Biggest myths in world history? Help a school teacher

What do you think are the biggest myths in world history? I’m trying to put together a good list to help this public school teacher develop a class assignment and can use your help.

A recent email from a reader of the blog made this request:

I teach a 9th grade world history class and I’d like to have them attempt to prove/refute some myths of history. I discovered your site and thought I’d give this a try. I’m going to show them your piece about Gutenberg and the printing press as a template for exploring historical myths. Any help or suggestions you could provide about other topics would be appreciated. I’m looking for anything I can investigate from the 1500s to the late 18th century. Thanks

Here’s a few good ones to get things started:

The myth of the first thanksgiving being a happy, friendly, wonderful time (1600s)
That Columbus proved the world was round (~1500)

What are some favorite world history myths you know and might be appropriate for a high school project? Bonus points if it’s 1500 to 1800, but any good ones are welcome.

Please leave a comment if you have ideas – thanks!

Posted Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 10:41 am

in history | 21 Comments » |

Rob Donoghue - October 16, 2009 at 11:06 am

There are entire books dedicated to this, and they tend to make for good reading. A few titles worth checking include:

“Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History” by Richard Shenkman
“Legends, Lies & Chereished Myths of World History” by Richard Sheknman (Shenkman’s got several books like this)

“Lies my Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook got Wrong” by James Loewen

For my two bits, I’d go with the idea that “America never lost a war until Vietnam” – I am fairly sure the British of 1812 might disagree.

-Rob D.

Scott Berkun - October 16, 2009 at 11:22 am

I can also recommend Lies my teacher told me – He goes too far at times in fixating on why people got it wrong, rather than explaining the truth, but it’s overall it’s a great start.

Drew @ Cook Like Your Grandmother - October 16, 2009 at 12:29 pm

* Eating animal fats is bad for your heart.

See any number of things from the Weston A. Price foundation, but best bet is “The Oiling Of America”. This is intentional misinformation that has been well funded for so long people don’t know it’s based on junk science.

* All calories are equal, and reducing caloric intake will reduce body weight.

Nope, it turns out some diets not only leave you feeling hungry, but even with identical caloric intake you don’t lose as much weight. This one is more a case of reality being complex, while modern society — and media in particular — gravitates toward simplistic answers.

* Cancer and heart attacks aren’t really on the rise, they’re simply diseases of old age. Now that more people are getting old, more people are experiencing those conditions.

No again. This one is an artifact of an exceptionally bad time for life expectancy during the industrial revolution, coinciding with the beginnings of accurate tracking of life span of poor people. Go back a few more generations and it seems people lived nearly as long as most wealthy societies do today.

All three of these issues are controversial, with monied interests lining up to oppose them. I wouldn’t bet my next paycheck on any of them, but I’ve seen enough evidence to seriously question the conventional wisdom.

Steven Levy - October 16, 2009 at 1:38 pm

There is a persistent myth that Washington was a great general and that thanks to his skills the American Revolution was sure to be successful. History is written by the winners, after all.

Washington was a great leader of men, but he was a lousy leader of armies at the start of the war. For example, the fledgling colonial army should by all rights have been destroyed in the Battle of Brooklyn, given that GW deployed them in the wrong place, left a major road unguarded, had no spies on the British troop movements, and failed to either pull back or bring up reserves when the British landed tens of thousands of troops. Indeed, were it not for a surprise morning fog covering the US retreat, the bulk of the army would have been captured or killed.

Likewise, he couldn’t get the pieces to fall into place for the Battle of Trenton (crossing the Delaware), since his subordinates failed to carry out orders to coordinate and his own crossing was hours delayed. Again, luck saved him — and us, I suppose — when the British/German troops holding Trenton, alerted to the possiblity of an attack, mistook a small skirmish for the attack and then stood down, allowing Washington’s small force to take them by surprise. And so on….

Biggest myths in world history? Help a school teacher « Scott Berkun School’s Rate - October 16, 2009 at 4:19 pm

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Sean Crawford - October 16, 2009 at 5:04 pm

I seem to recall reading that the definition of myth includes, “traditional story” which to me implies that one should be cautious before breaking a myth, just as one would think twice before breaking the prime directive. Maybe, like a planet, when a schoolchild is ready he will break the myth himself.

It is a fact that the Argentine armed forces on the Malvinas (Falklands) had more weapons, more ammo, and more men than the British expeditionary force that sailed to fight them. There are many reasons why the Argentines had a poorer army, of course, including not being a democracy, but the most surprising reason given, by one newspaper, was this: The nation had “no soul,” they couldn’t even agree on what version of things to put in their school textbooks. I suppose they couldn’t agree on myths, either.

Morten - October 16, 2009 at 11:27 pm

Well since your on the subject of Columbus, one of the greatest myths in history is that he acctually discovered the american continent. When in fact it was descovered 500 years earlier by the Norse.

J.R. - October 17, 2009 at 12:17 am

The myth of Americans winning the World War II (1900s)
The myth of Americans landing on the Moon (1900s)
The myth of Americans saving the world from weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (1900s)

Bob K - October 17, 2009 at 3:01 pm

How about the myth of evolution of modern humans from an ape-like creature being scientific fact?

BTW, I’m reading your, The Myths of Innovation right now. Nice work!

Drew @ Cook Like Your Grandmother - October 18, 2009 at 1:04 pm

* The general consensus in the 70s was that we were headed for an ice age.

Nope, although some quotes *were* taken out of context for the sake of a sensational headline. — http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/

E.A.Brown - October 19, 2009 at 9:23 am

How about: Columbus went in search of the East for spices, because Europeans were eating spoiled food and needed spices to cover the taste?

Columbus went looking for ‘the East’ to get stonking rich, just like every other adventurer. Spices were high-value, low-weight transportable items that provided a huge return on investement. It had nothing to do with spoiled meat(!) and everything to do with venture capitalism, as was in the 15th c.

Europeans had very sophisticated and well-documented ways of preserving food – they just loved the exotic flavours of ‘the East’, just as we do today.

EB.

Robby Slaughter - October 19, 2009 at 2:23 pm

The place to begin with is the excellent book by James Loewen, *Lies My Teacher Told Me.* (Amazon Link). I believe it includes both of these stories.

Loewen writes extensively on the topic of myths about history, and I strongly recommend his work!

Mary L - October 25, 2009 at 11:07 am

Look up Gavin Menzies and his books 1421 and 1434. Explodes the myth about what started the Renaissance in Europe.

The cool thing about his work is the contributions from the international community building up the original source material that supports his research. Great story teller, too.