re: Common Historical Misconceptions. What you got?

The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776.

What was he?

Hitler was German

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Quigley

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Myths about founding of America

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They initially tried to set up the colonies exactly like Western Europe -- a series of small, in-fighting nations stacked on top of each other.

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Colonies, when owned by different European nations, yes. But they imply this was also true of our first form of government. Which is not accurate.

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We're always told that the pilgrims were helped by an Indian named Squanto who spoke English. How the hell did that happen? Had he taken AP English in high school? The answer to that question is the greatest story your history teachers didn't bother to teach you.

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Mine did.

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Croatan was the name of a nearby island populated by friendly Native Americans. In the years after the people of Roanoke "disappeared," genetically impossible Native Americans with gray eyes and an "astounding" familiarity with distinctly European customs began to pop up in the tribes that moved between Croatan and Roanoke islands.

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Not that simple.

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Two Native Americans landed in Holland in 60 B.C.

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Easy to state, easy to prove with circumstantial evidence. Almost impossible to factually prove. I find it funny I cannot find a single review of, or a source giving validity to, the book they pulled this factoid from.

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The Indians were so good at killing trees that a team of Stanford environmental scientists think they caused a mini ice age in Europe. When all of the tree-clearing Indians died in the plague, so many trees grew back that it had a reverse global warming effect. More carbon dioxide was sucked from the air, the Earth's atmosphere held on to less heat, and Al Gore cried a single tear of joy.

One of the best examples of how we got Native Americans all wrong is Cahokia, a massive Native American city located in modern day East St. Louis. In 1250, it was bigger than London, and featured a sophisticated society with an urban center, satellite villages and thatched-roof houses lining the central plazas. While the city was abandoned by the time white people got to it, the evidence they left behind suggests a complex economy with trade routes from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.

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This does not mean they weren't "primitive". Historical perspective on "Primitive" cultures, normally refer to technological development, and they were 500 years or more behind Europe, and at least 250 years behind the Far East.

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Some place the vikings as far south as modern day North Carolina.

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There is also evidence that places them as far west as Minnesota.

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When he couldn't find enough of the yellow stuff to make his voyage profitable, he focused on enslaving Native Americans for profit. That's how efficient Columbus was -- he discovered America and invented American slavery in the same 15-year span.

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The idea of an overarching confederacy of different independent states was completely foreign to them.

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No, just no.

And the idea is more foreign to today's Americans than the Americans of yesteryear. Thanks to the death of State's Rights.




Even this article's supposed attempt at "real" history is filled with bullshite, lazy research, and bad writing.



My Historical Misconception:

Its a twofer.

Our Founding Fathers were all Christians!

No! Our Founding Fathers were mostly Deists or Atheists!

As with most things, the truth is in the middle.

Or

Eleanor Roosevelt was a great woman who was in NO way, shape, or form, a socialist.

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What was he?

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As mentioned, he was Georgian. His real name is Joseph Dzhugashvili. Most Georgian surnames end in -shvili. His birth home in the town of Gori has been preserved as a kind of shrine because besides all of his atrocities, he's easily the most famous Georgian ever.

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I wasn't short.

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or French

Yea, that Cracked article sucked. He states as fact an absolutely unproven (and largely discredited) claim that Native Americans landed in Germania in 60 BC, among many other things.

I have long wondered why it took Spanish and English settlers to spread European diseases (post 1492) whereas they avoided the same devastation from Icelandic/Norse (1000 AD or so). I think some of the pre-Columbian native population figures are wildly inflated, though, no doubt, the Europeans would have had a much more difficult time had plague not scorched communities.

Besides that, there were pretty healthy European communities in North American prior to either Jamestown or the Pilgrims. They just weren't English.

Also, the founding documents of the States had very little to do with the Iroquois Confederacy. The founders are clear as day concerning their influences.

Good one. A lot of Russian surnames end in -chuk and -ko which actually shows Ukrainian heritage.