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- Damn History #82 | September 2024
Young Albert Einstein didn’t trounce his college professor while discussing atheism.
On social media, fake news afflicts history writing. Many of the most popular purveyors of history on Facebook, X, and Instagram regularly post inaccurate and fraudulent history stories and images.
More than twenty years ago, the Snopes website debunked a widely circulated false history meme about a young Albert Einstein’s supposed takedown of an atheist professor. In the fake story, Einstein’s classroom argument against atheism leaves the professor speechless. It didn’t happen.
Yet I recently noticed that a friend on Facebook spread this false tale, having seen it posted on a much-followed history account. The only way to kill this kind of misleading history writing is to thoroughly fact check any post that we think may be worth reposting. Few people do this, although it takes only a couple minutes. It’s a social obligation.
Here in Damn History you'll find, as usual, recommendations on good and popularly accessible historical reading, with tips on writing and updates on my own work.
Follow me on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @Jack_ElHai
Contact me at [email protected]
Personal Notes
New foreign-edition publishers of my book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist in Italy and Ukraine bring the total to fourteen.
For the annual Medium Day event in August, I gave a virtual talk on “From Your Words to Their Movie: Tips on Getting Your Writing Optioned and Produced.” You can watch it without cost until September 16 by registering here and finding me on the schedule.
Here’s how my article and book became a successful true-crime podcast.
For a bountiful collection of my popular-history book, article, podcast, documentary, and audiobook recommendations, search X (formerly known as Twitter) for the hashtag #popularhistory.
Recent Popular History from All Over
You may find some of these articles behind a paywall if you’ve exceeded the publisher’s allowance of free views.
The New York Times published a long-overdue obituary of Willy de Bruyn, a cycling champion who broke gender boundaries.
A reporter caught up years later with a girl who played dead and survived murderous chaos in a Dallas crack house.
The original dog-whistle political attack ad still resonates today.
Books labeled “beach reads” have a history of democratizing literature.
John Hinckley Jr. and his past are still with us.
eBay auctioned a painting with an allegedly haunted past.
Everyday buildings in Athens hide historic ruins.
Bram Stoker’s efforts at stage writing were bad, but he did finish a Dracula play.
The Great Depression sparked an ill-fated movement to carve out a new U.S. state.
Of the Voynich Manuscript’s 38,000 words, not one was initially readable.
L.A.’s Aryan Book Store was more than a place for certain people to find something to read.
Journalist William Bradford Huie made an unethical choice to leave guilty parties out of his influential Look Magazine story about the murder of Emmett Till.
Resources
Many productive people avoid using digital tools to organize their work.
Is it preposterous to expect truth in a memoir? One memoirist believes it is.
Some historical artifacts aren’t what they appear to be.
Strange things happen when AI summarizes history articles.
History documentarian Ken Burns shares the documentaries that influenced him.
Evan S. Connell’s resistance to publicity slowed his career as a writer of popular history.
“Some things have to be believed to be seen.” – poet Ralph Hodgson
Housekeeping
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About me: I'm a writer whose beat is history. I've contributed hundreds of articles to such publications as Smithsonian, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Magazine, Wired, Scientific American, Discover, GQ, Longreads.com, and many others. My books include The Lost Brothers: A Family’s Decades-Long Search, The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness, Non-Stop: A Turbulent History of Northwest Airlines, and The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Goering, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WW2. I often give presentations to groups of writers, readers, and others.
Please feel free to get in touch.