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Its commonly accepted that drinking went way up during prohibition. But historical studies have shown that the reverse is true. People simply paid more attention to what drinking was done, since it was now illegal. The physical quantity consumed went down, consumption of fruit juices went up.
Knights in plate armor who were knocked down could not get back up. This is a refain in many novels of the period. But its not accurate. People were known to swim in plate male and certainly could stand up in it (fighting in something so heavy you could not stand in it if knocked down would have been very stupid militarily).
The early Spanish explorers spread horses across the New World. For example its often said that Coronado spread horses across the South West US. The only problem with that is that studies of his exploration show all the horses were male....or neutered. So its a bit unlikely they breed after escaping.
Guns were far more effective than bows. Well...maybe not. The british long bow could fire faster and further (and do similar damage) than any gun until the 1840's used by the military. It was just a lot more expensive and time consuming to develop long bowmen and few learned it. Guns were cheaper and took far less training.
North Africa is a sandy desert. Another myth of movies. Its actually largely a stony waste - true sand is rare in much of the area. (Amusingly the British actually shipped sand for sand bags to Egypt in WWI; but that might have been really stupid logistics rather than a lack of sand).
Knights in plate armor who were knocked down could not get back up. This is a refain in many novels of the period. But its not accurate. People were known to swim in plate male and certainly could stand up in it (fighting in something so heavy you could not stand in it if knocked down would have been very stupid militarily)..
One of my favorite things to ask non-fencers is to guess how much a knight's longsword weighed. Anyone care to "take a stab" at it?
I think most people would estimate a long sword to be very heavy. However, if it weighed, say 30 or 40 lbs. how on earth could a knight wield it? It must have been pretty light and made of superior steel and have been on the lighter side.
The French-Mexican "Pastry War" wasn't really about sweets. The ruin of of one French citizen's Pastry Shop was but one claim among millions of pesos worth of damaged property and defaulted loans. War erupted when France demanded the full amount for everything, not just that one wrecked shop. Mexico was unable to pay, the French fleet blockaded Mexican ports and captured the entire Mexican navy.
That was also the war where Santa Anna lost his leg and became a hero again, leading to further serial failed dictatorships.
And the 1969 El Salvador-Honduras "Soccer War" wasn't really about a soccer game, it was about Honduran treatment of El Salvadorian immigrants. The Honduras government had embarked on a program of confiscating lands occupied by immigrants from El Salvador.
The soccer business was just one incident in what had been escalating acts of violence between the two sides. Rioting between the fans of the two national teams took place during a World Cup qualifying game, but they were rioting over long standing hostilities, not the game.
The OAS got the war stopped after four days and an agreement was reached where Honduras promised to stop maltreating the El Salvador immigrants. This was a Third World conflict, so it is understood in advance that both sides will come out losers. This tradition held.
That is fasinating about the soccer war GS. I always thought it really was over the soccer match. They take it pretty serious in latin america.
Another favorite is the term "Hundred Year War." It was actually longer than a hundred years from start to finish, but it was not a continuous period of warfare. In fact it really reflects a serious of wars with long periods of peace between them. No one at the time used the term hundred year war, that was invented in the 19th century by French historians. I think you pointed out that to me GS.
Sometimes states or cultures claim people who really don't belong to them. Frederick the Great is often pictured as the protypical German kaiser. But in fact he seems to have prefered French culture and even language much of his life. Alexander the Great was pictured by later Greeks as a powerful Greek ruler. In fact he was not greek ethnically at all (he was Macedonian, considered a barbarian by the Greeks of his day) and he helped his father conquer Greece. Napoleon was arguably not French. H was born on Corsica, not part of France I believe at his birth and in any case very different than the mainland culture and society.
People often picture the bubonic plague as occuring for a short time in the mid 14th century, then not reoccuring. In fact bubonic plagues had struck European society since at least Roman times. Moreover, the black death occured repeatedly after the initial outbreak, the last major occurance was in the mid 17th century in England. Interestingly its not universally agreed it was bubonic plague, its action, where it occured, and how it spread varies from that disease. Some suggest it might have been a form of anthrax.
The Statue of Liberty is in New York and the Pentagon is in Washington DC. Neither is true. The Statue of Liberty was constructed on a New Jersey island, and the administration of the island has been ceded to New York, although the island still lies in NJ territorial waters. The Pentagon is in Virginia.
Adolf Hitler was German...not true, he was Austrian.
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