Cracked presents a list of six ridiculous history myths that you probably think are true — if you don’t regularly read up on historical myths:
Gun Fights in the Violent Wild West
How many murders do you suppose these old western towns saw a year? Let’s say the bloodiest, gun-slingingest of the famous cattle towns with the cowboys doing quick-draws at high noon every other day. A hundred? More?How about five? That was the most murders any old-west town saw in any one year. Ever. Most towns averaged about 1.5 murders a year, and not all of those were shooting. You were way more likely to be murdered in Baltimore in 2008 than you were in Tombstone in 1881, the year of the famous gunfight at the OK Corral (body count: three) and the town’s most violent year ever.Stock Brokers Jumping Out of Windows When The Market Crashes
A popular comedian at the time made a quip about speculators needing to “stand in line to get a window to jump out of.” The myth grew from there, until the “suddenly bankrupt stockbroker leaping from a window” became a stereotype.In reality, only two suicides by jumping occurred on Wall Street between the crash and the end of 1929, and one of those was that of an elderly female clerk named Hulda Borowski — not really the image that comes to mind when you hear “corporate fat-cat.”Feminist Bra Burnings
This one literally never happened as far as anyone can tell. Women protesting against the 1968 Miss America contest in New York did toss several items into a trash can, including bras, girdles, high heeled shoes and women’s magazines, labeling them “instruments of torture.” But no fire was involved, except for the fire of burning feminine rage. Neither did the women actually remove their bras at the protest, inexplicably opting to gather the bras beforehand, and remain fully clothed.It wasn’t long after the era of Vietnam protesters burning their draft cards, and a journalist or two presumably conflated one of the concepts with the other. After all, they’re all hippies, right?America Goes Crazy Over War of the Worlds
There’s no doubt that some people thought the broadcast was real. Radio was still new and a fake news broadcast had literally never been done before. But virtually all of them reacted in exactly the way you would have: flipped to another station, or called somebody to ask what was going on.Reports of people immediately flying into a panic — attempting suicide, hallucinating alien death rays or fleeing to the countryside with guns in hand — were almost all anecdotal stories told second hand with no names attached. And although the phone lines to the studio were unusually busy that night, mixed in with the people asking for information, were people praising or complaining about a show that seemed like it was clearly designed to create a mass panic.
No Irish Need Apply
There is no record of even one of the so-called “NINA” window signs ever existing in America. No photographs have ever been found, and any evidence for them is entirely anecdotal.Even in print notices for jobs, records from the New York Times at the height of anti-Irish discrimination (from the 1850s to the 1920s), show exactly two jobs using the phrase in a 70-year period. That’s probably less than the number of jobs that specified that the applicant must bring his own trained monkey.
The myth of the window signs became widespread when a song, aptly named “No Irish Need Apply,” was imported to the U.S. from the UK in the 1860′s. The lyrics told the tale of a young Irish woman looking for domestic work and being discouraged by the “No Irish Need Apply” warnings in print ads, even though, she says, the Irish would gladly “given their last potato” to a person in need.
Elaborate Medieval Torture Devices
Despite being one of the most famous torture devices ever (and having a heavy metal band named after them), Iron Maidens didn’t exist back then, and there’s no record they were ever used on anyone. If you’re saying, “But I’ve seen them in museums!” well, that’s why they exist. These kind of “horrors of the medieval times” exhibits were hugely popular in the 19th century and it appears the Iron Maidens they showed off were cobbled together for the exhibit.That terrible pear thing that they used to punish sodomy and adultery by ripping the offending organs to shreds from the inside? Also a myth. Nobody can find any reference to the device before the 17th century, and no record at all of it being used to destroy somebody’s asshole.What about the spiked chair? It’s supposedly a device of the Spanish Inquisition, but once again there’s no record of them using it, or anybody else.
(Hat tip to Fbardamu.)