Thomas Edison Gets Credit For Inventing Things He Didn’t Invent
From Weird History Contributor Setareh Janda:
Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and illuminated the world, or so the story goes. But the reality is a lot more complicated and less savory than many people would like to admit.
How could a man who filed no less than 1,093 patents be overrated? He was a certified genius, right? The problem: The genius narrative obscures the work of other innovators on whose shoulders Edison stood. Decades before Edison’s version of the light bulb took off, other inventors – like Humphry Davy, William Sawyer, Albon Man, and Joseph Swan – created their own devices that produced electric-powered illumination. Moreover, just as Edison improved on other inventions, so other inventors improved on his work. His one-time employee Nikola Tesla – who remains an underrated inventor – even developed a more efficient power system than Edison’s, though he remains overlooked in the public imagination.
The genius narrative also whitewashes all of the troubling things that Edison did. One prime example: Because he opposed Tesla’s alternating current (AC) – likely because Edison’s invention relied on direct current (DC) – he staged the public electrocution of an elephant in New York City using AC, just to highlight the perceived dangers of this rival power.
Edison rightly gets credit for helping the development of motion pictures: After improving upon other people’s camera innovations in the late 1800s, Edison unveiled his Kinetograph and Kinetoscope, which enabled him to capture motion in a new way and distribute film to a mass audience. But it also brought out his worst qualities.
Edison set up a film studio in New Jersey and co-founded the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a monopoly that consolidated and enforced patents. The MPPC was essentially a weapon for Edison, who bullied other film producers out of business by unleashing goons on the ones who tried to circumvent copyrights, the hired strongmen allegedly burned studios and destroyed equipment. Some filmmakers, seeking freedom from Edison’s tyranny, fled to California, thus planting the seeds of the Hollywood film industry.
While it’s absolutely true that Thomas Edison deserves credit for innovating for the masses, the genius narrative surrounding his career overstates and airbrushes his work. Edison’s successes often came from collaboration and questionable tactics.
- Age: Dec. at 84 (1847-1931)
- Birthplace: USA, Milan, Ohio
Che Guevara Became A Communist Icon Despite Doing Relatively Little
Che Guevara is one of those faces from history that most people recognize but have no idea who he was or what he did. He is known to some people as a communist icon, the Argentine revolutionary who aided in the Cuban Revolution. But to most people, he is just a cool, militant face that reads, “Screw the man!” and has been emblazoned on t-shirts, posters, stickers, and even yoga pants worldwide.
Granted, there are people who do hold strong opinions of him either as the Marxist revolutionary and a martyr against Western imperialism or as a mass murderer. But relative to many historical figures who could act as the representation of the good of Marxism or the evils of communism, he did very little. And any person who believes he is a good representation of one or the other must admit that the wide majority of people probably don’t know who he is beyond a semi-mythical, commercialized face.
For those who know Guevara beyond his famous mug, two of his most famous achievements were his writings and his role in the Cuban Revolution. Guevara took an eight-month motorcycle excursion across five South American nations, where he saw the exploitation of Indigenous workers by American corporations, the extreme poverty of the region, and the apathy and acceptance of the status quo by the local people.
It was during this trip that he cemented his Marxist and anti-American imperialist beliefs in what would later become a New York Times bestselling novel turned film, The Motorcycle Diaries. Though the book once acted as a call to all young revolutionaries and intellectuals to fight the power, it now reads like a coming-of-age story that has been described as “more Easy Rider than revolutionary.”
As for his role in the Cuban Revolution, he was a drifting, angry young man who happened to meet the right man in Mexico: Fidel Castro. When Guevara met Castro in 1955, Castro had already established himself as Cuba’s revolutionary leader, determined to depose dictator Fulgencio Batista but exiled from his people and country after a failed attempt at a coup in 1953. It was through this serendipitous meeting that Guevara actually became a fighter. He joined Castro in a guerilla campaign against Batista, proved himself a good soldier, and then became the rebel commander in the final battle of the Cuban Revolution.
