Ah yes, Albert Einstein. Perhaps number 3 or number 4 on the all time mis-quoted list. No, he didn’t say that thing about the disappearance of bees, and the disappearance of bee pollination being the sign that animal life on the planet, especially humans, was doomed within four years. No, he didn’t say “if the…
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Buzzkillers by the score have asked us here at the Institute for shows on the Vietnam War. The Ken Burns film on PBS, The Vietnam War, the 18-part, 10-hour interview-thon, is provoking many of you to ask questions about the war and about the protests against it. So today we’re going to look at one…
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There are a lot of very tall statues all over the world. Organizations, countries, and governments set up statues to heroes of all kinds. Sometimes real, sometimes spiritual, sometimes allegorical. The Statue of Liberty is certainly very tall (46 meters, 151 feet), and is an allegorical figure of Liberty, the central ideal of the American…
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Sadly, tragically, infuriatingly, it seems that every time there is a mass shooting in the United States, the same sorts of arguments come up from the same, opposing, sides. Gun control advocates say there is only one solution, and that is, not surprisingly, more gun control. Gun rights advocates argue that gun ownership and the…
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Japan’s defensive perimeter kept shrinking during 1944 and 1945, yet the war dragged on. The battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa were as bloody and horrific as any others during the Pacific war. Strategic bombing of Japan increased, both from the Asian mainland, and from the Pacific side. Japan eventually surrendered in 1945, but we…
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Politics in the United States is rife with rhetorical excess these days, and Americans are being treated to falsehoods, wild exaggerations, and anachronisms galore. Just recently, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham accused four young Democratic Congresswomen of being “communists.” “Communists”! Not only is this untrue, the way that Graham used it as an attack and a…
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The brutality of World War II in the Pacific continued from Guadalcanal to the Aleutians, from China to the Solomon Islands, and was also a propaganda war at home in Japan and in Allied countries. Professor Nash comes back to tell us about these middle years in the Pacific War, and explain how the power…
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Superstar historian, Professor Nash, joins us to talk about the opening years of American involvement in Pacific during World War II. From Pearl Harbor to Midway, it’s a brutal chess match across the Pacific – a chess match that includes massive battles, massive casualties, and massive war crimes. And that’d only through 1942! So this…
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You know how we are about quotes, Buzzkillers. The vast majority of the famous quotes and quips from historical figures have no basis in evidence. Most of them come from hearsay, were actually said by other people, or invented and written by biographers, playwrights, and screenwriters 100 years after the original events or lifetime. Sometimes,…
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Every July, American Buzzkillers get inundated with chain emails, Facebook posts, and Tweets that spread more myths about the Declaration of Independence. No matter how many times they’ve been disproved, the seem to crop up every year. John Hancock signing his name so large that “King George can read it without his spectacles.” And “The…
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