Historical misconceptions that get my goat
A history nerd friend and I were having a jolly good moan about common misconceptions regarding history. We're talking big concepts. Not fun today-I-learned stuff. Here are a selection.
We've always known the world was round
Basically always. Eratosthenes (my favourite Ancient Greek polymath) measured the circumference about 240 BCE with astonishing accuracy. It was probably known by the Ancient Indians before this. About the same time, Aristarchus knew the Earth revolved around the sun (just another star) once a year and rotated once a day.
Acting like forty was ancient
This is just a misunderstanding of how life expectancy - and averages - work. If you made it past the age of five, and women made it through childbirth, you could easily live into your sixties or seventies. Or more! No one looked at a forty-year-old and thought they were old.
Somehow olden days people weren't sad when people died?
Just because it was much more common doesn't mean everyone was fine with it, like it was a mere inconvenience. There's lots of evidence of people being incredibly sad! As they would be! Especially about their kids! Whole architectural, creative, social, and religious movements came out of the collective trauma of stuff like the Black Death.
Women got the vote in 1918
A lot women still couldn't vote. They had to be over thirty, and propertied themselves or through marriage, or a graduate, and so on. Also, up until this point, a lot of men couldn't vote either. Women didn't get universal suffrage until 1928. Related: this idea women didn't work until the Forties or Fifties. I want people to just think about this for a minute.
This weird British myth we haven't been invaded since 1066
Which is rude given all the invading we have done in that time. It's also not really true. The French have brought armies here with great regularity, traipsing about the country. The Danes, Spanish, and Dutch have all had good goes. The Nazis occupied the Channel Islands. William of Orange landed an army, fought a battle, chucked out the king, and took the throne? Literally what else are we calling this? There's a definition issue with conquered versus invaded, and what counts as conquering, but still a very odd thing to be 'proud' of.
Most patriotic, nationalist nonsense
I'm not going to get into it but the country is deep in a madness right now and almost none of the historical claims these people might make are true.