Subject:
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Re: Historical fudging...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 17 Dec 2002 20:14:45 GMT
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Viewed:
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425 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys writes:
> http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Southwest/12/17/ezekiel.aircraft/index.html
>
> And another story from last week that said, iirc, someone in Italy was the
> first to fly, and not the Wright brothers.
According to the National Park Service, the Wright brothers had the "first
successful sustained powered flights in a heavier-than-air machine"
(http://www.nps.gov/wrbr/). I don't think the official history actually
claims they were "the first to fly", as that would be a general statement
that would be easily misproven by countless balooners and other such things
throughout history. What they did do was to be the first to be recognized
by the press of an industrial society that could be inspired by their work,
and thus kicked off the development of modern aircraft.
> This is much akin to the little fiasco a few months back about denouncing G
> Bell as the original inventor of the telephone.
True. And there are similar debates for countless other inventions ranging
from the steam engine to the telegraph to the automobile.
> Look folks, after 100 years of nothing, coming up and saying *now* that
> these folks were not the first to do these things... I mean, to fix
> historical inaccuracies is one thing, but to say "Well so and so flew but we
> lost the plane and all proof but he flew a year before the Wright
> brothers..." just bugs me.
I am not against correcting history texts when grossly wrong, such as in the
example that Columbus was the first person to reach land in the western
hemisphere. Ha! But in this case, the only real evidence the article
offers is "the granddaughter of the Rev. Cannon" saying she "recalls
stories." I believe that is what we refer to as hearsay. And last I
checked, hearsay doesn't hold up as evidence in a court of law (not in the
US anyway).
> It's like a National Enquirer article--"Baby born with two tails"--yeah,
> well, whatever.
Indeed. I especially like the quote from the Bible that reads like a UFO
encounter, and then the fact that the woman's name is "Miss Cleo". Isn't
Miss Cleo that hack that was running late-night TV ads for a 1-900 tarot
card reading for $5 a minute?
-Hendo
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Historical fudging...
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| (URL) another story from last week that said, iirc, someone in Italy was the first to fly, and not the Wright brothers. This is much akin to the little fiasco a few months back about denouncing G Bell as the original inventor of the telephone. Look (...) (22 years ago, 17-Dec-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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