One of the most interesting examples of history and our knowledge of it being changed by those in power was brought to the public eye recently with the sale of the last known copy of the map that first named America as America. According to the story from Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0332239320071203, this map (drawn in 1507) has details of the west coast of the New World (an accurate coastline and, indeed, an ocean where none was known or expected by Europeans).
The maker of the map, a monk named Waldeesmuller, cited the earlier works of Ptolemy and the letters of Amerigo Vespucci as inspiration for the map, but only six years after naming the continent "America" on that map, Waldeesmuller changes his mind and calls it "Terra Incognita" and changes the west coast back into the unknown.
Scholars can only speculate as to why the actual change occured, but the Cartographer himself suspected that the Powers that Be had something to do with it.
Perhaps this change isn't as well known or well executed as the revisions of Davy Crockett about himself or of Todd Lincoln about his father, but it proves once again that he who controls the information controls the people.
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3 comments:
Fascinating. Old maps always interest me, and their info-controlling nature is especially interesting to the study of any time period.
Off topic, my favorite Robert Todd Lincoln anecdote is that he was the "angel of death" for presidents--he was near his father's assassination, of course, but also at Garfield's (he was meeting him at the train) and McKinley's (he was coming to help him with some policy). He tried to quit visiting presidents after that.
He "tried" to quit visiting presidents? Were there any in particular he visiting, *hoping* his gift would pay off?
Well, I said "tried" because R.T. Lincoln was a former cabinet secretary, executive VP/manager of Pullman (the train cars), and a highly influential governmental type. He was a Republican, like his dad, so maybe he might have tried to visit Wilson, but I'm not sure about that. He mostly avoided D.C. until the dedication of the Lincoln Monument.
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