My favourite is the story that there was mass panic over a radio broadcast of War of the Worlds where everyone thought a real alien invasion was happening. I heard this story as a kid and really thought this was a cruel prank played by the radio station.
In reality, they made it clear at the beginning of the broadcast, and twice during, that it was fictional. Not that many people were listening and most of the people who were, were aware it wasn’t real. A few idiots freaked out and it somehow turned into a story of mass panic. It was propaganda by newspapers to discredit radio.
I’ve seen people, including pop history channels with lots of views, talk about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident without any disclaimer acknowledging that it didn’t happen. It was just a straight up lie to get the US into Vietnam and idk how many people out there still believe it, it’s crazy.
So many apocryphal stories are just the best…
At a dinner party, someone accused Winston Churchill of being drunk.
“That may be, madam, but you’re ugly, and I’ll be sober in the morning.”
Likely never happened.
But the one that breaks my heart is that there is no evidence Carthage was salted after being destroyed.
The idea that eating carrots helps your eyesight came from WW2 Britain. It was an intentionally spread lie to cover up for the fact that they had radar.
I thought it was changing the light colour of the cockpit lights from white to green.
I belive Remote viewing is similar.
Some poor young girl got knocked up and she didn’t want to say who the father was so she made up a story about how a spirit had impregnated her.
I think that one got way out of hand
Someone mistranslated Almah/Parthenos, the word for young girl, as virgin
Also known as the case of the oblivious husband
That one story about NASA supposedly spending millions developing a pen that would work in space, while the Soviets just used a pencil.
What actually happened IIRC is NASA bought the pens from a private company that had already developed them. And they didn’t pay millions. Pencils were a hazard in space, so NASA adopted this new pen soon afterwards, with the Soviet Space Program following suit soon after.
Even more irritating, both nasa and the soviets were simply using grease pens because the dangers of pencils were obvious to everyone. Whole story is just absurd.
Yeah, that company specifically developed a space-capable pen as a marketing gig and then offered it to NASA who paid less for them than they did for the pens they would have gotten instead.
The Confederacy didn’t actually fight for the states’ right to continue slavery.
They fought against the states’ right to abolish it, even if the state wanted to.
The distinction is subtle, but they actually wanted more power for the federal government to tell states what to do.
In this case, to tell them they aren’t allowed to ban slavery.They fought for their states’ rights to dictate what other states were or were not allowed to do. Something that’s closely mirrored with similar debates today.
NASA spending millions to develop a zero-gravity pen while the USSR used a pencil. It’s funny, believable, and false.
One thing you definitely don’t want when your floating through microgravity a thousand miles from the ground is fragments of graphite flying into your incredibly sensitive electrical equipment.
But it would be funny to watch them trying to use a pencil sharpener
So crayons instead?
What they were actually using prior to the space pen, and what the soviets used, were grease pencils, which really basically are crayons
Only if there are no Marine astronauts, otherwise they’ll assume it’s rations.
Nah - they went with the pen
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
They asked for false or exaggerated stories…
The Boston Massacre.
9 officers were surrounded by like 300 angry Bostonians who were wielding clubs and other weapons and goading them to fire their weapons while throwing shit at them. The fact that the only punishment for the officers who killed five people following their trial (in colonial court defended by John Adams) was that two had their thumbs branded indicated how two-sided the situation was.
Paul Revere’s famous engraving depicting the incident was intentional anti-British propaganda used to advance the cause of the revolution.
While Wojtek serving in the Polish army during the invasion of Italy is true, a lot of his exploits are exaggerated. I still love it though.
Him helping out is confirmed, and if I remember correctly, the story of him carrying artillery shells is among the confirmed ones. And yes, he did in fact drink beer. But no, he didn’t smoke cigarettes, on the account of being a bear. He ate them, though.
I miss The Wonderful World of Disney anthology series that played on a Sunday evening. I want to see one with Wojtek, Sgt. Reckless, and Cher Ami. That would make me so happy.
The Androleteirai, destroyers of men, aka The Amazons.
Meanwhile, when Ghostwatch was on, people panicked even though it had been announced as a “Play on (BBC) One” for weeks.
I think it’s still on YouTube somewhere.
Jesus, Jews, Jerusalem, January, June, July…
The letter J wasn’t invented until the year 1524…
