Radiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio.

Welcome back to the show Radiculous Historians. Thank you as always so much for tuning in.

That is Mr. Max Williams on the audio ones and twos here give him a hand. They call me Ben.

No, you and I are fans of, well, I don't know if we can say we're fans of early American history,

but I think we're both fascinated by how many strange stories are out there. It's sort of moving

into the world of myth sometimes. Yes, we're right. I mean, you know, you got your George Washington,

Sherry Tree, not telling a lie type mythology. And then you've got, I don't know,

didn't George didn't Abraham Lincoln do something mythological as well that was sort of debunked?

Maybe it's all about, you know, sort of like Luke, I am your father. Like I think Darth Vader never

actually said those words, but it just sort of gets carried on as the thing people repeat.

And then before you know it, people believe that that's actually what was in the movie.

History's not like a movie though, because we don't really have a rewind or like chapter markers

or like a DVD menu. Remember those, those, that was a big deal when DVDs came out. Now it's like,

don't even think about it anymore. Well, blue rays for like the super nerds, the steel boxes and

all that. There's no steel box, blue ray of history. No, no. And you know, I was in a very

interesting conversation with some historians actually over the break since last time we recorded.

And one of them brought up this fantastic point. She said that we have to remember that

as you go further back in time, fewer and fewer people are literate. So any written record we're

reading is actually a history of the literate class, right? Right. From their perspective.

Yeah, which often comes with a pretty big slant, doesn't it? Exactly. Exactly. That's way beyond

history is written by the winners. Cause you know, let's be honest, a lot of winners were a literate.

Anyhow, this is, this is important because what we're talking about, and I love the example you

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