The French Revolution Begins Chapter 23 Section 1: Fill & Download for Free

In answer to: Clare Kuehn's answer to What assassinations are the Illuminati responsible for?The "Illuminati" is now used as a catch-all phrase.As such, it is not known which assassinations have a literal Illuminist bent; wherever Masonry and Satanism are involved, there is some connection to Illuminist ideals, but that does not mean formal illuminists were involved.Your question is unanswerable as defined.(Someone named Basil Fondu replied negatively to this, as though there could be no proof of any of this, asked for sources -- and as you see below will not accept that lists of sources can be gathered from many places, including Wikipedia, if one is aware of possible problems. They also put down the idea of listening to videos and so on. They told me to paragraph better; paragraphs do not always show when copying, plus I was kind but in a hurry.)I then replied:1) Anyone who is fully educated knows the roles of Freemasonry as part of 18th- and 17th-century "salons", locales of free thinking and alternate history, as well as how "nepotism" (conspiracy of helping bussies) forms and forms easily in secret groups, plus about the plot discovered by the King of Bavaria by a group of lords and money-changers (so to speak) to infiltrate the German Freemasons and spread anti-royalty messages and plots so that classical Liberalism -- which is not the same thing as being liberal or social democratic. Liberalism is an equivalent of modern conservative love of money through business formats as an ideal of freedom, which it partly but only partly is. You could study how the Magna Carta was for the Lords, not the average folks, to begin to understand this kind of thing in early forms. ... Anyway, corporatism through Illuminism could spread to the benefit of the lords. Look those up; they are well known and will be found in all history texts of any depth. I give the Wikipedia source for you to start with, but I give it in pt 6, below. 2) Youtube videos are sometimes wonderful compilations of sources. So are books and pamphlets and so on. One has to read or look at or listen to people who have compiled the evidence so that you can note it in other places where you never did (regular ordinary histories). This is true for any subject; yes, it does mean you will have to get good at filtering but being patient with "crazies" or slightly fanatic types, for sometimes they do the largest compendia. You might do well to start watching and listening more broadly. 3) As to assassinations: there are not such things as illuminist murders claimed by formal history texts, usually, however the participants in 19th-century and 20th-century (and 21st-century) power elites who have rituals soucred in Bavarian Illuminist ideals (for example, the founder of Skull and Bones at Yale visited and got approval for his new "society" in the 19th century), can be linked to assassinations. We know George HW Bush was at the JFK assassination (along with many other people), and he was in Skull and Bones. So there is one link you can make to "Illuminati". However, 4) I always mention quickly and forthrightly that technically speaking, modern histories do not typically comment on the *continuance* of Illuminism after the King of Bavaria discovered the plot and tried to warn other royalty and Freemasonic lodges. So people talking of "Illuminati" today are often sloppy; it is important to know that of course the slaving, drug-cartelization and geopoliticking of top-end families continued long after official slavery was ended in countries (there are 27 million slaves today, for example, more than at any other time in history, and many more who are, effectively speaking, work-slaves, with little prospect). You have to get a sense of harm to most people for economy and power struggles, and who would do that. Not all are "Illuminati" but the term has a general cachet now. 5) For some great information about Masons and their involvement in alternative religious ideals and ideas, you could read the utterly scholarly Tompkins studies about the history of the Pyramids and Obelisks, respectively, "Secrets of the Great Pyramid" and "The Magic of Obelisks". They have some interesting ideas but also cover the history of the ideas and whom and why those ideas came from. 6) For Satanism you will have to go further, but you can learn about books published by Freemasonic presses (though please ignore the hype in the name and parts of this, for I just give it as a good compendium of quotations, not that it is self-evident what "Lucifer" and "Satan" mean to Masons who take up the beliefs): MASONRY PROVEN CONCLUSIVELY TO BE WORSHIP OF LUCIFER, SATAN! Part 1 of 2 But you have to stay a lot calmer than you are, to absorb what this means. You have to know that "Satanism" is (intellectually speaking) merely a form of hedonism, selfish justifications and glorying in the world as we experience it. From this, Lucifer (originally the planet Venus and its Babylonian/ Hebrew connection to Isis) as (later) Satan was God (Goddess) of Light (Illumination). This then gets confused with bad acts, magic for evil purposes (purposes of the body only). 