Popular Falsities in History

Colombus thought he reached india, but he was only the first tourist on the island of hispaniola.

Edited by ulrich von hutten - 28-May-2006 at 13:23

Native Americans had no knowledge of the wheel

and the horse...I think

Ponce De Leon's belief that there was a "fountain of youth" in what is now Florida.


Edited by mamikon - 28-May-2006 at 13:10

Originally posted by Mixcoatl People in the middle ages thought the world was flat Native Americans had no knowledge of the wheel

Both of these statements are untrue, is that what you are looking for?

"his nationalistic crap"

Constantine created the canon of Scripture.

The ecclesiastics at the Council of Nicaea didn't really believe what they decided, they were just (the operative word) trying to gain political power.

Edited by Akolouthos - 29-May-2006 at 12:18

I think Cleopatra was Egyptian.

Paul, Gargoyle is not technically wrong as hellenistic Egypt maid a clear difference between Egyptian and Greek subjects (also it is true these communities were defined by the culture you belonged to not your genetic origin, but of course culture and genetic origin were usually the same, with the exception of the Jews who were seen as Greeks). She was seen as an Oriental by the Romans but as a Greek by its Egyptian subjects that often rebelled against the sovereign. To stay in touch with the population, the hellenic kings used the Egyptian clerics. But after a while even those were seen as mere collaborators of the Greeks. Big mess anyway.

M.

Paul,

Sure, Egyptian in the way that she was the Queen of Egypt. Egypt was part of Alexanders empire. Alexandria was a Hellenistic City. Cleopatra's ethnicity was a Greek. The Ptolemaic dynasty was purely Greek, full of inbreeding.

Gotcha. I made the same mistake in another thread. Assumptions like that are very easy to make on this forum. It seems, however, that our friend Gargoyle is, in fact, quite intelligent.

How nice these clever guys: two lovebirds.