Ask Lemmy

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

NASA spending millions to develop a zero-gravity pen while the USSR used a pencil. It's funny, believable, and false.

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.

There was a gap in [some military capability] during the Cold War, and the USA was losing it. Almost anything you stick in there, Russia was behind. They sometimes implied otherwise, but it's rare that they ever were. Occasionally, they used everything they had to just about match.

By the 1960s, their navy was pretty good, though. Don't let anyone tell you they were just a bunch of vodka drunk idiots. Not at that time, anyway.

At the opposite end of what this thread is about, Dr Strangelove is far more correct than it should be.

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.

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.

Marie Antoinette saying let them eat bread or something

From her point of view it sounds incredibly based, it would probably have just been ignorance though. I'm still glad she died because of that patronising comment that she kind of didn't actually say

The Androleteirai, destroyers of men, aka The Amazons.

Jesus, Jews, Jerusalem, January, June, July...

The letter J wasn't invented until the year 1524...

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.

That the USA saved europe in ww1 (they did in ww2 but they are also the once kinda at fault for it with forcing a weak democratic system on a weak germany), that they invented democracy (litterly italian republics and german hansiatic citys have been around for much longer at the same time as them)

That germany could have won ww2. No we could never have. Too much with too little resources.

The wehrmacht didnt so horrible things. Oooh yes they did. Where do you think the SS got the lists of the jews and who helped transport and kill jews and others?

Middle ages were all doom and dark. No they were pretty af!!