Questions tagged [history]
Use this tag for questions that pertain to historical events, or claim whose evidence is historical in nature.
808
questions
3
votes
1answer
417 views
Have about 170 million people been killed in the name of Allah?
In a question recently asked on the Christianity site, namely, Why don’t Christians accept Muhammad as the true prophet?, an answer quoted this article:
“Beware of false prophets who … inwardly are ...
39
votes
2answers
6k views
Did Rudolf Steiner prove the contagiousness of varicella in 1875?
Pages like those from the National Vaccine Information Center NVIC or the Centers for Disease Control CDC make the following claim:
In 1875, Rudolf Steiner discovered that chickenpox was infectious ...
-3
votes
1answer
701 views
Is there a 218-year gap in the dendrochronological oak scale of the late Roman Empire?
There a very controversial study conducted by Petra Ossowski Larsson and Lars-Ake Larsson called "Dendrochronological Dating of Roman Time".
If I understood correctly, it states that there ...
25
votes
1answer
5k views
Were 1 in 6 protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention FBI agents?
At a press conference today, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene made this claim:
In 1968 at the Democratic National Convention where there were 10,000 protestors. One out of six were federal ...
13
votes
3answers
2k views
Are the British to blame for Israel's stray cat problem? [closed]
Stray cats are extremely common in Israel and there is a common urban legend that they were imported by the British during the mandate period to combat a rat problem.
For example, you can see this ...
9
votes
1answer
467 views
Could the diphtheria antitoxin (vaccine) have been flown into Nome, Alaska in 1925, but was chosen not to?
I just finished watching Togo on Disney+ last night, where the plot of the story is centered around a musher, Leonhard Seppala, and his lead sled dog, Togo. They make a very long trek across the ...
4
votes
1answer
613 views
Is this the sound of the 1883 Krakatoa eruption?
This widely watched video claims to be audio from the infamous Krakatoa explosion. Is it authentic?
28
votes
2answers
6k views
Has LSD 'been widely used in hospitals for the treatment of mental disorders'?
Operation Moneybags is a video purporting to be a documentary covering medical experiments on British troops,
The film has an opening card (27 seconds in) stating:
This film was made during the ...
6
votes
0answers
591 views
Is this quote from Lenin: "Make them swallow the word, they will swallow the thing"?
Éric Zemmour, the far-right probable candidate for the 2022 French presidential election said (in his book La France n'a pas dit son dernier mot but also in many meetings, example) that Lenin has ...
-10
votes
1answer
372 views
Is there another period of history in rest of world as detailed as Islamic history? [closed]
There so many hadiths (quotes) and riwayahs (anecdotes) about the life of Muhammad the prophet or messenger who brought Islam.
I have heard more than 200,000 hadiths exist, sahih(authentic) and not ...
3
votes
2answers
718 views
Did some men in the Middle Ages remove their left testicle in an effort of having a son?
As mentioned here:
During the middle ages, it was believed that sperm produced by the left testicle produced girls. To ensure having a son, men would have it removed.
I have not heard about this ...
8
votes
0answers
390 views
Did stock trader, Mark Minervini, make 33,554% from 1994-1999 years?
This 2020 Business Insider article claims that author and stock-trader, Mark Minervini made a
compounded total return of 33,554% from 1994 to 1999, which equates to roughly 220% a year
This seems ...
8
votes
2answers
691 views
Was heroin originally developed as a cure for morphine addiction?
The video What Does Heroin Do To Your Body? claims that heroin was originally developed by the Bayer pharmaceutical company as a treatment for tuberculosis and morphine addiction. Is this true?
14
votes
2answers
7k views
Did a turkish man invent a steam engine 200 years before the industrial revolution and only made it to spin doner kebab? [closed]
I've seen this picture being reposted in many different places recently:
Is it true? Where can this machine be seen? What is it if it's not a steam engine?
Update: The pictures posted above show ...
4
votes
0answers
352 views
Did China lose a submarine (possibly a Xia class SSBN) with all hands on board in 1983-1985?
It's been claimed a video by a US submariner that the Soviet submarine K-10 collided with an unknown submarine in 1983 and this likely was a Chinese one ... because two years later the Chinese press ...
12
votes
0answers
671 views
At Chernobyl, did someone see the fuel channel caps bounce shortly before the explosion?
The well known 2019 show Chernobyl mentions an operator who happened to walk through the reactor hall of Unit 4 seconds before the reactor exploded. He allegedly saw this:
If this story seems ...
10
votes
1answer
732 views
Is the Kabul evacuation "the largest airlift of people in history"?
