subject: Historical Myths [print this page] Historical Myths Historical Myths
All societies have various myths about their formation. Some garb it in supernatural events, others have legends.
Everyone wants this glorious past, this magnificent blessed advent, and so they create myths and legends and stories and mix up truth and fiction so that it seems that some
special gift was given to those who belong to this spot of Earth.
There are those societies which enshrine what are untruths as history and disseminate them so that 'everyone' knows that this is why and how. In some cases, it is accidental, where someone makes up a story, knowing he made up a story, and publishes a story that in a few generations is taken as fact.
There are other times that people really don't know the truth of a matter and supply all sorts of explanations.
For example; the idea that people believed in a 'flat earth'.
Columbus did not think the Earth was flat, nor did anyone else. Columbus thought the Earth was smaller than it was, though others calculated the size to be almost correct but didn't know there was a land mass between Europe and China.
When it comes to the settling of America, the truth is a bit different than what is contained in the history books. Slavery itself was not the plan. In fact, the first Africans who landed in what would become America were treated as Indentured labourers.
This changed when a court case was brought by one of those Indentured Labourers.
When it comes to Wars fought by the United States, no one, except perhaps the U.S. Marines recalls the Tripolitan War. This is where the line; "...to the shores of Tripoli.." comes from.
These are just three of a number of the myths people are actually taught to believe. Perhaps it is accidental, but the facts are available.
