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I've been doing this long enough to have discovered over and over what we think we know about history

is often wrong. First off, history itself isn't real. There are only the artifacts

left behind, and even those sometimes can't be trusted. We have no way of interrogating

the people who wrote the letter, carved the spear, or minted the coin, so it's a guessing game

from the very beginning if you try to describe motivations to anyone from the past.

But then there are the layers and layers, generations and generations of received wisdom

that like some eons long game of telephone mutates the truth. Constant telling and retelling

changes the story. But finally, there are the outright lies. Whether a harmless hoax or

ancient versions of fake news, sometimes people make things up, and you know what Mark Twain said,

a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.

Except what's funny is, Mark Twain probably didn't say that.

Historians have always had to reckon with tall tales, gross exaggerations,

obfuscating emissions, and outright falsehoods. And there's probably no better example

of how lies and legends have so completely eclipsed the truth than in the biography of the pirate

we know as Blackbeard. So to find the truth on today's Saturday, Matt and I, we bring you an

episode from the podcast, one thousand and one heroes, legends, histories and mysteries.

Host John Haggadorn speaks to historian and author Kevin Duffus, who has spent over five

decades researching Blackbeard's life trying to pick fact from fiction and challenge old myths and

legends. I hope you enjoy, and while you're listening, be sure to search for and follow

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