After the revolution, his actions are even less well known. He stayed in Cuba for some years, where he oversaw hundreds of executions at the infamous prison La Cabaña. He later headed Cuba’s central bank and eventually became minister of industries despite no managerial or fiscal training and, according to the CIA, brought “the economy to its lowest point since Castro came to power.”
By 1965, Guevara’s reputation and his drive for international revolution became known worldwide. He resigned from the Cuban government and went abroad to aid other revolutionary efforts, first in the Congo (where his six months of effort failed), then in Bolivia, where he met his untimely death at the hands of the Bolivian military.
Though he was a beloved visionary, his personal actions led to very little, especially relative to other Marxist or independence leaders. It is not only his actual achievements, however, that make him overrated figure. It’s the combination of achievements and the ubiquity of his face on commercial products all over the world.
- Age: Dec. at 39 (1928-1967)
- Birthplace: Rosario, Argentina
Christopher Columbus Sailed The Ocean Blue, But He Didn’t Discover The Americas
For many generations, every elementary school student in the United States heard and learned the rhyme, “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” and it pretty well sums up everything most people know about Christopher Columbus: With funding and three ships given to him by the Spanish Crown, he sailed West from Europe and discovered the Americas in 1492. Many people also learned that he was proving the world was round because everyone else in the world, besides Queen Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, was far too stupid to know better.
It’s such a good and well-known story that Christopher Columbus was granted a national holiday in the United States called Columbus Day. And with the rising call to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day, it may not come as a surprise that his popularity has waned in the last couple of decades. But whether he is understood as a hero or the devil incarnate, we give Columbus far more credit and awareness than he actually deserves.
Columbus was by no means a smart man. He wasn’t a scholar who instinctively knew the world was round while everyone else believed it was flat. Everyone knew the world was round. Columbus, on the other hand, thought it was much smaller than it really was. He thought he could make it to the East Indies while most everyone else thought he would never make it. Luckily for him, the Spanish Crown gave him a chance with very little risk (seeing that they only provided three small ships), and luckily, there also happened to be an uncharted, giant landmass between Europe and Asia.
Columbus wasn’t some evil military genius who purposefully destroyed an entire people, either. Yes, he was an immoral person. He enslaved the Arawak people and other Indigenous people of the Caribbean. He mercilessly maimed and slaughtered them in the hopes that he would find gold on their island despite the fact that there wasn’t much to collect. But, you don’t have to be a smart man to do that to a mostly unarmed population – you just have to be greedy and brutal.
Some might justify his actions by claiming that slavery and the mistreatment of Indigenous people was the norm among those of his time period, or by claiming that Columbus was civilizing a barbaric people – but he was selfish, greedy, and acted immorally even within the context of 15th- and 16th-century European culture. Only about 20 years after Columbus’s discovery, a Spanish missionary by the name of Bartolome de las Casas – who spent a decade enslaving Indigenous peoples – realized his errors and began the fight against such mistreatment. So it’s not like that level of self-awareness wasn’t possible.
Furthermore, and on a much smaller scale, Columbus lied by claiming that he – not a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana – spotted land first so that he would get a 10,000 maravedis annual reward payment from the Spanish Crown.
So, if we know that Columbus didn’t discover the Americas (there were people already living in the Americas since prehistory); and he wasn’t the first European to discover the Americas (Vikings did that 400 years before him); and he wasn’t the first man on his expedition to spot the Americas (that was Rodrigo de Triana); and he didn’t pay for the expedition (that was Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain); what did he do that deserves a holiday and at least 54 communities named after him just in the United States?
- Age: Dec. at 55 (1451-1506)
- Birthplace: Genoa, Italy
Marie Antoinette Wasn’t The Sole Cause Of The French Revolution
Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France before the French Revolution, the wife of King Louis XVI and daughter to the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, who tragically lost her head during the French Revolution. Her story is one of those often retold tragedies of history and a precautionary tale against luxury and opulence. It has even garnered the attention of Hollywood. Yet, despite living the luxurious life of a French monarch and unfortunately being the queen during the French Revolution, what else did she do? She wasn’t too involved or interested in politics, she had very little control over France’s treasury beyond her personal expenditures, and she probably didn’t even say the quote she is most associated with. So that begs the question: Why is she so famous?
Yes, her life was extravagant and her extravagance was at the expense of the kingdom of France, yet her lifestyle was only a minor part of France’s financial woes before the Revolution. The French Crown was in major debt due to three incredibly costly wars – the American Revolution, the Seven Years’ War, and the War of the Austrian Succession – that it had no way to fund or pay off. This was due to a very inefficient tax system that allowed wealthy citizens to avoid taxation, leaving much of the burden on the bourgeoisie and the peasantry. To compound the chaos, poor financial policies both increased the debt and sewed distrust towards the monarchy, while harvest failures threatened the livelihoods of both city and country dwellers.
Granted, Marie Antoinette’s frivolity and spending habits did not help the situation, but there were far worse problems with the monarchy and the governing political system. One thing she did provide, however, was a face. She was a foreign-born queen who could be vilified for all the country’s problems. Whether it be supposedly spending all of the nation’s wealth or having alleged extramarital affairs or not producing legitimate heirs, Marie Antoinette was a scapegoat for all of France’s difficulties, and that reputation stuck with her for centuries despite having very little historical validity.
Now, if you really need a single person to blame for the country’s woes, try King Louis XV or King Louis XVI. Their policies weakened the power of the crown to the point where they could no longer effectively control the aristocracy or even get necessary taxes – all while waging multiple costly wars. On the other hand, if you want a foreign-born queen of France who actually used her power to make meaningful changes to the country, look to Queen Anne of Austria, the mother of King Louis XIV and queen regent during the Fronde.
- Age: Dec. at 37 (1755-1793)
- Birthplace: Vienna, Austria
Grigori Rasputin’s Importance And Abilities Were Greatly Exaggerated
From Weird History Contributor Garri Chaverst:
No telling of the Russian Revolution and end of the Russian imperial family is complete without the man many believe was at the center of it all: Grigori Rasputin. In one of the most broadly known fictionalized tellings of the Romanov story, Don Bluth’s Anastasia, Rasputin is an evil sorcerer directly responsible for the Romanovs’ demise. The sheer popularity of the animated film cemented this version of Rasputin in the zeitgeist.
This is not to say people who watched Anastasia as a child believe it’s anything close to being historically accurate, but couple that portrayal with the myths surrounding the real Rasputin, and it’s easy to understand how the perception of him became far grander than the reality.
The legends surrounding Rasputin, fueled largely by lies spread during the revolution, make him seem far more exciting and influential than he actually was. In truth, Rasputin gained the imperial family’s favor because he eased Tsarevich Alexei’s hemophilia, making him indispensable to the empress. He was not, however, a mystical puppet master secretly controlling the Russian government’s every move. In fact, he had very little interest in and almost no influence on foreign policy whatsoever. What Rasputin did provide was an easy scapegoat to blame all of Russia’s problems on.
Myths about Rasputin – from his grossly exaggerated death to his magical healing abilities – are abundant. Among them, though still debated, is his great influence on the Romanov family’s downfall. What we do know for certain is that, when wealthy elites assassinated Rasputin, it was supposed to signify a turning point in the revolution and a salvation for the Romanovs. What his assailants failed to consider, however, was that the Romanovs’ problems started long before Rasputin’s name entered the ring, and his assassination made no difference to their ultimate fate.
One man who deserves more attention is Tsar Nicholas II, himself. If you want a true understanding of the Russian Revolution, and how the Romanov dynasty actually came to fall, look no further than the head of said dynasty. Though it may seem counterintuitive to say the reigning monarch deserves more attention, the Russian Revolution remains largely synonymous with two figures – Rasputin and Anastasia – not the tsar. When Rasputin was removed from the imperial picture, Nicholas II’s inability to effectively lead was still there.
- Age: Dec. at 47 (1869-1916)
- Birthplace: Russia, Pokrovskoye
Paul Revere Was Just One Of Many Midnight Riders
Paul Revere is known to many as the man who rode through the streets of Massachusetts in the middle of the night yelling, “The British are coming! The British are coming!” Revere’s courageous solo ride through Lexington and Concord woke the colonists and saved countless lives from impending doom, allowed for American minutemen to arm themselves in the face of a British invasion, and started the American Revolution. It makes for a wonderful story of sleepless American patriotism against tyrannical powers and a single man’s ability to make a difference in the outcome of adversity. But to put those achievements on the shoulders of one man – especially the shoulders of Revere – would be quite an overstatement.
Not that Revere wasn’t important. He was a member of the Sons of Liberty, he was one of the ringleaders of the Boston Tea Party, and he was a well-connected man able to give updates on the British Occupation of Massachusetts to the other 12 colonies. Yet, it is “his” midnight ride that captures the imagination. The problem is that Revere was one man in a network of couriers who would carry messages, monitor British movements, and relay important information to Patriot leaders.
Revere, himself, did not actually make it to Concord. Nor did he necessarily have to. He was arrested by a British patrol on the outskirts of Lexington. But because the militia network had long been an institution of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and because it took extensive communal planning to integrate Revere and the other Midnight Riders into a greater defense system, the colony did not have to rely on the success or failure of a single man to defend itself from the British or any other outside threat.
Often overlooked and underrated are the other Midnight Riders who helped Revere and mobilized the rest of Massachusetts. The first was William Dawes, another courier who coordinated and left Boston with Revere, but took another route. Then there was Samuel Prescott who, with Dawes, took the message to Concord after Revere was arrested. Then there were Abel Prescott, Captain Joseph Robbins, and Edward Bancroft, among many others who traveled from town to town in order to mobilize the entire colony for war.
The primary reason we know Revere as the quintessential Midnight Rider and cherish him above the rest is because he was immortalized in the 1860 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” by Henry Wadsworth Longsfellow. But just because there’s a poem about him that exaggerates his deeds, that doesn’t mean he was any more important than the other people who made the midnight ride.
- Age: Dec. at 83 (1735-1818)
- Birthplace: North End, Boston, Massachusetts
Mary, Queen of Scots, Had A Dramatic Life But Did Very Little
From Weird History Editor Michael Muir:
After Robert the Bruce, Mary is probably the best-known of all Scottish monarchs, but her historical reputation is as outsized as she quite literally was. At just under 6 feet tall, she was a head taller than most people at the time, and more than a foot taller than her first husband, Francis II of France.
Mary became queen of Scotland before she was a week old, but spent most of her childhood in the French court. After the passing of Francis, she returned to her homeland a stranger unprepared for the life that awaited her. After six years, some murders, and two more husbands, she was removed from the throne by a group of Scottish nobles. Attempts to win back her crown by force of arms were unsuccessful and she fled to England.
Her pleas to her cousin Elizabeth I to restore her to the throne fell on deaf ears. She was taken prisoner in England for several years until Elizabeth learned Mary was involved in a plot to assassinate her. Even her execution didn’t go as planned; the executioner made a hash of beheading her, finally getting it right on the third attempt. He held the severed head aloft and declared, “God save the queen!”
In some ways, Mary had the last laugh several years after her execution. Her son James succeeded Elizabeth I to the English throne after the virgin queen unsurprisingly died childlessly. The high drama and tragedy of Mary’s life greatly overshadow her nonexistent achievements as queen.
Someone deserving far more attention than she receives, and more attention than Mary, is Catherine de’ Medici. Mary’s first mother-in-law was a good deal better at handling court politics. Catherine married Henry II of France when they were both 14, and Henry’s father Francis stuck around on their wedding night to make sure the marriage was consummated. He approvingly noted that “each had shown valor in the joust.” The pope dropped by the following morning to wish the young couple well.
That was probably the high point of their marriage, as Henry was far more interested in the affections of his much older mistress, Diane de Poitiers. After Henry’s demise in a freak jousting accident, Catherine stepped up to steady the ship. She reigned as queen regent during a period of incessant religious upheaval in France, outliving two sons and guiding the third, Charles IX, long after he came of age. Though not without incident, she managed an exceptionally difficult situation well and kept her dynasty intact
Henry VIII Of England Gets Too Much Attention For How He Treated His Wives
From Weird History Contributor Setareh Janda:
Ask anyone to name a British king, and chances are good that King Henry VIII’s name will come up. Pop culture is partly responsible for this; it has fueled the longevity of Henry’s afterlife, since films, TV shows, novels, and theatrical productions about him seem to come out every year. Why does everyone fixate on Old King Henry? And, more to the point, should they?
True, his reign was a watershed moment in English history. Henry’s desire to annul his marriage to first wife Catherine of Aragon in order to make room for a new spouse ushered in the English Reformation, one of the most transformative periods in English history, for better or for worse. The Reformation produced the Protestant Church of England – and Henry, never one to minimize his ego, dubbed himself its head. Indeed, Henry was self-serving. The Reformation also enabled him to consolidate his authority and wealth. Moreover, his frequent wars left a mixed legacy, and he executed tens of thousands of people.
To be fair, other kings did not-so-great things, too. King John – who only endures in popular memory through the Robin Hood legends – did such a poor job as king that he started a civil war. Alarmingly, King Edward VIII may have had Nazi sympathies. But neither of these kings capture the public’s imagination quite like Henry VIII.
Most people don’t pore over Henry’s politics, however – it’s mainly his titillating private life that attracts notice. Again and again, people dissect his relationship with his six wives and many mistresses. After all, this is a man who ended four of his marriages via annulment or execution – that’s not a great track record. But the problem is, even in these stories, Henry is usually at the center. It’s time to push him out of the frame. Instead of giving so much airspace to a serial tyrant who swapped wives as if they were old stockings, it may be a better use of everyone’s time to talk more about those women’s lives – about how Catherine of Aragon enabled English military victories, Anne Boleyn patronized artists, or Catherine Parr was a published author. These stories are far more compelling than ones about an entitled, vindictive king to whom no one could say “no.”
Granted, Henry is more likely to appear on lists of history’s worst monarchs than the best ones. But he’s even overexposed there, since he’s still part of the conversation. It’s time to dethrone Henry VIII as one of the most talked about kings in pop culture.
- Age: Dec. at 55 (1491-1547)
- Birthplace: Palace of Placentia, London, England
Stonewall Jackson Was By No Means One Of The Greatest Military Commanders In History
From Weird History Editor Gordon Cameron:
Among Confederate leaders, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson is a legendary figure – as admired as Robert E. Lee, and in some cases even more so. He’s acquired a reputation as the most daring, tactically brilliant, audacious commander of the Civil War, and his death at Chancellorsville in 1863 is seen as a fatal blow to the Confederacy. But how good was he really?
Jackson’s reputation rests heavily on his Shenandoah Valley Campaign, in which he maneuvered a force of 17,000 men to befuddle three separate Union forces, defeating them in several engagements, and preventing them from assisting George McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign, the great Union offensive of that year.
It is true that Jackson’s swiftness and boldness were impressive in the Shenandoah Valley. But he wasn’t exactly going up against the cream of the Union crop. None of his three opponents – Nathaniel P. Banks, John C. Frémont, and Irvin McDowell – had a distinguished military record before or after that campaign. (McDowell was mainly known as the loser of Bull Run, and Frémont, his admirable abolitionist sentiments notwithstanding, enjoyed little success on the battlefield.) Additionally, Jackson’s achievements were inflated in the Confederate press. The South – demoralized by a series of setbacks in the West culminating in the fall of New Orleans – was desperate for any good news and readily lionized whoever could provide it.
Jackson’s reputation additionally lies on his being one of the most trusted of Lee’s lieutenants – a corps commander who, along with James Longstreet, helped realize the stunning run of victories (Second Battle of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville) that made the Army of Northern Virginia legendary. But this narrative conveniently leaves out Jackson’s disastrous performance during the Seven Days Battles. His forces were routed at Kernstown, and at Glendale, he crippled Lee’s plans by spending an inordinate amount of time dozing beneath a tree.
Even Chancellorsville, perhaps Stonewall’s most famous achievement after the Valley Campaign, was at best a Pyrrhic victory. Stonewall’s flanking attack on Joseph Hooker’s Army of the Potomac was certainly impressive, but the battle overall cost heavy casualties for the Confederates, in exchange for only a short respite from Union pressure.
None of this is to say that Jackson wasn’t a talented commander. He was clearly one of the best subordinates Lee had, and was, on balance, an asset to the Confederate cause. But our constant praise of him as some kind of transcendent military genius, worthy to be named alongside the likes of Napoleon or Hannibal, shows that we’re still buying the myth Confederate newspapers sold us 160 years ago.
- Age: Dec. at 39 (1824-1863)
- Birthplace: Clarksburg, West Virginia
Ronald Reagan Became A Mythical Figure But Didn’t Achieve The Things Many People Claim
Among political circles, Ronald Reagan stands as the exemplar of conservative values. He was a vocal anti-communist, he proclaimed to the world, “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem,” and was a God-loving, red-blooded American who communicated to people around the world that the United States was not to be trifled with. As a former actor, he knew how to get his message across, and he truly did deserve his nickname, “The Great Communicator.”
Yet, in the decades that have passed since his presidency, the messages Reagan communicated have created a mythos around the man that doesn’t quite line up with what he actually achieved in office.
Reagan was incredibly (and sometimes dangerously) vocal in his stance against the Soviet Union and global communism. And it was his rhetoric more than anything that characterized him as that anti-communist hero. Some of his most famous quotes were statements about the follies of communism. “How do you tell a communist?” he once quipped for an audience at the September 25, 1987, Convention of Concerned Women for America. “Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.” The convention hall at the Crystal Marriot Hotel in Arlington, VA, broke into a fit of laughter.
Whether or not you personally find the joke funny is actually irrelevant. He put out an image to the people of the United States that he was willing to mock the ideology embodied by America’s greatest enemy for the last 30 years. Futhermore, as proved by arguably his most famous quote “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” he was willing to project strength in the face of communism to the rest of the world.
But to put the collapse of the Soviet Union solely on his shoulders is a gross overstatement of his power and understates the role of his predecessors and, more so, the problems within the Soviet government. It was a 40-year process that began with President Dwight Eisenhower and continued with each successor, so if we really wanted to give an American the prestige of taking down the Soviet Union, every president between Eisenhower and Reagan should be given that same honor. But even that ignores the role that the Soviet Union had in its own demise.
Reagan is also seen as the man who limited the power and spending of the federal government. He did cut taxes for many Americans, he did end welfare programs he claimed people were taking advantage of, and he did tell Americans that their liberties were being taken away by big government. But what he didn’t do was limit the federal government. He reallocated where the government was spending its money (national defense) and increased it. His tax cuts and increase in spending both created a budget deficit and income inequality that has continued to grow ever since.
Despite not actually being the mythical figure he’s often portrayed as, Reagan was outwardly the president many people wanted. After the scandal-laden and seemingly weak leadership of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter, many Americans wanted a strong, charasmatic commander-in-chief. Reagan knew how to play the role, but his rhetoric spoke louder than his actions.
- Age: Dec. at 93 (1911-2004)
- Birthplace: Tampico, Illinois, USA
John F. Kennedy Had Pedigree, Looks, And Great Speeches, But Very Little Impact
Unlike many men who preceded him and the many men who followed, John F. Kennedy’s presidency was glamorous. He and his wife Jackie were young, photogenic, and from families that can only be described as “American royalty.” He used modern technology to his advantage, made a reputation for himself, and became as much a pop icon as he was a president. He was more of a cultural phenomenon than any president, often rated by the public as one of the top 10 presidents alongside George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. But his life and his presidency were cut short on November 22, 1963.
Through the following decades, virtually all Americans old enough to have experienced his assassination claim they remember where they were on that day, and it remains one of the great tragedies in US history. But when you get beyond both the tragedy of his demise and the image he crafted, do you still have one of the greatest presidents in modern history? According to many historians, no.
His presidency lasted less than three years – and granted, it’s difficult to judge a president’s legacy (or anyone’s legacy, for that matter) after such a short period – but much of his popularity was a holdover from his election. The lasting effects of those policies were attributed to his successor President Lyndon Johnson.
The most glaring of Kennedy’s policy decisions was the decision to involve the United States in the Vietnam War. Before he was president, Kennedy had been a strong advocate that it was a moral obligation of the United States to protect nations abroad in order to prevent communist powers – the Republic of China and the USSR – from taking over and spreading their global influence. He was idealistic, sure. But, his lofty idealism didn’t turn out well.
US involvement in Vietnam began in 1961 when Kennedy sent military advisors to aid South Vietnam. US presence in Vietnam was fairly minimal compared to what it was under both President Johnson and President Richard Nixon; it was not, however, due to Kennedy’s unwillingness to escalate. It was one of his top priorities to reform the military for counter-insurgency in Vietnam and provide further support for Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem and South Vietnam.
The Kennedy administration was preparing for a crisis in Vietnam, but the instigating event that could justify sending combat troops and further escalate US involvement didn’t occur until after his demise. Now, it’s impossible to say whether or not he would have escalated the war like Johnson did in 1964. Between the two presidents, the advisors and presidential cabinet remained the same. Some of those advisors claimed Kennedy would have done the same; others disagree. Yet, what matters is nothing came to fruition during Kennedy’s presidency despite having prepared for war.
Domestically, nothing really happened during his presidency, either. He had planned for and proposed many progressive reforms: lowering taxes, unemployment protections, federal aid to education, medical care for the elderly, urban mass transit, and a Department of Urban Affairs, among many others. Yet, due to resistance from Congress, none of them, besides a minimum wage increase, had passed as he intended. He had also intended on passing civil rights laws in an era when racial tensions were high. Yet, due to how politicized race was in the 1960s, he did not want to risk his potential reelection and decided to wait on proposing any civil rights legislation until his second term, which again, didn’t end up happening.
Among unachieved domestic legislation and a foreign policy that had not yet achieved its full potential, Kennedy did have one major success: not escalating to nuclear war. When Kennedy was inaugurated, US-Cuban relations were not in a good place. Cuba was a newly communist country. Since the end of WWII, the United States had made it clear that it would oppose any communist countries around the world, which didn’t establish a very strong desire for either Cuba or the United States to work with the other nation. But to further strain the relationship, the new communist government knew that the United States had supported and aided the government they had just overthrown. Within that context, Kennedy approved a CIA operation to invade Cuba’s Bay of Pigs only a few months into his presidency.
Though the intention was to overthrow the Cuban government, the plan failed, and Cuban-US relations continued to worsen until October 1962 when Kennedy decided to set a naval blockade around Cuba to prevent the trade of nuclear armaments between Russia and Cuba, beginning the Cuban Missile Crisis. While relations became so fraught that both the US and the USSR acknowledged the possibility of nuclear war, Kennedy and Soviet Leader Nikita Kruschev did not resort to that extreme.
- Age: Dec. at 46 (1917-1963)
- Birthplace: Brookline, Massachusetts, United States of America
Erwin Rommel Wasn’t The Military Genius Many Claimed He Was
From Weird History Editor Michael Muir:
Rommel is one of the most prominent commanders of WWII, often held up as an example of a worthy and honorable opponent. His untimely end in the aftermath of the plot to kill Hitler in 1944 gave him a favorable legacy. In more recent years, historians have come to a more rounded conclusion regarding the legacy of the “Desert Fox.”
Rommel was a career officer in the German army who first saw combat in WWI, where he served in France, Romania, and Italy from 1914-1918. In the interwar years, he gained a reputation as a first-class instructor and was promoted to major general by the eve of WWII. After successful campaigns in Poland and France, he was dispatched to North Africa in February 1941 to revive the Axis fortunes in the theater. It was here that his reputation for innovative tactics was formed.
Rommel’s tactically flexible approach was initially successful against the British forces in Africa, as his forces were better equipped to seize opportunities as they arose. He gained a great reputation during the campaign for his innovative leadership, but his victories were only at a tactical level and made possible by the failures of British commanders. Rommel’s prowess was exaggerated by British leaders seeking to explain their own deficiencies.
Rommel’s most daring attacks ultimately achieved little beyond stretching the Axis supply lines to breaking point. If anything, his tactical brilliance led to operational failures that hastened the demise of the Axis forces in Africa in 1943.
After being reassigned to Western Europe, he was implicated in a plot against Hitler and chose to take his own life to protect his family. The true nature of his demise was hidden from the public at the time. The Rommel myth grew from British officers covering their own shortcomings and a post-Nazi Germany needing a “clean” hero to admire.
Rommel’s reputation often overshadows a German officer far more deserving of admiration: Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck.
The “Lion of Africa” was a German WWI officer who kept a small colonial German army in the field for the entirety of the war. Fluent in Swahili, he won the respect of the African soldiers under his command, and many stayed loyal even as supplies dwindled. He refused all offers to serve the Third Reich after the war.
He also allegedly told Hitler to go f*ck himself.
- Age: Dec. at 52 (1891-1944)
- Birthplace: Heidenheim an der Brenz, Germany
William Shakespeare Just Parroted Other Classical Authors
From Weird History Editor Melissa Sartore:
William Shakespeare’s contributions to the English language are important, but his works do not necessarily deserve the unending praise they receive. Shakespeare is credited with introducing or creating hundreds of new words to the English language, something that is definitely noteworthy. That said, it’s difficult to overlook that these words were simply written down for the first time in his works. This doesn’t mean he invented them.
Shakespeare’s plays, prose, and poems were intended to be performed, making them incredibly tedious and difficult to read. This alone isn’t enough to not dive into some of his stories, but the tales he tells are simply parroted from Classical texts. For example, Romeo and Juliet comes from Ovid (also heavily present in Love’s Labour’s Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream), while Julius Caesar is based on Plutarch’s The Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Referencing and drawing from Greek and Roman works wasn’t something unique to Shakespeare – it was really common. His recreations of ancient figures and events are among many, many reboots and adaptations, so to speak.
There are a lot of questions about Shakespeare’s life that remain unanswered, none of which disqualify his importance as a literary pioneer. Without knowing the details, it’s impossible to decipher exactly how he rose to acclaim. He had some good lines, evoked emotion, and resonated in his own time, but it wasn’t until the 19th century that Shakespeare was called a “genius.”
From what is known, had Shakespeare not been the son of a successful merchant, received an education steeped in the liberal arts, and become involved with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men acting company, it is difficult to imagine that his works would have caught the attention of Queen Elizabeth. And, without royal attention and the patronage of nobles like Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare’s works may not have even survived for such an assessment.
- Age: Dec. at 51 (1564-1616)
- Birthplace: Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom
