was the first practical one (the first one that they could land "without crashing" as Wilbur put it).

I don't think the 1903 flight should be called a controlled flight. Edit: I researched it, they did not have a "controlled" flight till September of 1904.

I also learned that the 1903 flight did not use a catapult, but rather strong winds.



I'm not sure that one would need to be an "expert" to recognize the difference between a glide and a powered flight. There were only 5 witnesses (John Daniels, Adam Etheridge, Will Dough, W.C. Brinkley and Johnny Moore) Joe, which flight "expert" do you rely on to substantiate the veracity of the claim that it was a sustained (for 12 seconds), powered flight? Drinkwater was not even a witness, and I was not posting the clipping for his opinion to be lent veracity but to illustrate that there was, in fact, controversy over the plane's propulsion and not control. You'd claimed the propulsion and catapult were irrelevant when it is, in fact the center of the controversy and control was not.

I think their subsequent flights (4 that day) may have qualified for being powered, but the 12 second 120 foot "first flight" does have some room for doubt. And the controversy has centered on whether it was gliding (like their previous flights) or a powered flight.

Since the Wright brothers had first made gliders it's not an outlandish claim. Without the strong winds the brothers were unable to get many of their subsequent attempts off the ground (for example, a subsequent attempt launched it off a 100 foot rail and the plane did not lift an inch).

See, you had claimed that "the catapult was largely irrelevant, since it has nothing to do with the control aspect of the flight, just the propulsion ".

Thing is, propulsion is the controversy.

There was no real control Joe, and the propulsion was the center of the controversy.




Drinkwater only witnessed a flight in 1908, that's why he named that date. But again, I don't take him seriously, it's just the only dated newspaper evidence I found of the controversy being propulsion, not control, at the time.

But they did manage a powered flight before 1908. As early as 1905 they were flying until the gas ran out, staying aloft up for times like about half an hour.

I'm not sure you can call any of what they did "exhibitions", they only started public exhibitions in 1908 in Europe and I believe the first "public flight" in America is said to be dated in 1909.

But I'll not defend Alpheus Drinkwater's credibility, I'd only posted that to correct your claim and not to dispute that the flights qualified.

The controversy has legitimate basis, the news reporting of the flights had been farcical (the next day the Virginia-Pilot claimed "Flying Machine Soars 3 Miles in Teeth of High Wind...").

The brothers did not fly after 1903 and their next flight was in mid 1904. The brothers would invite reporters but disallow photographs and many times they were unable to fly (in one example I mentioned they did not get off the ground at all, in another case they managed 25 feet).

The entire subsequent year was a failure for them, Orville said "We certainly have been "Jonahed" this year" and the reporters gave up on them.

Well, Joe, you may well be sick of this topic (and if so take heart in that I am too) but I have learned a lot and am simply documenting it here.

IMO, there is foundation for the concern about the 1903 flights being legitimate.

The next year they did poorly without wind and it was not till they started using catapults that they started doing better.

I'll never know what they did accomplish in front of 5 witnesses that day, but I do cede to their detractors that the initial flights have some question marks.

I did not say that I found pedantry tiresome, I said that I found your pedantry tiresome. I remain a fan of pedantry as a general matter.


Which still would have made them the first.

Paaskynen, should you wish to use the Australian history examples I mentioned, here is the google search page for "Australian history wars" to start you off:

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%22Australian+History+Wars%22&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

Gracie, wabbit . . .

(how does one say "wabbit" in italian?)

Joe, you are addressing persons not present (nobody on this thread said otherwise).

It seems like Joe and Craven are fighting out exactly the battle I mentioned.

We need to recognise that the invention of the aeroplane (a heavier than air, controllable flying machine, powered by an engine). Commentators from different countries have for nationalistic reasons stressed the importance of the achievements of their countrymen by putting salt on snails. Lilienthal achieved sustained flight, controllable up to a point (he made 2500 glider flights before he killed himself in a crash), which is way more than most other aviation pioneers. Ader seems to have been the first to get off the ground in a heavier than air contraption with an engine, but his and Maxim's attempts suffered from lack of controllability, The Wright brothers and Santos seem to have come up with better controls. All these men were inspired by each other's attempts (especially Lilienthal's legacy, because he made detailed drawings and designs). It is in fact undoable to fix one moment when flight was achieved, it was an international achievement, but nationalism was strong in those days and thus we got history books with conflicting claims.

But thanks for giving me so much ammunition for my classes.

history is always written by the victors!

Nonsense

Concerning first flight. I had run into this purely out of curiosity a while back. I think it's a pretty good web page though I am certainly no expert on flight or it's history. A good read if you are interested and definitely covers briefly all the people I have seen mentioned in this thread plus a few more.

Who was the first to fly?


I am of the opinion that history as we know depends on how well records are kept and made available. The fact that we humans are keeping track practically guarantees problems with accuracy every now and then. Emotion and personal perspective are always going to play a role in how people see the world around them, and in my opinion are very potent when it comes to recalling an incident.
Also just want to say thanks to everyone contributing to this thread as I always wonder about this kind of thing. After finding out so many *facts* I believed to be true are not exactly that way- makes me question just about everything I read or hear. Interesting stuff!

Thanks for a great link Hamal.

My pleasure!

Richard III is a good example where history was written by the victors - Shakespeare was writing for the Tudor dynasty and therefore Richard had to be a villain

At the time of Richard's death the monks in Durham wrote ' this day was most greviously slain our beloved king' or something like that. They didn't need to say anything good unless they meant it - it was risky to criticise the new king and nothing to be gained from praising a dead one.

Josephine Tey wrote an interesting novel - The Daughter of Time - about the reasons why Richard wasn't a villain, had no reason to murder the princes in the tower as his wardenship would end with their death and the successor (not him) become king.

The ones with a reason to murder the princes to enhance their claim to the throne were the Tudors.