things your history textbook got wrong

[Meowfoundland]

That Jesus was a christian.

This one bugs me badly.

[Nazis in Space]

Imhotep's not the ruler anymore, btw.

Not as far as the public is aware.

That brief stint in 1923 sure left an impression. *nods*

[Polska rzczpolspolita]

That those damn Americans won the war of 1812.

Lies and slander.

Yeah, 1812 was a major loss.

[Central Lothian]

In 2007, my teacher said there was still a country called Yugoslavia*, that Macedonia was part of it** and that Kosovo was independent.

* - The government renamed it Serbia and Montenegro in 2003, then Montenegro voted for independence in 2006.
** - Some bodies - like the IOC, FIFA and UN - call it "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".

[Coccygia]

That WW I was "the War nobody wanted". Having recently read Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, I feel confident in saying that was BS. Germany wanted that war and had been planning it for 30 years, and was just waiting for van excuse when Gavrilo Princip gave them one.

That (as others have mentioned) the US won the War of 1812, which was at best a draw.

I also found it amusing that a passage in my history book about Rabelais totally avoided mentioning how smutty (and funny) his stuff was - especially since we were reading him in French class (in a heavily expurgated Petite Larousse edition - but I got the real deal from the library.)

[Hardened Pyrokinetics]

That the political results of the Great War was a step forward for civilization.

Wait, so wresting more control away from autocratic dictators and trying to have more freedom from an Empire that didn't give a shit about you wasn't a step forward?

That speculators caused the Great Depression.

It was them being complete morons about the stock exchange and how it works that was a major cause.

That the Japanese attacked unprovoked.

Trade embargoes are provocation for war, now?

EDIT: Oh, here's a HUGE one...

That the American Revolution was done for liberal reasons and to throw off oppressive taxation from Britain.

[Munathanura]

Trade embargoes are provocation for war, now?

Not normally, but in this situation they were. See, Japan relied on America for oil and, without it, they virtually had none. With no one willing to sell them any, they had to either abandon their military aspirations, invent and mass produce some sort of biofuel within a year or attack the Dutch East Indies, having to invade American and British colonies to do so.

And, of course, while the Americans weren't exactly hoping for a war, they were hoping that Japan would either give up and die or give the Americans an excuse to clobber them.

[Seperate Vermont]

Causes of Hiroshima, and virtually everything about the Cold War.

[Trotskylvania]

History textbooks in American schools tend to be propagandized.

Fixed.

[Trubchevsk]

I remember my last history textbook waxed eloquent about how the US Army was completely raped by the Viet Cong.

I have no idea where the author got that impression.

In what manner did the text "wax eloquent" about US involvement in Southeast Asia? The United States was absolutely mangled by the conflict in Vietnam - socially, politically, economically, and certainly militarily.

As a student of history, I have to say that pre-collegiate history textbooks were quite universally obscene. The process of socialization is utterly suffocating students these days, textbooks become ever more inane and polarizing, overwhelmed with over-simplification. University textbooks are really rather the same, certainly in the social sciences. Of course, if one is studying with the textbook alone, then they ought to expect a terrible education.

What did I learn about Vietnam, in the classroom, until some time in college? That the United States was desperately supporting the will of the people of the Republic of South Vietnam [well, those who recognized its existence] so that they could be free and safe from the scourge of communism that was trying to kill them all. The Vietnamese were cartoonish monsters who did nothing but torture prisoners of war, silly little boys in black pajamas that were capable of nothing but dirty gorilla [sic] warfare - and so on.

No mention of French, British, Japanese, or Chinese colonial actors , entire wars preceding the United States [in number, at least] being fought to ensure the same outcome for a myriad reasons: the social, political and economic oppression of the Vietnamese people, the refusal to allow them the same right and chance of self-determination that the United States used to justify the continued bedlam despotism of Diem and his successors.

Perhaps the author came to the conclusion that the United States was incapable - for so many different reasons - of maintaining a shamelessly artificial and despotic "democratic" South Vietnam.

You should read The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam. A terrifying examination of the abyss that is hubris.

[Distruzio]

Wait, so wresting more control away from autocratic dictators and trying to have more freedom from an Empire that didn't give a shit about you wasn't a step forward?

Correct. Democracy is a step towards decivilization. The democratists didn't organize against the monopoly of coercion that the monarchs had, they organized against the monarchs and left the monopoly of coercion. I agree that it's tragic that those in power tend not to give a shit about the common man. But democratists merely institutionalized their own variation of power when they left the monopoly in place. At least the monarchs had a hell of a time getting things done that violated the rights of the subjects.

But this isn't a thread for this discussion, in depth. Suffice it to say, I'm an Anarcho-Monarchist. That doesn't mean that I look fondly for a reinstatement of monarchy. It means I favor monarchy when compared to democracy.

That speculators caused the Great Depression.

It was them being complete morons about the stock exchange and how it works that was a major cause.

