Quarter of Brits think Churchill was myth

[Torplexed]

Interesting article on modern misconceptions. UKTV Gold television surveyed 3,000 people for this poll.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080204...historyoffbeat

C'mon! Biggles does exist. He posts here all the time. :p

But then this American thought King Arthur was a Roman who married a Briton who looked like Keira Knightley. Hooray for Hollywood.

[Skybird]

Oh, a king Arthur did exist for real, but he had nothing in common with the hero of the saga. In fact it seems he was a ruffian not any better than most other local rulers of that time.

Britain has a high immigration, I wonder if different background of people being questioned could explain it.

On the other hand, we had polls amongst school students in Germany recently, revealing misconceptions like Merkel not being recognised as chancellor, USA originally having raised the Berlin wall, and Helmut Kohl having been the last head of state of the GDR - stuff like this. Don't remember the exact numbers, though, but I think it was around one quarter to one third.

But they all knew the top ten of the handy ring tone charts. Hisotry lessons have been find to be too tough and demanding, so we have started an experiment that replaces history books - with a comic on the Nazi era. There is always a way to raise the mean value of school notes again - even if it means to lower the standard. Soon our students will shine with top notes in international comparison again. Just don't ask them questions.

[sonar732]

As someone who was studying to be a secondary history teacher, this makes me depressed. Granted, when I first told my counselor my degree plans...she told me I was nuts because the history side of teaching was overpopulated.

It's all a matter of passion in what you teach. In my history based study groups, my peers thought that I would make a great history teacher because my passion showed in how I came to my conclusions about our projects or text we were reading. Falls along the line of salesman...if you don't believe in your product, don't sell it. Well, I was all about selling my product to make sure that we teach our kids that we can't have a future until we look into the past.

[Skybird]

Who needs history lessons when we have this:

http://www.myvideo.de/watch/3174503

It's a popular top hit over here currently.

Send it to Osama. Maybe he becomes tame, then.

P.S. And this was the top one hit over here a year ago or so (click one of the links in the list)
http://www.pixel7.de/Schnappi.html

Germany. Nation of thinkers and poets, cultural superpower of the past.

Meanwhile my hometown, declared world capital of culture one year ago, still fights - since years - wether it should built it's first dedicated concert hall to finally attract international high callibre artists in the world of cassical music (local classical music scene currently is third-class province format only, if even that), or go along with the Greens' and SPD's demand not to be so elitist and burguois and leaving the ground free for a three-times-a-yeary fair to please the crowds.

[Oberon]

*Monocle* *Chokes on tea.*

"Churchill! Myth?!?!? Let me at them! Just let me at them!!"

[StdDev]

Oh dear..

[Sailor Steve]

Let me see: Sherlock Holmes was real, but Charles Dickens wasn't. I wonder who wrote his books then.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Oh, a king Arthur did exist for real, but he had nothing in common with the hero of the saga. In fact it seems he was a ruffian not any better than most other local rulers of that time.

Really? I've read a lot of opinions and books on the subject, and not one historian or writer has been able to point to a real prototype other than "Oh, there must have been." Do you have some evidence I haven't seen?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Let me see: Sherlock Holmes was real, but Charles Dickens wasn't. I wonder who wrote his books then.

Really? I've read a lot of opinions and books on the subject, and not one historian or writer has been able to point to a real prototype other than "Oh, there must have been." Do you have some evidence I haven't seen?

I just read it in a critic's review of the formidable triology on the King Arthur theme by Gillian Bradshaw from the late 80s (if you do not know it: highly recommended, I love those books), where a bit of comparison between saga and real man was done, too. The real figure was in no way extraordinary, it was said there, and really did not separate in any way from the mass of other local small kings and army leaders that spend their time with raids and wars against each other. It is even in doubt that he really was a king. Time probably around the 6th century. It is possible that he only was remembered for maybe having played some role in one of the defensive battles against the Saxon invasion in Britain, but the name Arthur (and it's glorification in the saga and the material around the holy grail) did not get written down before - if I remember correctly - the 11th century. It became very popular material in the Franconian and germanic countries. That's why it is usually referred to to be a saga of French origin - which may be correct or not, because it could be that a French poet was the first to write somethign down on arthus, or it was a Normanic or Briton living in France. what is relatively sure is that the first version was written in Frnech language, no matter by whom and when. Malory's basic version also is originally in French (La mort d'Arthur).

That's what I vaguely remember from that. It is MANY years ago I stumbled over that reading. whatever, I like the saga very much, like I like the nordic and Franconian and Germanic sagas in general.

Another interesting detail that got mentioned in the docu material to one of the LOTR DVDs is that Tolkien, himself having been a professional expert on mythology, said that the British do not really have any "original" British mythology, and that the - wrongly presumed Britsh - Arthur saga's origin is foreign. This was the reason why he initially started to develope Middle Earth, they said in that docu, he saw it as an attempt to compensate for that lack and give the British something that he saw as a surrogate mythology, so to speak - that's why it is so very detailed inclusive fictional languages and historic event and family trees. I think that was in the docu material for the first of the three movies. but since there are hours and hours, I could mix it up with one of the other two DVD boxes as well.


P.S. Just asked Wikipedia on Arthur:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur

Wikipedia says I am wrong on Malory having written his epos in French. Well, I don't know, but the original book-title has been French, this I know for sure - the books stand on my bookshelf (in German, and pretty boring, I must say - I never came beyond the end of the first of three books)

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Let me see: Sherlock Holmes was real, but Charles Dickens wasn't. I wonder who wrote his books then.

Arthur Conan-Doyle? :p

[August]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Arthur Conan-Doyle? :p

LoL