chronology Archives - Tales of Times Forgotten

What Merit Is There Really to the Strauss-Howe Generational Hypothesis?

The Strauss-Howe generational hypothesis is a non-scientific hypothesis that was first set forth in 1991 by the American authors William Strauss and Neil Howe in their book Generations. It was later expanded in their 1997 book The Fourth Turning. Although William Strauss died in 2007 of pancreatic cancer, Neil Howe has continued expanding and revising the hypothesis while giving lectures on it across the country.

Essentially, in its most basic form, the hypothesis holds that there is a recurring cycle of four generations that recurs roughly every eighty to ninety years, a period which Strauss and Howe call a “saeculum.” The cycle always begins with a period of crisis. Then there is a period of prosperity, known as a “high.” Then there is an “awakening.” Finally, there is an “unraveling,” leading to another crisis.

According to the hypothesis, as part of this cycle, there are four generations. Each generation is supposedly shaped by the events that were happening when members of that generation were growing up and, supposedly, these events result in each generation belonging to a certain recurring “archetype.”

All in all, I find the hypothesis amusing and kind of fun to read about in a crackpot sort of way, but it has virtually no credible evidence whatsoever to support it and it is mostly pseudoscience. Indeed, the kinds of predictions it makes are actually strongly reminiscent of astrology in a lot of ways, since they are vague enough that they sound meaningful without actually being meaningful.

When Was Jesus Really Born?

Most people assume that Jesus of Nazareth was born on 25 December 1 AD. Superficially speaking, this assumption makes a great deal of sense. After all, Christians today celebrate Jesus’s birth every year on December 25th and our modern Anno Domini dating system, which is ostensibly based on the year when Jesus was born, begins with the year 1 AD.

Unfortunately, things are never quite so simple. The truth is, we genuinely have very little idea when Jesus was born. There is no mention of the exact date of Jesus’s birth anywhere in any of the earliest surviving Christian writings and it was not until around the fourth century AD that December 25th was settled on as the day on which Christians would celebrate Jesus’s birth. Even the year of Jesus’s birth is uncertain; all we can say is that he was probably born sometime between c. 10 BC and c. 4 AD.

Why Most So-Called “Medieval Torture Devices” Are Fake

We’ve all heard of so-called “medieval torture devices.” You can find tons of clickbait-y articles online and videos on YouTube and so forth talking about the most gruesome of these alleged devices. For instance, here is a YouTube video from BuzzFeed titled “5 Of The Most Gruesome Medieval Torture Devices.” It lists the “scold’s bridle,” the “rack,” the “iron maiden,” the “pear of anguish,” and the “brazen bull.”

Unfortunately for those who love reading about gruesome torture devices, most of the so-called “medieval torture devices” you hear about never existed at all during the Middle Ages. In fact, of the five devices listed in the aforementioned video, only the rack actually existed during the Middle Ages and, even then, it seems to have been rarely ever used.

Many alleged “medieval torture devices” were actually made up by hoaxers, showmen, and con artists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These hoaxers would display these phony instruments of torture for commercial gain, telling people they were real medieval torture devices and charging people to see them.

Other supposed “medieval torture devices” were made up more recently. For instance, the notorious “Spanish tickler” (not mentioned in the video linked above) was only made up in 2005 as a hoax article on Wikipedia. Meanwhile, other supposed “medieval torture devices” are real torture devices, but they didn’t exist during the Middle Ages. Let’s go through in alphabetical order and debunk supposed medieval torture devices one-by-one.

Misconceptions about the Library of Alexandria

The Great Library of Alexandria is by far the most famous library that existed in the ancient world. At its height in the third century BC, it attracted renowned scholars from all over the Hellenistic world. It is likely that it held more scrolls than any other library in the Mediterranean at the time. Many people today see this library as a symbol of everything the ancient world accomplished.

As a result of the Great Library’s fame, however, it has become heavily mythologized. Many of the things that many people today believe about the library are simply not true. For instance, contrary to what you may have read on the internet, the Library of Alexandria was not the first library ever built, its famous destruction is not the primary reason why so many texts from ancient times have been lost, and it was certainly not deliberately destroyed by religious obscurantists of any kind.

Astounding Facts about Chronology that Will Change How You Think of History

Everyone thinks they know history, but there are a lot of facts about history, specifically about the chronology of events, that may surprise you: from events that people think should have happened in different time periods that actually happened around the same time to events that people think happened in the same time period that really happened hundreds, if not thousands, of years apart. Here are just a few particularly mind-bending examples that will change how you think of history:

“Ring around the Rosie” Is Not about the Black Death, Nor Has It Ever Been

A popular urban legend that has been circulating for decades now claims that the beloved children’s nursery rhyme “Ring around the Rosie” is actually about the Black Death. Although this may make for a good story, it is, in fact, totally false; the song “Ring around the Rosie” did not even first appear until centuries after the Black Death had been effectively eradicated in England.