175
votes
Did smiling, female Israeli soldiers pose with "We kill Children" placards during Gaza War?
TL;DR: No, the image is photo-shopped.
This is shown by:
Finding an earlier published image which is extremely similar, aside from the content of the placard being Israeli flag (star of David) ...
- 31.1k
106
votes
Accepted
Did the British navy fail to take into account the ballistics correction due to Coriolis force during WW1 Falkland Islands battle?
No. It is a complete invention of an urban myth.
Unless anybody produces a Royal Navy document that even does any mention of this influence of Coriolis effect, this seems to be just untrue. A ...
- 43k
91
votes
Accepted
Did WWII Japanese soldiers engage in cannibalism of their enemies?
I'd like to note that this answer contains mentions of particular instances of cannibalism, and while no unnecessary details have been included, it may still be upsetting to some people.
Yes, ...
- 11.1k
90
votes
Is any male over 15 years of age considered a combatant if killed by a drone strike?
The New York Times reported in the 29 May 2012 article Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will:
Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did ...
- 96.5k
86
votes
What is the origin of this photo of an unexploded bomb?
The original photo appears to have been posted by Ukrainian soldier Andrew Zaharov on his Facebook photo album. as it predates the articles from any of the news sources below.
The initial hit for ...
- 18.1k
83
votes
Is there reliable evidence that depleted uranium from the 1999 NATO bombing is causing cancer in Serbia?
There are several points to consider here.
1) Depleted Uranium is not that much "depleted".
"Depleted uranium," the byproduct of the enrichment process, has about 0.002 percent 234U, 0.2 percent ...
- 18.8k
79
votes
Did Pakistan lose each and every war it fought with India from 1947 to 1999?
According to Wikipedia, there have been four declared wars between India and Pakistan. None of them were "won" or "lost" in that neither party in any of these wars was forced into ...
78
votes
Accepted
Was this Indian from British India the first to strike Berlin during World War I?
Although the person named existed and served in the Royal Flying Corps, the story itself is very likely not true.
First the good news. "Dattabraya Laxuman Patwardhan" certainly existed and was ...
- 54.2k
69
votes
Accepted
Did Donald Trump express support for the Iraq war?
Factcheck.org covers this: "Donald Trump and the Iraq War", FactCheck.Org
On September 11, 2002:
Howard Stern asks Trump if he supports invading Iraq. Trump answers hesitantly. “Yeah, I guess so. ...
- 654
49
votes
Accepted
Did Christians kill thirty to fifty times as many people in political violence as Muslims in the 20th century?
No, the figures that were used to produce this graph are inaccurate, exaggerating the ratio.
The basic numbers being claimed are:
Christian Europe killed 100 million in the 20th Century, consisting ...
- 840
40
votes
Is there reliable evidence that depleted uranium from the 1999 NATO bombing is causing cancer in Serbia?
Check out this paper: Cancer mortality in Serbia, 1991–2015, published in 2018. The study is based on official data on cancer-related deaths. The conclusions drawn by the authors are:
Overall cancer ...
- 2,357
38
votes
Did a Turkish cargo ship get bombed in the Black Sea during the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
It was reported on Lloyd's so it's probably real. I don't have a subscription, so I can't access (all) the details.
Turkish bulker hit by bomb off Odessa. The Yasa Jupiter suffered no casualties. It ...
- 49.3k
34
votes
Did the British navy fail to take into account the ballistics correction due to Coriolis force during WW1 Falkland Islands battle?
Rudolph Verner, the gunnery officer of the Inflexible, which took part in the battle, wrote a short set of notes about the successes and difficulties encountered during the engagement. He writes
...
- 11.1k
32
votes
Accepted
Have there been only 26 days of peace since 1945?
It is difficult to give a straight answer to the question, because if we define peace as the absence of war (example), we still have the problem of the nebulous definition of war. Does war include ...
- 132k
32
votes
Accepted
Have 50 million Eastern Orthodox Christians been killed in the 20th century?
