To wonder which ‘history facts’ aren’t true.

[LeslieKnopefan]

I understand that history isn’t always true and the further we go back in time the harder it is know what the truth is and what is simply made up.

However I recently posted that I thought it was true that Marie Antoinette hair turned white overnight after her best friends head was paraded in front of her and that I only realised it wasn’t when I told a mate who pointed out it couldn’t be true.

So which history facts that people think are true are known to be lies?

I vaguely remember being taught in school that the palace of Westminster didn't have any cellars (being right next to the Thames), so the Gunpowder Plot as popularly portrayed couldn't have been true.

However, I am old enough for the debunkings to have been long debunked, so I am entirely happy to be proved wrong.

I knew a woman who lost her husband young in a tragic accident and went white pretty much overnight.

Hair cannot turn white over night. Regardless of who insists it’s true. Once the hair has left the head, shock or trauma cannot change the pigment.

@cantkeepawayforever

The barrels were in an undercroft. The conspirators purchased the lease to an undercroft. Apparently, they originally tunnelled from their rented house to the house of lords but then the undercroft was available as the then-tenant had died, so it was a better spot.

The old palace of Westminster was a cluster of building around chapels and halls and lodgings for lawyers etc. These buildings commonly had undercrofts for storing food and stuff. Their undercroft was on the ground floor and directly underneath the 1st floor house of lords.

thebestschools.org/magazine/25-popular-history-myths-debunked/

missbloomsbury I know Richard had scoliosis, but it wouldn't have been that noticeable under his clothes. There was a great documentary made with a chap (who's name escapes me - Dominic someone) who has exactly the same curvature that Richard had. They had armour made for him, taught him to ride on a 15th century saddle and gave him lessons with a sword, etc. He found that riding was easy with the support given by the saddle and the armour and you would not have known, looking at him clothed, that his back is so twisted. He recently said that making that documentary and learning all those skills changed his life. He now goes and talks to young people about his experiences. Scoliosis does not make you a hunchback.

Anyone other than me picked up on CJ Sansom's theory that Henry VIII (and quite possibly Edward IV too) were actually suffering from Type 2 diabetes? All the symptoms fit, as do the lifestyles. Lots of meat and sugar as that's what the Most Important People eat. And none of that degrading stuff that only poor people eat, like vegetables and cereals.

Little, there’s no point discussing how in theory his scoliosis could have been hidden by clothing etc. Clearly it wasn’t hidden because it’s described by contemporary accounts. So people knew then, and people continued to know about it for hundreds of years until his bones were dug up and confirmed what we all knew.

Alpaca that would explain why his sores never healed

Iwasjust - genuinely contemporary, or contemporary as in Tudor historians? I remember in Josephone Tey's book there was a lot of detail about who was the 'contemporary authority', who turned out to be purely tudor?

My DH looks uncommonly like a Roman Emperor in profile. It's the nose.

if anything is make believe it's this

Absolutely @goose1964 I do think we keep forgetting that before about 1850/1900 medicine was frankly still stuck in the dark ages... if in doubt bleed the patient and prescribe opium.

and also marie antionette wore a wig

and also it was brioche not cake

The first proper 'lecture' I ever went to was Starkey, lecturing to sixth formers, and it was electrifying.

Me too. Though I'm less sure about it being electrifying. Didn't put me off putting history all over my UCCA and PCAS forms though. (That's more history, what we had to do in the days before UCAS.)

Can’t, you’re correct that the nasty physical descriptions came after his death but they were written by contemporaries such as John Rous (who said a lot of questionable stuff).

The fact remains, the scoliosis was there and people knew about it enough to describe it right after his death.

The Nazis didn't leave an excellent paper trail. This is a (bizarre) myth put about much later, by the sort of people who think it's clever to claim 'Germans are efficient'.

In fact, they tried very hard to hide evidence. Treblinka, for example, was ploughed over, and before that it - like other death camps - was provided with fake station clocks and timetables to make people think it was a station on the way to somewhere else.

'Germans are efficient'.

That's definitely a myth.

Yes, in recent years Philippa G has claimed to be a historian and gone as Dr Philippa Gregory when she had a non-fiction history book about the wars of the roses published.

But lots of characters in her books have magical powers. Actual magical powers. Some are completely fictional characters but others are based on real historical figures. And they have magical powers. What sort of history is that?

That the famine in Ireland was caused by the lack of potatoes.

My history teacher was very fond of saying “there’s no such thing as an historical fact” think he was alluding to Voltaire (???) saying it was “a fabel generally agreed upon” think napoleon could’ve nicked this quote too. History properly taught I think is about asking the right questions and coming up with probable scenarios. Some things are obviously a lot for certain than others.

I'd have thought Philippa Gregory is like Alison Weir, who has a team of people researching for her.