Weir - Historys greatest lies: the startling truths behind world events our history books got wrong

Text 2009 Fair Winds Press

First published in the USA in 2009 by
Fair Winds Press, a member of Quayside Publishing Group
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Digital edition: 978-1-61673-437-4
Hardcover edition: 978-1-59233-336-3
ISBN-10: 1-59233-336-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weir, William, 1928

Historys greatest lies: the startling truths behind world events our history books got wrong / William Weir.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59233-336-3
ISBN-10: 1-59233-336-2

1. History-Errors, inventions, etc. I. Title.

D10.W317 2008

001.95-dc22

2008032088

Cover and book design: Peter Long
Book layout: Sheila Hart Design, Inc.

The cover image courtesy of The Art Archive / Museo Capitolino Rome / Alfredo Dagli Orti: Nero, 37-68 AD, Fifth Roman emperor, marble bust

Inside cover image: The Fire of Rome, 18 July 64 AD (oil on canvas), Robert, Hubert (1733-1808): Unafraid to get his hands dirty, Nero helped fight the fire, search for the missing, transport the homeless, and in one case, rescue a family from a burning building.

Printed and bound in China

Contributing writers: William Weir (Introduction, Paul Revere, The Earp Gang, The Philippine Insurrection, John Dillinger); Kevin Dwyer (The Goths, Jesse James, Afghanistan); Jur Fiorillo (Emperor Nero, The Galileo Affair, The Legend of Lasseter); Edwin Kiester (Robert the Bruce, Hernn Corts); Ed Wright (Ramesses II, The Bastille, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion)

THE STARTLING TRUTHS BEHIND WORLD EVENTS
OUR HISTORY BOOKS GOT WRONG

WILLIAM WEIR

SECTION I
THE FIRST LIE WE LEARNED IN SCHOOL

SECTION II
LIES FROM THE ANCIENTS

SECTION III
LIES FROM THE RENAISSANCE

SECTION IV
LIES FROM THE TIME OF THE REVOLUTIONS

SECTION V
LIES FROM THE AMERICAN WILD WEST

SECTION VI
LIES FROM JUST YESTERDAY

HISTORY LIES? WELL, MAYBE SOMETIMES IT EXAGGERATES, or oversimplifies. But you do find some whoppers, such as the second Ramesses tale of how he single-handedly routed the Hittites at Kadesha battle in which he was actually lucky to escape with his life.

And there are some really evil lies, like the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zionan invention of the tsarist secret police to distract the Russian public from the tsars incompetence and provoke them into killing Jews. The Protocols have had a remarkably long life. They have been used to justify the Holocaust and are still taught as fact in some Middle Eastern schools today.

This book is a sampling of historical lies and mythsthe evil and the innocent, those aimed to glorify the teller, and those used to demonize his opponents. Most of us learned these untruths when we were in primary school, so this is a somewhat belated effort to set the record straight by debunking these falsehoods. We reveal the characters involved and their motivations, and detail the legacies spawned by these falsehoods.

The reason for the Protocols is obvious. The origin of most other lies is more complicated. Take the Pinocchio-nosed gentleman on our coverEmperor Nero.

Nero didnt fiddle while Rome burned because, among other reasons, the fiddle would not be invented for another 1,500 years. But that fiddling tale is probably the most famous of historical lies, which is why it kicks off our survey. Actually, Nero was out of town when the fire started, and when he returned, he did everything possible to stop the disaster, and he even heroically rescued many of its victims.

NERO DIDNT FIDDLE WHILE ROME BURNED BECAUSE, AMONG OTHER REASONS, THE FIDDLE WOULD NOT BE INVENTED FOR ANOTHER 1,500 YEARS. BUT THAT FIDDLING TALE IS PROBABLY THE MOST FAMOUS OF HISTORICAL LIES.

Aside from that, though, Nero was not a nice guy. He was an egomaniac who believed he was a supremely gifted musician, singer, actor, and chariot racer among other things. He murdered his brother and his mother and executed his first wife so he could marry another woman. He so completely neglected the affairs of state that historians rate him the worst of all Roman emperorsand for that title, the field is crowded and the competition keen.

Because Nero was so bad, the story went around that he had not only done nothing about the fire, but that he had started it. Nero countered that story by declaring that the Christiansa despised minorityhad started the fire, thereby anticipating the ploy used by the Protocols authors by many centuries.

Actually, attempting to create a scapegoat is a fairly common source of historical lies. Hitler had his Jewish scapegoats; Stalin blamed the kulaks, small independent Russian farmers, for the Soviet Unions economic problems. After Stalin had killed most of them, he needed another scapegoat, so he turned to the military. After a series of show trials in 1937 and 1938, Stalin executed 3 of the armys 5 marshals, 13 of the 15 army commanders, 110 of the 195 division commanders, and 186 of the 406 brigadier generals. Thats one reason Hitlers legions were able to get as far into Russia as they did.

Somewhat similar to these lies, told to create scapegoats, is the story about how the French revolutionaries took the Bastille, that horrible dungeon filled with the miserable victims of a tyrannical monarchy. Actually, considering the state of most prisons in the eighteenth century, the Bastille was one of the more pleasanta resort compared to the Old Newgate Prison of the American Revolution, a dark, dank former copper mine where Tories were confined. And at the time the Bastille was stormed, it contained only seven prisoners.

The opposite of scapegoat stories are those lies aimed to make the undeserving look good, such as the account by Ramesses II of the Battle of Kadesh. The FBIs report of the death of bank robber John Dillinger falls into this category, too. The evidence indicates that instead of public enemy number one, agent Melvin Purvis men killed a pimp named Jimmy Lawrence who resembled Dillinger. The report greatly boosted public confidence in the FBI and ensured that J. Edgar Hoover would keep his job for a couple of generations.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a poet, not a historian, and he wrote his poem about Paul Reveres midnight ride in 1860 to inspire his fellow citizens to do something about the crisis that was threatening the countrya civil war. The last stanza reads:

For, borne on the night wind of the past,

Through all our history to the last,

In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

The people will waken and listen to hear,

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Paul Revere was a hero, but he wasnt a lone hero. His ride was effective only because of the ancient institution of the militia and the recent network of committees set up by the Sons of Liberty.

People want heroes, and sometimes they find them in unlikely places. Jesse James, a robber and a multiple murderer, came to be revered by Confederate sympathizers as a modern Robin Hood simply because he was a former guerrilla and pretended to be continuing the war against the Yankees. Others honored him because he robbed banks and railroads, neither of which were popular with rural people. Did he give to the poor? Sure, if by the poor you mean himself and his gang. James fame was spread by paperback books and movies.