I rather doubt that the man whose profession is to play the stock exchange fails to understand how the stock exchange works. I further doubt that the man who was less effective a speculator than his neighbor had any significant effect on anything other than his own purse, let alone a systemic economic collapse that lasted from 1929 to 1945.

That the Japanese attacked unprovoked.

Trade embargoes are provocation for war, now?

When your citizens suffer and starve... yes. Trade embargoes, sanctions, and blockades are acts of war.

EDIT: Oh, here's a HUGE one...

That the American Revolution was done for liberal reasons and to throw off oppressive taxation from Britain.

We agree! That was a silly thing our history books got wrong.

[Maurepas]

http://www.cracked.com/article_18755_5- ... class.html

I think Cracked really does it best. Especially Paul Revere, considering the recent Palin episode, heh heh.

[Maurepas]

That those damn Americans won the war of 1812.

Lies and slander.

Andrew Jackson begs to differ, *nods*

[Galla-]

That the American Revolution was legitimate and totally not done by despicable liars with an ulterior motive of power gain and secession.

[AlexJacobii]

Anything about Columbus. Most of the sections about Scandinavia. The Crusades were only in the Middle East according to one textbook I had. That one was genius...

What was it wrong about about Scandinavia.

It said that Scandinavia never expanded and were just a bunch of brutal Vikings, when actually it did expand a ton and the Vikings really were not that brutal compared to places like Rome. The Vikings invented modern law, yet strangely the book said they had no law. Finland was not in WWII apparently, the list goes on. Really messed up book.

[New Embossia]

My history text book referred to Russia as a Communist state... And it was not referring to the Russian SFSR, nor the Soviet Union... It was a chapter on The Russian Federation today.

Because it is.

OT:
They (History Textbook) claimed that the French had some to little Military Victories. Hah!

[New Embossia]

That those damn Americans won the war of 1812.

Lies and slander.

Yeah, 1812 was a major loss.

The US won. We have never lost a war to an organized army that belongs to a sovereign government (That means it excludes Vietnam, which again we won).
British haters on NS make me LAUGH.
My laughing face:

[AlexJacobii]

Yeah, 1812 was a major loss.

The US won. We have never lost a war to an organized army that belongs to a sovereign government (That means it excludes Vietnam, which again we won).
British haters on NS make me LAUGH.
My laughing face:

According to most historians it was a draw. We burned down the White House, you kicked our ass at sea. We could have held Washington but we could not reinforce it. Stalemate at best.

[New Embossia]

That those damn Americans won the war of 1812.

Lies and slander.

Yeah, 1812 was a major loss.

The US won. We have never lost a war to an organized army that belongs to a sovereign government (That means it excludes Vietnam, which again we won).
British haters on NS make me LAUGH.
My laughing face:

[Seleucas]

That Bretton-Woods was a success.

I agree with everything you said but this. While still a statist system, Bretton-Woods did at least provide some restraint on US inflation, and the period in which it reigned had impressive growth.

[Distruzio]

That Bretton-Woods was a success.

I agree with everything you said but this. While still a statist system, Bretton-Woods did at least provide some restraint on US inflation, and the period in which it reigned had impressive growth.

True enough! But it was artificial growth based on inflation dependent upon a gold-backed dollar. While the US was relatively restrained in inflation, the rest of the world went (with exception of the British) nucking futs. And the result was the wonderful 70s. Yes the growth was impressive... as was the crash at the end.

I'm not correcting you in the slightest, in fact I agree with your critique of me. I'm merely clarifying that for me, success means that there was no collapse of the system followed by a collapse of economies. I should have made that more clear in my OP but... meh. I didn't and you caught me.

[The Byzantion Empire]

All of these points are very interesting. One prevorbial (I hope I spelled that correctly) hat I would like to throw in is that the famous Maine being blown up by the Spainish. It was a boiler accident. As an American, I would like to say, "Whoops."

[Trotskylvania]

If historians aren't producing propaganda, especially in low level text books. they are not fulfilling their ideological role.

[Nazis in Space]

A pretty much global- quite literally so - example is probable the American revolution.

What we learned?

• America fought England and won its freedom.

What actually happened?

• America fought England and won its freedom.
• Spain fought England and won Florida and part of the Baleares
• France fought England and won small parts of Africa and the Caribbean
• The Dutch fought England and didn't win anything worthy of note

It's a little sad that a war involving a pretty damn major international coalition of medium- to large European powers and some colonial rebels kicking the British Empire around like a red-headed stepchild and making off with the spoils is commonly reduced to 'America won its freedom'.

[Laerod]

Yeah, 1812 was a major loss.

The US won. We have never lost a war to an organized army that belongs to a sovereign government (That means it excludes Vietnam, which again we won).

Incorrect on both counts. 1812 was by any reasonable measure a tie. Virtually none of the original objectives were achieved (and those that were weren't met because of the war). Vietnam was clearly an American loss. There is no amount of redefining that will change the fact that the US wanted to prevent a communist unification of Vietnam and failed to do so.