Difference between revisions of "Essay:Greatest Myths of World History"

Revision as of 19:54, March 20, 2009

Here is a growing list of the greatest myths of world history:

Slaves built the pyramids

For many years, it was widely believed that the pyramids were built mainly with slave labor.^[1] We now know that although some of the laborers were conscripts or prisoners of war, most of the laborers were free men.^[2] Most of the men who worked on the pyramids were farmers or farm laborers. In the summer, when the Nile flooded and farm work was impossible, they found work as builders.

Columbus sets out to discover America

When Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, what he was really doing was looking for a sea route to Asia. It didn't turn out quite the way he expected; he made landfall on the island of Hispanola. A related myth is that Columbus discovered or proved that the Earth was round. Unlike many others, these myths are widely known to be false.

A pox on you!

Anti-Christians teach that the Christian Europeans deliberately spread smallpox among the American Indians, as in handing out blankets with the germs. "... the myth is so vibrant that it made its way into a scene in the movie Broken Trail (2006)."^[3]

In fact, the germ theory of disease was not even discovered until the 19th century.

'... at odds with any such idea is the effort of the United States government at this time tovaccinate the native population. Smallpox vaccination, a procedure developed by the English country doctor Edward Jenner in 1796, was first ordered in 1801 by President Jefferson; the program continued in force for three decades, though its implementation was slowed both by the resistance of the Indians, who suspected a trick, and by lack of interest on the part of some officials. Still, as Thornton writes: "Vaccination of American Indians did eventually succeed in reducing mortality from smallpox."'^[4]

"Let them eat cake!"

Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake" was almost certainly never uttered. The phrase was likely invented by anti-monarchist revolutionaries seeking to have Marie and Louis XVI executed. Moreover, even if it was uttered, it would have made sense because there was a shortage of bread and cake was a rational substitute.

The original French would have been "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" (brioche being a rough form of cake made of flour, butter and eggs). Apparently, French law required bakers to sell loaves at fixed prices and fancy loaves had to be sold at the same price as basic breads. Given a flour shortage at the time, brioche would have been an affordable, and available, alternative. Conversely, Rossouw in his memoirs, Confessions says in Vol 6, "At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied, 'Then let them eat pastry!'" However, Rousseau wrote this in early 1766, when Marie Antoinette was only 10 years old.^[5]

Notes