Examples of falsification of history

You are correct, Vivien, but:
the art of the historian was not very advanced in this period, and no serious attempt was made to get at the exact truth about a king and his reign.

On the other hand, Shakespeare didn't write history books, but historical plays - he was a playwright, not an historian:wink:

yes, and the Tudors were paying

true as far as it goes, however
his nephew was the first Emperor
IMPERATOR CAESAR DIVI FILIVS AVGVSTVS (Octavius\Augustus)
and CAESAR was the accolade of the next seven Emperors till Vitellius
AVLVS VITELLIVS GERMANICVS IMPERATOR AVGVSTVS
(actually a Co-emperor) and its was part of the Official Imperial name for the next 17 Emperors (\co-Emperors)

covering the Claudian, Flavian, Nervan-Antonian Dynasties
and was also employed by the Severan Dynasty

and of course Emperor is derived from Imperator

Im suprised no one has mentioned Nikola Tesla and Thomas Alva Edison
Edison being credited for Tesla's work, even today through the corporate efforts of Edison Electric,
great efforts where made to scrub history clean of Tesla

http://www.ntesla.org/index.php

More porkies by rulers
Ah, you just beat me to Caesar, Ice Tsar!

But I would add any account of Napoleon's wars emanating from the man himself (As in "To lie like a Bulletin") or indeed anyone, who has not gone beyond them. The idea that Napoleon was some libertarian when he appointed prefects to do his will in the provinces does not sit well with reaction to Putin this week.

in reply to what Vivien said (about Tudors and Shakespeare)
Wasn't it Thomas More who wrote the first history falsification about Richard III during the Tudor dynasty?

At any rate, he died before Shakespeare was born.

One that I have heard of but never verified is John Wilkes Booth did not break his ankle jumping onto the stage but broke it when his horse fell just after crossing the Anacostia River.

Anyone know about this?

The Egyptians played a greater part in history than what is precieved. Roman history is over enphasised;
Egyptian hyroglyphs have been found in australia.
Also i dont understand how you can discover a country that people are already living in. History should tell of how there once were ignorant people who believed that they discovered somewhere if they killed and controlled the people who were there first. The pespective is all wrong. History should detail not just the conquests of groups of people but also the mentalities that existed. Then maybe the next generation will be more civlised.

Have they now? I would be interested to know where you got that information (and then I would be interested to know what it said). It seems highly unlikely that the Egyptians would have made it that far, only to leave an inscription (without having left one on the way there, say in India). Methinks this ranks among the pseudo-archaeological finds like the "precolumbian" inscriptions in North America (runes, hebrew, celtic, etc.), but I would like to have the particulars out of curiosity.

So far the first non-aboriginals to reach Australia on record are the Dutch (and the inscribed plate they left as proof on the West Coast has been preserved until today)

I agree, Paaskynen.

Some info here: Egyptian Hieroglyphs in Australia

And: welcome to A2K, susie p!

Fascinating stuff, that, regarding the Australian hieroglyphs. Thanks for the link, Walter. I suspect that, in the end, they will prove to be about as authentic as the long discredited Norse runes found in a field in Wisconsin, USA.

xingu, that's the first I've heard that particular version of the John Wilkes Booth story. It makes sense, however, as Booth would have had tremendous difficulty mounting a horse outside Ford's theater with a broken left ankle.

Thanks for the link Mr Hinteler. It is quite interesting, but does little to take away the misgivings about the authenticity of the carvings. However, the site discusses all the possibilities, which is a good sign.

It reminded me of another story with a high improbability factor (seen on Discovery some years ago), that of a Dutch colony having existed in the interior of Australia long before the British colonised the East Coast. You can read more about that on http://www.ammerlaan.demon.nl/EARLY.HTM

By the way when I said that the Dutch were the first non aboriginal people to visit Australia, I added "on record" (since they left an account of their visit), but it is highly likely that seafaring people from Indonesia have been visiting Oz long before that (but we have no record of their visits).

not to mention the supposed French "discoverying" there on the West Coast as well - but bad luck was always on their side it seems

Australia is quite a large island. It seems that it would be hard to miss by any people, adept at paddling a canoe, plying those waters. And there's no doubt about the paddling abilities of the Palynesians. They managed to discover the Hawaiian archipelago without aid of charts or compass, a somewhat longer trek than from, say, Tahiti to Australia.

I have never understood how they had unfinished maps and talked about the land mass as if it really wasn't there until they circumnavigated it...

I've read that Chinese ships under the famous Admiral Zheng He arrived in Australia. Is this true?

I have never heard that!
You have made me curious, just one more country trying to say they got there first.
There were alot of Chinese in Australia that settled there for the goldrush. I am going to investigate now.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982893.html

Look at that!
I wonder how true it is? Sounds plausible... it is The Age afterall. :wink:

I've heard it before!

Now, before Cook, there were some accounts on this subject.

look at this :
http://www.muffley.net/pacific/dampier/dampier.htm

Not impossible.

But 7 recorded voyages that i have known were all to the west.

I've heard it before as well. (Discovery channel documentary)