Ring around the noises

Got Medieval has the very best Marginalia pictures. 

You all know the poem. 

Ring around the Rosie,
Pockets full of posy,
Ashes, Ashes, 
We all fall down. 

Or some version of it anyways. 

Pretty much every-time this rhyme comes up, someone points out that it's all about the Black Death. Or the Plague. Or something similarly quasi-disease related. 

Because children's rhymes are totally the best source of historical accuracy. 

Shakespeare's pen

Cobbe Portrait of William Shakespeare

This one I don’t even. It’s come up a couple times and I’m still baffled every time it comes up. Most mythbeliefs I can kind of see the quasi-logic behind, but with this one I really can’t.

So what is this mythtory? That William Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare’s plays. Edward de Vere is the usual “true” author given when pressed for an alternate author, but I’ve seen other names tossed out as well, like Christopher Marlowe.

So did Shakespeare write Shakespeare? 

Princess of the Powhatan

This particular Mythbelief is probably one that’s pretty much exclusive to USians, and possibly Canadians. Until the Disney movie came out, that is, then Pocahontas got a little more worldwide recognition.

 The story it pretty basic, and most people know a couple things about her:

1) She was an Indian Princess.

2) She saved her friend/lover John Smith’s life.

3) She brought the White People and the Indians together.

That can’t be too off base, right? 

Leaps of 1929

Panic of 1907, Outside U. S. Subtreasury building at Wall and Broad St. in October 1907

The Great Depression wasn't the first depression for the US economy, but it's certainly the best known. The most famous story is that on Black Tuesday, 29 October, 1929, that stock investors, realizing that they were financially ruined, threw themselves from their office windows down to the pavement below. 

I was taught in high school that when the stock investors realized that they'd lost so much money they'd never be able to get out of the debt, they jumped from the windows of their high office buildings 

It wasn't even 100 years ago, so how wrong could it be?

War of the Panic

Artwork from the 1906 Belgian edition of The War of the Worlds by Henrique Alvim Corréa

Everyone knows that people who lived before now were stupid.  That’s why they couldn’t tell the difference between a real news program and the radio drama by Orson Welles, The War of the Worlds. Then everyone read about it in the newspapers the next day and realized how stupid they were – but felt better when they realized that everyone in the nation had panicked.

Really, how much of that is there to get wrong?

More than it would seem, apparently. 

The Cake is a Lie

Gary Larson, how do I love thee. Let me count the ways…

It’s probably one of the most famous phrases in history: “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.”

Or, as it’s more usually heard in English, “Let them eat cake.” Everyone knows that Queen Marie Antoinette said this famous phrase when she was informed that the population of France had no bread.

Right?

Well, no, not exactly.

Viking Longhorns

Hagar's historical accuracy is Horrible.

Everybody is familiar with the visual image. Horned helmets mean you’re looking at a Viking. Horned helmets and long ships, it’s their thing.

Only without the horned helmets.

I know, I know, is nothing sacred?