6) Back to Illuminati (literal ones): Illuminati (Wikipedia) and re. Skull and Bones and what it entails you will have to do more digging but I can start you off re. the founder: The Order of the Skull and Bones: Everything you always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask And why it matters. However, these things are merely offshoots of an ideal called plutocratic oligarchy, mixed with cult-indoctrination methods and pride. I am a fully educated, not low-end, ad hoc person. Good luck.Basil Fondu replied:Masonry proven to be the worship of Lucifer. Hilarious. Isis as Satan.ROFLMAO Illuminati. LOL . You can't pay for entertainment like this!I'm curious, is there any half-assed conspiracy theory you don't believe? Is the Queen a reptoid?Learn to use paragraphs.I replied:You do not seem to know how to separate cases. You showed no understanding of history. And ... I never said Isis was Satan; I said the name Lucifer means Light-Bearer; Venus was originally the Babylonian Isis and in ancient texts it can also mean the planet ("morning star") directly. In the later associations with mysticism the terms get all overlapped. And mixed with Satan as Lucifer in a different sense. When the morning star fell in the sky (the Bible passage seems to be about an actual change in Venus' trajectory or a metaphorical fear of one), then it got treated as "Angel", because Hebrews, though from Ur (Babylonian Empire originally), had one God so anything else was now called an angel.You just showed why it is really usually not worth giving information to people who start with a bad attitude. That is why courts do not allow it. I had little wish to edit and use paragraphing. I was doing you a multidisciplinary huge favour. Now, if you are particularly interested in the Masonry - Lucifer stuff, you can get into it.I never said it is always or deeply connected. I said that there are those who connected the ideas of Isis as Lucifer (that's what Lucifer means: light bearer -- star of the morning, originally), and Illumination and hedonism with freethinking and wrecking nations if they were deemed to have bad policies. That created some who infiltrated Masonry with that end; but when lords say there is a bad king, they may be right or wrong and *still* not have your best interests at heart. You will have to tease out your premature assumptions and look at the multifaceted history of not only Masonry (and some of them having the Lucifer as "pure" Satan, how they use the terms at times, and rarely, but in their own publications), but also of the economics and social stratifications which led to Illuminism itself. Not that it was all bad.You have many sources to learn from on all things. Read Tompkins, go to Wiki on Illuminati (the original source information), learn the reasoning about the Skull and Bones founders (and their families), learn re. JFK death, learn re all *forms* of Satanism and those who use the term Lucifer and slide between the two, and learn the economics and social strata history.I also gave you an excellent article on Bailly and the French Revolution. I certainly *can* use paragraphs but I was giving you a gift and an extensive one. Try it out properly. Stop assuming Youtube is never good and so on. You asked me to do some of your homework for you and I did. Now do the rest and be more careful and take time. Happy New Year.Share • Report • ThuBasil Fondu: Yes, you're quite the schol...Clare KuehnDid you even see my other links? You would do well to go to them carefully. They are scholarly and unofficial (not official scholar) materials, which you will find helpful. Many sources given in each. -- I will treat you with more care than you have thought to give me. Try it! I have copied below my two kind, extensive lists of sources and information overviews, on JFK, Bush Sr, Skull and Bones' link to German secret societies and the links from Wikipedia to the original sources on why the German Illuminists and Bavarian group infiltrated Freemasonry and why we can think they continued.For Bush Sr. and JFK's death -- but first you have to know the assassination was not by Oswald who tried to stop it ... do you? The scope was utterly flawed, per the government teams who tried to use it, for one thing ... and there is much more. JFK - The Assassin's Rifle & The "Magic Bullet But for Bush and his assistance to one of the several teams who were there: Was George H.W. Bush Involved in Assassination of JFK? & Did George H.W. Bush coordinate a JFK hit team?Or maybe, from the unscholarly request merely to cite several early sources without understanding that compendia of sources are called books and videos and radio shows which you should normally be attending to, I should just list the Wikipedia sources themselves (for, you see, you assume quite a lot in your smugness). One of the references is Thomas Jefferson about the international conspiracy book of the early 1800s, though the Bavarian king's information is separate.You will also need to know (and you should consider yourself on a need to know level, not a shut-down mind-set) that the claims about the French Revolution were not too far off. The British elements of speculators and persons who wanted certain curbing of regular people -- mixed with those who wanted revolution for the people but also of lords against kings -- were knowably behind turning the true development of revolution into a peaceful process of constitutional monarchy, into a bloody affair.However, normal regular human extremes also play their part. You may enjoy, and be enlightened (pun intended) by this study of Bailly's "Tennis Court Oath" vs the documents about the Bastille and the external and personal influences on the fanatics of France. But yes, it's more *reading* (like a 2-hour Youtube or radio show, oh my gosh!): Jean-Sylvain Bailly: The French Revolution's Benjamin Franklin However, if you can get into a mind-set