What is Digg?118 Comments
- 3242130193, on 07/05/2009, -1/+48Most of these myths persist from elementary school folktales. Anyone that takes a (decent) high school American history class will know how most of these myths are false. Nevertheless, it's a good refresher to those for whom it's been a long time, and also those that haven't taken American history.
- inactive, on 07/05/2009, -27/+70Here's another myth:
Myth: We support democracy around the world.
Truth: We will support anyone who advances our interests.
Take Iran for example, where we ousted a democratically elected leader and installed a Shah more sympathetic to our interests.
Take the billions we send to oil dictators around the world today. - themisanthrope, on 07/05/2009, -9/+48Dugg because way too few of my fellow Americans question any of the crap that's fed them.
- oldhick, on 07/05/2009, -2/+37Yeah, it's JUST Americans...
- Red1000, on 07/05/2009, -4/+29That's not really about America's origins.
- Tanktunker, on 07/05/2009, -3/+28That article had no sources, you should question it just as much as you should question what the article calls "myths".
- painting, on 07/05/2009, -6/+31America was founded the belief that all men are created equal. Except the ones that pick our cotton.
- MetalHead73, on 07/05/2009, -4/+27@pagno
Have you taken a history course on every country in the world, and then went to find out how much of it was fictitious and/or exaggerated?
Didn't think so.
STFU. - detorn, on 07/05/2009, -1/+21this whole piece is lifted from "Assume the Position."
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Assume_the_Position_w ... - HardSide, on 07/05/2009, -0/+20Easiest way to piss off an Italian is tell them Columbus wasn't really Italian.
- homedaddy, on 07/05/2009, -0/+19I think Paul Revere won out just because he has a cool sounding name. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEM3dW2oWW4
- tommybeeasy, on 07/05/2009, -2/+21Don't forget the myth that we were founded as a christian nation. That "In God We Trust" and "One Nation under God" bs is a product of the last half century. Don't believe me, look it up. I mean the Treaty of Tripoli, the armistice that ended the Barbary Wars explicitly stated that we weren't, nor had we ever been, a christian nation.
- DirtPile, on 07/05/2009, -4/+19Buried for Divine Caroline.
- AraleNorimaki, on 07/05/2009, -6/+19Christopher Columbus
no one can "discover" an already-inhabited land. The natives of the Bahamas and other islands on his journey were peaceful and friendly. Yet many of them were later enslaved by the Spanish. Also, it is known that the Vikings explored the North American coast 500 years before Columbus - StigNordas, on 07/05/2009, -2/+14Another reminder how interpretive history can be.
- bugwayji, on 07/05/2009, -2/+14 And your comment rebuffs the former how?
- soniapaul, on 07/05/2009, -0/+12The kite experiment by Benjamin is cool...
- trevor98, on 07/05/2009, -4/+14They weren't considered men at the time. Not excusing that belief just saying that there isn't anything hypocritiacl about their beliefs.
- inactive, on 07/05/2009, -0/+10Well touching on the Warren Harding issue, Obama is the first BI-RACIAL president, how can people say he is black unless you go by 17th century racist standards dictating that one drop of African blood made you black?
If Obama was half-hispanic half-white would the media call him the first Latino president?
Already we see myths perpetrated in the present and people taking them with face value.
Of course Obama's triumphs should be celebrated but we shouldn't lie to ourselves just to get a "feel good" story either, and what is wrong with having the first "bi-racial" president, is that not an accomplishment to America in itself? - MrOmniscient, on 07/05/2009, -0/+10Regarding the 1492 flat Earth concept: Give Eratosthenes a little love for actually calculating the circumference of the Earth over 1600 years earlier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes - inactive, on 07/05/2009, -0/+10Not sure why you are dugg down, in historical studies you have to set aside modern beliefs and political correctness and just look at the facts. It is true that Africans were not viewed as fully human in the sense and thus liberty did not apply to them. It is sad but that is just the way it was.
- bobburn1, on 07/05/2009, -0/+9Washington was still our first president. We had no other elected executive of the US government.
- scott1, on 07/05/2009, -3/+12Randolph was President of the Continental Congress not President of the United States. There's a huge difference between the two.
- DirtyVicar, on 07/05/2009, -0/+8It's ironic that Parson Weems invented a lie in order to propagate the "I cannot tell a lie" parable.
- youhurtgorgoar, on 07/05/2009, -1/+9Well, this just proves that america never really existed in the first place. Give it back to the british, you tax evading, imperialist thieves!
- bdbr, on 07/05/2009, -1/+8The very first statement in the Bill of Rights is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", and many of the founding fathers made other written statements to clarify that they didn't want the government to be involved in any religion whatsoever.
- inactive, on 07/05/2009, -0/+7It's true, every country has its widespread myths. For example, many Russians do not like to believe Kievan Rus civilization may have actually had its start with non-slavic Scandanavians settling in the area and starting a town. This hostility towards the idea was also strengthened in WW2 as the Soviets did not want to accept the idea that Russian civilization may have been started by Germanics. Also look at North Korea with its santa-clause like myths about Kim Jong being born in the mountains and a rainbow coming down from the sky the same day etc.
- pagno, on 07/05/2009, -18/+25Yes. Americans do like their fictitious history and...
Ooh, shiny. - OrangeTide, on 07/05/2009, -2/+9Western culture is the only one that counts. If it was the first the western world heard of it, then they must have discovered it.
- SirBruce, on 07/05/2009, -0/+7A far better claim is John Hanson, who was President of the Congress after the Articles of the Confederation were adopted. Or John Hancock, who was President of the Congress when independence was declared.