As quoted here in an August 21 news piece:
“The President noted that this is the largest airlift of people in history and that it would not have been possible without the early support from Qatar to ...
4
votes
0answers
435 views
Is wisdom tooth impaction causally linked to soft, processed foods?
In a book by an anthropologist at Ohio State, it is claimed that (1) third molar impactions dectupled after the Industrial Revolution, and (2) this was due to a new abundance of soft, processed food.
...
0
votes
1answer
706 views
Did ancient Hindu texts describe the existence of photons as early as 3100 BCE?
BooksFact.com is a popular Vedic blog (17K YouTube followed, 3K FB followers). In 2014, they published an article that claims that the Bhagavata_Purana was written 5100 years and contains a ...
10
votes
1answer
1k views
Secret instructions for the German submarines for the cruise to Agartha, a hidden land in the Antarctic. Are they authentic?
I saw this document posted on several websites about forgotten continents. They detail the maneuvers that a submarine must take to make it through the Antarctic to the other side.
Is there anything ...
-1
votes
1answer
461 views
Did "the" London Agreement of 1945 bind the Soviets in writing to provide air access to [West] Berlin?
One Australian Airforce page offers this nutshell version of why the Soviets agreed to air corridors but shut down land access to West Berlin in the late 1940s.
Berlin was in the centre of the Soviet ...
39
votes
2answers
9k views
Did Wild West outlaws regularly wear face masks?
An article ("Westerners used to wear masks" by Andrew Gulliford, June 13, 2020) in The Journal of Cortez, Colorado, claims that it was a regular practice of bandits in the "Wild West&...
1
vote
2answers
523 views
Did Newton "invent" Physics to perform better spells? [closed]
I know Atomic Robo is not exactly an authority on real history, but there's also some truth and interesting details intermingled. How true is the statement "Newton invented Physics so he could ...
10
votes
1answer
853 views
Was it ever common in the USA for women to use their husbands' Social Security Numbers as their own?
The December 2015 Uniform Assessment Instrument of Virginia's Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services (an instruction manual for administration of certain public social services) contains the ...
33
votes
3answers
8k views
Is this "ancient Hebrew leather manuscript" seized by police in Turkey authentic?
Some time ago there was news of a manuscript stolen from a Syrian museum, seized from smugglers in Turkey. There are many other articles about this as well.
Turkish police seize ancient manuscript ...
7
votes
1answer
1k views
Is there a bill in Iowa that bans the teaching of sexism, slavery, and racial segregation?
Is there a critical race theory bill in Iowa
that bans the teaching of the following topics: sexism, slavery,
racial segregation, racial discrimination, including topics related to
the enactment and ...
5
votes
1answer
301 views
Did Heimlich maneuvre posters become mandatory in New York shortly after that technique was performed on mayor Ed Koch in 1981?
The New York Times reports in its obituary on former New York mayor Ed Koch, that posters on the Heimlich maneuvre became mandatory in New York restaurants when the mayor got rescued by it:
If you ...
7
votes
1answer
627 views
Was a 37,000-year-old elephant-skin drum found in the Antarctic?
I was searching information about drums skins made of animal hide and I thought, "has there ever been a drum made with elephant skin?".
When I googled this I keep finding multiple links that ...
-6
votes
1answer
361 views
Is COVID the biggest/worst pandemic in Global History? [closed]
The novel coronavirus pandemic, known as Covid-19, could not have been more predictable. Beginning in December 2019, in the region of Wuhan, China, a new (“novel”) coronavirus began appearing in human ...
4
votes
0answers
271 views
Did the Indus Valley Civilization use cotton as a writing material?
In his book, Science and Secrets of Early Medicine, Jürgen Thorwald writes about the script of the Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa civilizations: (in rough translation)
Seals, bronze plaques and clay shells ...
1
vote
1answer
1k views
Did the CIA have a plan to airdrop condoms over Russian soil as a way of psychological warfare?
In various place on the internet, a story circulate about a scrapped CIA plan in which they would airdrop very large condoms labelled "Small" or "Medium" as a way to imply american ...
0
votes
2answers
1k views
Is Spartacus based on true story?
Spartacus (TV Series 2010–2013)
The inspiration behind this series is the Thracian Gladiator Spartacus, who led a slave uprising against the Roman Republic
Spartacus, 19th-century illustration.
...
24
votes
2answers
4k views
Were senior officals who outran their executioners pardoned in the Ottoman Empire?
According to various sources, in the Ottoman Empire, when a senior official was given a death sentence, he'd race with his executioner. If he were to win the race, the death sentence would be commuted,...
0
votes
1answer
313 views
Did farmers adopt cars faster than inhabitants of cities?
I learned from this post: Start with a niche that:
Cars are almost among the lucky exception to the niche rule. However, there was still one group of people in the USA that moved from horses to cars ...
9
votes
2answers
1k views
Were 80 million black slaves killed in the USA by the end of the civil war?
I was listening to a speech by Malcolm X, where he said (at 1:57) that over 80 million black people were killed in America (100 million brought over as slaves, but less than 20 million remained at the ...
4
votes
1answer
468 views
Did British journalists keep silent about Russian defections to Germany in WW2?
In George Orwell's essay, The Prevention of Literature, he claims this:
When Germany collapsed, it was found that very large numbers of Soviet Russians — mostly, no doubt, from non-political motives —...
1
vote
1answer
253 views
Did Emma Willard send a letter to the French government appealing for women’s suffrage in 1848?
In T.M. Roberts' Distant Revolutions: 1848 and the challenge to American Exceptionalism it's said briefly (on p. 92 and without a citation/reference) that:
In 1848 Emma Willard, the director of the ...
49
votes
1answer
10k views
Does archaeological evidence show that Nazareth wasn't inhabited during Jesus's lifetime?
The gospels say that Jesus's home village was Nazareth. A book by Rene Salm claims that according to archaeological evidence, the village of Nazareth didn't become inhabited until after the time when ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
Does "the captain's daughter" refer to a whip/cat o' nine tails?
Many versions of the popular sea shanty "Drunken Sailor" includes the following verse:
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
Put him in bed with the captain's daughter.
Sources including ...
-7
votes
1answer
360 views
Were most active policemen in the Weimer Republic not Nazis?
From the Holocaust Encylopedia: The police in the Weimar Republic
In the years of the Weimar Republic, most active policemen were not Nazis, meaning they were not members of the Nazi Party or of Nazi ...
-2
votes
1answer
369 views
How did the myth that student loans are non-dischargeable originate?
A fairly common myth is that student loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy (USA). For example, this NPR article discusses the myth and its falsity.
While I have been able to find plenty of ...
-5
votes
1answer
181 views
Did Argentine President Juan Peron grant free access to the radio, the press and two soccer stadiums to a preacher called Tommy Hicks in 1954?
The title is a summary of claims I've read from several informal sources. For example, this site claims:
It was in this environment that Tommy Hicks was welcomed into the presidential office. After ...
23
votes
1answer
1k views
Was the safety of a WW1 helmet called into question because survivorship bias was neglected?
A common story about the British "Brodie helmet", issued first in World War I, is the following:
After introduction of the helmet, the number of reported head injuries increased. This called ...
3
votes
0answers
192 views
Did Emperor Nero burn Frankincense equal to Oman's annual production at his wife's funeral?
In a documentary about Oman -The Paradoxical Life In Muscat - Magnificent Megacities it is narrated that -
According to the legend, Emperor Nero burned the whole of Oman's annual production ...
-15
votes
1answer
942 views
Were owners of slaves in 1860, largely Democrats?
According to Dinesh D'Souza
"claim that no Republicans owned slaves in 1860 is incorrect. A handful did. "
"Here’s the big picture: Out of the 4 million slaves in the US in 1860, more ...
-1
votes
1answer
235 views
Did Isidore of Seville ever claim Roman god of wine, Bacchus, got his name from "baculus" (walking stick)?
On multiple places on-line, including Wikipedia, there is information that Saint Isidore of Seville claimed that the name of the Roman god of wine, Bacchus, got his name from "baculus" ...
19
votes
0answers
776 views
Did Burmese typewriters contain an upside-down character, which subsequently became proper typewriter style?
I was reading about the Internet Archive's work to archive the materials of a famous New York City typewriter family:
http://blog.archive.org/2020/08/26/an-archive-of-a-different-type/
I was ...
9
votes
0answers
793 views
Did the cat-o'-nine-tails' bag ever exist?
There are numerous instances on the Internet and in Google books, which claim the cat-o'-nine-tails, a late 17th century instrument of punishment used by the Royal Navy, was kept in a bag. It is said ...
5
votes
1answer
508 views
Did Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni hand the national flag to intercessors in 1997 in the midst of a Christian revival?
World Trumpet Mission, an international revivalist ministry founded in 1988 in the Republic of Uganda by John Mulinde, presents the following historical timeline on their website (emphasis mine):
In ...
18
votes
1answer
2k views
Did the CIA feed false information to McCarthy to discredit his true claims that they were infiltrated by Soviet agents?
In Legacy of Ashes (which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction), Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Tim Weiner, claims that:
McCarthy's file grew thick with allegations that "the CIA had ...
