Another Five Historical Myths That Simply Refuse to Die

The truth is out there

Image: Wikimedia Commons

A few years ago, I wrote two stories tackling historical myths that simply refuse to go away: “Ten Common Historical Myths That Simply Refuse to Die” and “Five More Historical Myths That Simply Refuse to Die.” There are obviously more than 15 such myths out there, but I thought two articles were more than sufficient to get people delving deeper into the subject. Then a new administration and a four-letter, quasi-governmental agency that I will not name came along and made continuing it more important than I would have ever imagined.

I will be writing a separate story about the attack on museums, libraries, culture, and history itself, but I feel the need to continue debunking historical myths and revisions at the same time. Two of the five myths below are ones I expect we’ll hear repeated far more often in the days ahead, which makes my head explode. Let’s get rid of these once and for all.

1. The issue of states’ rights, not slavery, was the cause of the American Civil War. This is a myth that should have been put to bed long ago, but somehow it persists (and likely will continue to do so as long as the current Secretary of Defense thinks we should change the names of Army bases back to those of Confederate generals). Even more maddening is the fact that some…