The claim is essentially correct -- tens of millions of Orthodox Christians died of political violence in the 20th century. However, everything that Mr. Serfes tries to imply by making that claim is ...
- 1,361
32
votes
Accepted
Does this map show every car bomb explosion in Baghdad since 2003?
It's plausible.
The map appears to be based on the same data set as this interactive map by The Guardian, which is of "every incident where somebody died" in Iraq, between 2003 and 2009, and is based ...
- 15.4k
28
votes
Accepted
Was an argument over how many telegraph poles Germany needed to deliver cause to WW2?
No, it is not fair to say that "a missed telegraph pole delivery" was "what caused" World War II. Even if we are willing to give the Joker the benefit of doubt, that he meant "one of the causes", the ...
- 2,140
26
votes
Accepted
Were American female soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan more likely to be raped by their fellow soldiers than attacked by the enemy?
Unclear, but a still considered a serious problem. With the parameters of the statement provided, it is difficult to definitively confirm or refute it. In order to do so we would would need to know ...
- 16.7k
25
votes
Do gun homicides and suicides kill more Americans than war?
Yes.
According to Politifact who examined the claim by Mark Shields:
You know, Judy, the reality is -- and it's a terrible reality -- since Robert Kennedy died in the Ambassador Hotel on June 4, ...
- 28.8k
24
votes
Accepted
Have more US veterans taken their own life in the last six years than died in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Although exact numbers are hard to come by, there is clearly a higher rate of suicides among veterans than the general population and that number exceeds the number of combat deaths in Iraq missions ...
- 7,300
24
votes
Did Donald Trump express support for the Iraq war?
The evidence is that he didn't begin to publicly voice opposition to the war in Iraq until about a year after it began. Before that he expressed support for it.
Washington Post:
We have found no ...
- 7,267
23
votes
Accepted
Were more Americans fatally shot by March this calendar year than died during DDay as the Washington post claimed?
According to the CDC (Table 18) in 2013 there were 33,636 deaths due to firearms, of which 21,175 were suicides. That leaves 12,461 (of which 281 were "undetermined", so could have been suicide).
12,...
- 15.7k
21
votes
Was the video about MH17 done the day before it crashed?
Timestamps are not a good source of information unless you are really sure where they come from. They are set using the system time of the computer creating the file, which might, for example, be set ...
- 3,564
20
votes
Accepted
Is "five" removed from military countdowns because it sounds like "fire"?
Yes, at least sometimes.
In the 2nd episode of the 2nd season of the British TV show Scrapheap Challenge the challenge was to build a cannon. They tested the cannons in a DERA facility where "real" ...
- 28.8k
19
votes
Accepted
Was Monsanto the primary manufacturer of Agent Orange?
The amounts of agent orange, in units of 55-gallon (208 liter) drums by company is as follows:
Dow 78,235
Monsanto 67,065
Hercules 49,945
Thompson-Hayward Chemical (T.H. Agriculture and Nutrition ) ...
- 96.5k
17
votes
Accepted
Did most of the American riflemen in combat during World War II avoid firing at the enemy?
Yes, the evidence is credible.
According to David Grossman, a retired U.S. military psychologist who specializes in the psychology of killing, the source of this claim is S. L. A. Marshall, in his ...
- 664
17
votes
Accepted
What do we know about red mercury?
Red mercury does indeed exist, mercury (11) oxide (HgO) varies from yellow to red, here. The more fine the particles the more towards the yellow it is, the bigger the lumps, the more red.
There is ...
17
votes
Accepted
Did Churchill come up with the idea of using civilian vessels to evacuate those trapped at Dunkirk, as portrayed in Darkest Hour?
tl:dr
The recruitment of civilian ships to evacuate the BEF was largely Ramsay's idea, set forth in the Dynamo Room at Dover during a conference on May 20th.
This is a bit difficult to answer.
One ...
- 43k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible