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+--- Thread: 10 historic "facts" that never were + Alfred the Great: only great at propaganda? (/thread-3486.html)
10 historic "facts" that never were + Alfred the Great: only great at propaganda? - C C - Mar 20, 2017
10 Of History’s Most Iconic Things That Never Existed
http://listverse.com/2017/03/19/10-of-historys-most-iconic-things-that-never-existed/
EXCERPT: Everyone loves a good story, but not everyone loves history. So what is a frustrated historian or museum curator to do when folks just aren’t interested? They make things up, of course. Yes, it turns out history is just bursting with little bits of fiction someone threw in for flavor at some point. Of course, misunderstanding and good old-fashioned ignorance played their parts, but at the end of the day, we are left with a “history” littered with landmines of utter nonsense. Take for instance...
INCLUDED: Paul Revere’s Ride, Chastity Belts, The Hanging Gardens Of Babylon, Iron Maidens, Stock Market Crash Suicides, The War Of The Worlds Panic, Jousting Tournaments, The Word ‘Ye’, The Wild West, The Dark Ages
Was Alfred the Great Just a King that was Great at Propaganda?
http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/was-alfred-great-just-king-was-great-propaganda-007746
EXCERPT: [...] But was Alfred the Great really that great? If we judge him on the basis of new findings in landscape archaeology that are radically changing our understanding of warfare in the Viking Age, it would seem not. It looks like Alfred was a good propagandist rather than a visionary military leader. The broad outline of King Alfred’s wars with the Vikings is well known. Oft defeated by the great army of the Vikings, he took refuge in a remote part of Somerset before rallying the English army in 878 and defeating the Vikings at Edington. It was not this one victory that made Alfred great, according to his biographer Asser , but the military reforms Alfred implemented after Edington. In creating a system of strongholds, a longer-serving army and new naval forces, Asser argues that Alfred put in place systems which meant that the Vikings would never win again. In doing so, he secured his legacy....