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mrgogee asked in Arts & HumanitiesHistory · 2 decades ago

Can you give me a historical event that didn't happen the way we were taught in school or college ?

I will give you an example. I learned that Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack on the U.S. that started our war with Japan. I found out that our government and president knew of the attack well in advance and let it happen. It wasn't a surprise attack. There is enough facts and evidence to show that the U.S. knew this was going to happen.

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  • Anonymous
    2 decades ago
    Favorite Answer

    Easyday is correct, in my opinion. In the USSR, for example, the history children were taught there during communist rule is laughable to us. When it is written from the victors' point of view it is very different from the losers'. I think the film "Soldier Blue" was one of the first to portray the truth of what happened in America as opposed to the earlier generally held view of "Good Cowboys" and "Bad Indians", and in many ways we are now allowing the truth to be told as more people become aware and begin to question what they are taught. The worst today is, it seems, that we are told things that are not exactly untrue, but given the truth "by omission"; that is, by omitting certain facts, the picture is rather different. And, as ever, those who don't read or know much, believe it.

    In the UK we were told that Iraq held Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that we had to invade to disable them and the madman who might use them against us. The word "oil" was never mentioned, and it is only through reading all the papers and our own research that we can learn at least some of the truth.

    This is rather simplistic, but I believe the lesson is: believe nothing (or not everything!), question everything!

  • 2 decades ago

    YEAH LIKE THE RECENT WTC BLAST.

    The fire wasn't hot enough to melt the steel

    There has never been a claim that the steel melted in the fire before the buildings collapsed, however the fire would have been very hot. Even though the steel didnt melt, the type of temperatures in the fire would have roughly halved its strength.

    There would have been variations in the distribution of the temperature both in place in time. There are photos that show people in the areas opened up by the impact, so it obviously wasnt too hot when those photos were taken, but this is not to say that other parts of the building, further inside were not hotter. In addition, to make a reasonable conclusion from these photos, it would be important to know when they were taken. It might be possible that just after the impact the area wasnt very hot, but as the fire took hold the area got hotter.

    The way the building collapsed must have been caused by explosions

    One demolition expert on the day of the collapse said it looked like implosion but this is not very strong evidence. Implosion firstly requires a lot of explosives placed in strategic areas all around the building. When and how was this explosive placed in the building without anyone knowing about it. Second, implosion required more than just explosives. Demolition experts spend weeks inside a derelict building planning an event. Many of the beams are cut through by about 90% so that the explosion only has to break a small bit of steel. In this state the building is highly dangerous, and there is no way such a prepared building could still be running day to day like WTC was.

    Why did the building fall so quickly?

    The buildings did fall quickly - almost (but not exactly) at the same speed as if there was no resistance. Shouldn't the floors below have slowed it down? The huge dynamic loads due to the very large momentum of the upper floors falling were so great that they smashed through the lower floors very quickly. The columns were not designed to carry these huge loads and they provided little resistance.

    What about World Trade Center 7?

    I have not studied WTC in any great detail and cannot offer any theories on its collapse mechanism. In the chaos of the day, little attention was paid to WTC7, so there is less evidence available on the damage it sustained before it collapsed. However, some questions that you may want to ponder ...

    * While it did not receive any direct impact form the planes, how much debris hit at as the main towers collapsed and what damage did it cause?

    * To what extent (if any) did the shock or vibrations caused by the collapse of WTC1 & 2 affect the integrity of WTC7?

    * Did any unseen damage to the WTC7 foundations occur in the collapse of WTC 1 & 2?

    * Did any of the fire suppression systems in WTC7 function?

  • 2 decades ago

    You will find that most history you are taught at school is flawed. This is not a deliberate ploy normally. It is done to put things in an easy to digest way. Just look to the start of the second world war. Ask an American and it started with Pearl Harbour. Ask a European and the invasion of Poland was the kick off. However it really started far earlier then that in the Far East.

    History is incredibly complex. Professional historians focus on a very narrow area in order to get close enough to it. With a few hours a week to learn history it is imposable to cover every angle.

    This is why at school you are taught histories which are not entirely correct.

  • suesue
    Lv 5
    2 decades ago

    pearl harbor was a surprise....

    yes we had been building up are naval fleet and the rest of our military at the time but a war was going on over in Europe that FDR expected we would get dragged into one way or another... and he wanted 2 be in the war 2 an extent and we were giving England things to help them with the war under the Lend Lease Act in 1941...

    and something i have never read before we started defending/ guarding Iceland in July of '41...in place of the British...

    because we couldn't declare war because it lacked public supported so we waited for Germany, Italy or japan etc. to declare war against us or preform an act of war against us... but such an attack was apparently suspected on or Atlantic ocean boarder not the Pearl Harbor navy base

    we were suppose to have found out about it if i recall correctly from my WWII class along with extensive personal reading but the message arrived after the attack had happened, by error of the Japanese Representative 2 the United States and his people. Pearl Harbor was a SURPRISE!!!!

    and i would have 2 say the Boston Tea Party is over hyped ih early on history classes and that the native americans were potrayed as happy that we were here in the days of colonization which is very inaccurate and often never corrected in the minds of people so that the agression of the native americans during westward expansion seems out of character and crazy and the fact of different tribes is often left out of history as well

    Source(s): history major... especially interested in the WWII era and http://www.worldwariihistory.info/in/USA.html (yet 2 check out sites totally legitimacy but so far so good)
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  • ryan s
    Lv 5
    2 decades ago

    pearl was a surprise attack no matter how u look at it. it caught us with our pants down. yes they knew an attack was coming that is fact but they didn't know where. they thought it would be midway or wake somewhere like that but never pearl. but i can think of three right off the top of my head

    1. the USS Maine we were taught that it was blown up by the Spanish when now we know it was her powder keg that blew

    2. the famous ride of Paul Revere he never made the ride lol he was caught at a British check point

    3. the Boston massacer the crowd was the one that attacked the Brits not the other way around

    and kitten i hope u didn't pay for that history class because if u did i would ask for my money back lol for one America had a high moral we just as a nation thought at that time that Hitler was Europe's prob not ours. and Pocahontas did save smiths head from being bashed in that's a fact not only backed up by smith but by her as well

  • 2 decades ago

    Well, the thing you were taught about Pearl Harbor is fundamentally flawed. It was known that SOMETHING was going to happen, but that it would probably happen in the Western Pacific area (see my earlier answer for this).

    But, another, Columbus did not make his voyage to prove that the world was round. Everyone knew it was round, he was just trying to find another route without having to go through the Turks or the Portugese or the Venetians.

    George did not decide against a third term to set a precedent against long-standing power, he had grown so disgusted with the partisan monster that had become of his United States that he could not stand another minute being responsible for it any longer. He was then inadvertantly killed by his doctors who bled out about 3 quarts of blood to cure a cold.

  • 2 decades ago

    My history teacher told me that. It was good for our economy, and we would have become involved in the war one way or the other. But Americans didn't have very high moral at the time, and weren't ready to involve themselves in another foreign war. Roosevelt knew that if Japan attacked, then Americans would expect our government to retaliate.

    How bout this one: Pocahontas was about 12 years old when John Smith came here. He was a notorious horn hooter, and his personal journal is full of bullsh!t that we know didn't happen. Including the story of the pretty Indian princess who saved his life.

  • Anonymous
    2 decades ago

    The Republicans started the Civil War in order to use the freed slaves as cheap, non-unionizing scab labor up North. It didn't work, because the slaves were too lazy and incompetent to be even worth the little the Republican businessmen wanted to pay them. So the Civil War was very similar to the modern replacement of the working class with illegal and legal immigrants. Businessmen hate real Americans.

  • 2 decades ago

    You have to remember that history is always written by the victors so things probably never went as we're taught. For example, history tells us that Harold was killed by an arrow in the eye at the Battle of Hastings, but the only evidence we have to support that was the Bayeux Tapestry made many years later and commissioned by William the Conqueror to portray his version of his history (I can't remember off the top of my head how many years later). So long as you have valid evidence to support your opinions, no one can tell if what happened is true or false.

  • Several

    The Boston Tea party-very small

    We didn't help the Jews in Hitler's time until we could no longer deny it was happening--we denied it at first-millions died before we helped.

    Indians-We were welcomed at first-we had new stuff and ideas that they liked. A race issue came later-and some tribes of Indians blended and were a part of This New Nation-they gave approval-not all hated us

    Hitler-always thought he was mad from the beginning-the people liked him-he help build things-gave jobs-housing-people loved him (until he went power crazy)

    Channel 11 put out a film-title Duck and Cover -our government lied to the solders that a pin would save them from atomic rays. Love this one-have it on tape.

    give me time to think and I will be back.

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