- JakeBC, on 07/05/2009, -0/+7History seems to rarely be truth. Too often it is written with an agenda. There is always another side that we don't hear. The truth is usually somewhere in between.
- inactive, on 07/05/2009, -3/+10You sir just said a myth yourself. Mossadegh was democratically elected once, but he resigned from office, and then with an angry mob of people before him, he was actually appointed prime minister right back by the Shah himself. And Mossadegh had a power struggle with the Shah, tried to dissolve parliament in a rigged vote (got a 99% victory?!) and take emergency powers and executive control, and he also exiled the Shah's sister to Paris, a highly personal attack on his enemy. The shah was never "installed" he was there to begin with, he left for 2 days in the crisis and we helped bring him back.
It is also a myth that Mossadegh was wildly popular at the time, by 1953 inflation had spiraled out of control, and the British embargo had hurt the economy, and monarchists and pro-mossadegh crowds were battling in the streets. Also many conservative Iranians who may have otherwise supported Mossadegh thought his rebellion against the Shah was treasonous as the Shah was still the spiritual head of Iran, it would have been like Gordon Brown trying to exile the Queen.
Also democracy did not die in 1953, the Iranian parliament continued to function as it had before then, the Shah actually only become more dictatorial and corrupt towards the later part of his life in the 1960s/70s, and also it was not AJAX but his "White Revolution" that angered Ayatollah Khomeini when the Shah tried to bring women's rights and land reform that weakened the rural Islamic clerics, this is what set off Khomeini's rebellious career not the events of 1953.
Also let it be mentioned Mossadegh is actually rarely mentioned in Iranian textbooks to this day as he is seen as a secular communist figure, they have revised history to depict Ayatollah Kashani as the one who stood up to the Shah and British interests. - OrangeTide, on 07/05/2009, -1/+8EU has interest in oil too. The US isn't the only massive consumer of petroleum.
- moothemagiccow, on 07/05/2009, -1/+8Plagiarism is commonplace for divinecaroline
- inactive, on 07/05/2009, -0/+5I thought Bill Clinton was our first black president? Didn't the "New Yorker" magazine have an article declaring him our first black president? If not, he was our first REDNECK president.
- Xiefer, on 07/05/2009, -0/+5Dugg for being a day late.
- Tanktunker, on 07/05/2009, -2/+6There was no sovereign nation know as "The United States of America" prior to 1776, and Peyton was in office as President of the Continental Congress until May 24, 1775, and died a few months later, he therefore could not have been the head of state for the US, and you are full of *****.
- InfectedTuna, on 07/05/2009, -1/+5Dugg for finding the stolen goods.
- OrangeTide, on 07/05/2009, -4/+8citation needed.
- inactive, on 07/05/2009, -1/+5Wasn't this a Sopranos episode?
- s0nicfreak, on 07/06/2009, -0/+4The problem is that these folktales are passed off as true to elementary students... you're more likely to believe something you are told when younger (see religion).
- iNoles, on 07/05/2009, -1/+5Ben Franklin - investor of the stove.
- Cartman86, on 07/05/2009, -0/+4... yeah government people can be religious. That doesn't mean we should have church services in government meetings. You can interpret the constitution all you want, but I don't want tax dollars going toward this crap. In regards to government officials actually believing in the bible and using that to make law while I don't like it the only power we have is our vote.
And besides we shouldn't treat our founding fathers as gods. As people who were incapable of making mistakes or having opinions that don't work today. Slavery and roles of woman are primary examples of this. It appears to be true that some of the founders who were not Christian (Jefferson, Franklin) . Some like Thomas Paine seems to have hated Christianity and religion in general to a great degree. The point is that all of these men believed in a god. A god that has never visited us or ever will. These men knew nothing of evolution, landing on the moon, the big bang, or anything that we have grown up with in this era. The morals they had were their own. Morality and answers to the universe came from reason, not a book. Trying to take off hand comments they made about religion being good for the public or Christianity having good values means nothing to us. All we need to know is that they wrote a law giving personal freedom and no government religion, and decide from there if that is good enough - cuoops, on 07/05/2009, -0/+4Yes, decent. I was so glad I had a good government teacher. He taught us so much without even opening the textbook.
- Y0tsuya, on 07/05/2009, -1/+5@pagno,
If you think the U.S. is the worst, your brain might just short-circuit when you read the bios of Kim Jong-Il and Kim Il-Sung. Actually, do us all a favor and read it. - TheSheepMafia, on 07/05/2009, -2/+6I'll call any liar a liar. I don't care what their background is. *****.
- Cartman86, on 07/05/2009, -0/+4lol come one dude. We are talking about real historical misconceptions. Obama's not a part of history yet. And the way these myths are have come and stayed is because of how little we know about our leaders back then to what we know today. With the internet and modern society we questions things more and demand evidence. Not enough yet as is evident by the amount of people who believe the moon landing was faked, 911 was an inside job, and every BS religion out there. Evidence is king, so if you don't have it don't bother asserting a claim.
- MetalHead73, on 07/05/2009, -3/+7Doesn't have anything to with the article, but sadly true. :(
- legendxx, on 07/05/2009, -0/+3It's a great book if you love conspiracy theories. Menzies is a decent author and presents his arguments in a very persuasive manner. However the author spent his life as a sub skipper and has no formal training/experience as a historian. While his claims might be intriguing, they are very very far from being probable.
Edit: Sorry, I was speaking about his earlier book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. I'll have to check out the one you mentioned. - alethes1973, on 07/05/2009, -4/+7The only people that believe these myths are the people that never advanced their study of history beyond 5th grade. In other words, 90% of Americans.
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