of not putting something down just because it is long, partly mistaken, bigoted or biased, and learn what it can give you, then this is the very best corrective piece of compiled *sources* and information historical reasoning about that event.So here they are, on the Bavarian Illuminists/ Perfectibilists/ Illuminati and their non-Bavarian results as well, taken from the Wikipedia page. Does that help you? Do you want to go to the 1800 and 1900 books which give the original documents? Remember even these might have some of (some of) the tendencies for original thought mixed with mistakes and fanaticisms which you note now in videos and so on. Humans who think on topics are varied; early does not mean always "better". But the documents themselves would be given or quoted in these books unless, as you say, you don't like slogging through anything. Real scholars do have to do that, even while holding a nose for the fanaticisms of an author.--Wikipedia: References (these did not copy properly with links, but last 2 sections did)Richard van Dülmen, The Society of Enlightenment (Polity Press 1992) p. 110 René le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande, Paris, 1914, pp. 453, 468-9, 507-8, 614-5 Vernon Stauffer, New England and the Bavarian Illuminati, Columbia University Press, 1918, Chapter 3 The European Illuminati, Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon, accessed 14 November 2015 Weishaupt, Adam (1790). Pythagoras oder Betrachtungen über die geheime Welt- und Regierungskunst. Frankfurt and Leipzig. p. 670. René le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande, Paris, 1914, Book 1, Chapter 1, pp15-29 Manfred Agethen, Geheimbund und Utopie. Illuminaten, Freimaurer und deutsche Spätaufklärung, Oldenbourg, Munich, 1987, p150. René le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande, Paris, 1914, Book 1, Chapter 2, pp30-45 Terry Melanson, Perfectibilists: The 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati, Trine Day, 2009, pp. 361, 364, 428 Ed Josef Wäges and Reinhard Markner, tr Jeva Singh-Anand, The Secret School of Wisdom, Lewis Masonic 2015, pp 15-16 Ellic Howe, Illuminati, Man, Myth and Magic (partwork), Purnell, 1970, vol 4, pp1402-1404 René le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande, Paris, 1914, Book 1, Chapter 3, pp45-72 René le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande, Paris, 1914, Book 3 Chapter 1, pp193-201 René le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande, Paris, 1914, Book 3 Chapter 2, pp202-226 René le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande, Paris, 1914, Book 3 Chapter 3, pp227-250 K. M. Hataley, In Search of the Illuminati, Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition, No. 23, Vol. 3. Autumnal Equinox 2012 René le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande, Paris, 1914, Book 4 Chapter 1, pp343-388 René le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande, Paris, 1914, Book 4 Chapter 2, pp389-429 René le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande, Paris, 1914, Book 4 Chapter 3, pp430-496 McKeown, Trevor W. (16 February 2009). "A Bavarian Illuminati Primer". Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon A.F. & A.M. Archived from the original on 27 January 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2011. Roberts, J.M. (1974). The Mythology of Secret Societies. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 128–129. ISBN 978-0-684-12904-4. Introvigne, Massimo (2005). "Angels & Demons from the Book to the Movie FAQ - Do the Illuminati Really Exist?". Center for Studies on New Religions. Archived from the original on 27 January 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2011. Schüttler, Hermann (1991). Die Mitglieder des Illuminatenordens, 1776-1787/93. Munich: Ars Una. pp. 48–9, 62–3, 71, 82. ISBN 3-89391-018-2. ---- Simpson, David (1993). Romanticism, Nationalism, and the Revolt Against Theory. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-75945-8.88. ---- Payson, Seth (1802). Proofs of the Real Existence, and Dangerous Tendency, Of Illuminism. Charlestown: Samuel Etheridge. Retrieved 27 January 2011. ---- Tise, Larry (1998). The American Counterrevolution: A Retreat from Liberty, 1783–1800. Stackpole Books. pp. 351–353. ISBN 978-0811701006. ---- Jefferson, Thomas (17 November 1802). "'There has been a book written lately by DuMousnier ...'" (PDF) (Letter to Nicolas Gouin Dufief). Retrieved 26 October 2013. ---- "The Illuminati Order Homepage". The Illuminati Order. Retrieved 2011-08-06. "Official website of The Illuminati Order". ILLUMINATI ORDER - OFFICIAL SITE. Retrieved 2011-08-06. Sykes, Leslie (17 May 2009). ---- "Angels & Demons Causing Serious Controversy". KFSN-TV/ABC News. Archived from the original on 27 January 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2011. ---- Barkun, Michael (2003). A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. Comparative Studies in Religion and Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23805-3. ---- Penre, Wes (26 September 2009). ---- "The Secret Order of the Illuminati (A Brief History of the Shadow Government)". Illuminati News. Archived from the original on 28 January 2011. Retrieved 28 January 2011. Howard, Robert (28 September 2001). ---- "United States Presidents and The Illuminati / Masonic Power Structure". Hard Truth/Wake Up America. Archived from the original on 28 January 2011. Retrieved 28 January 2011. ---- "The Barack Obama Illuminati Connection". The Best of Rush Limbaugh Featured Sites. 1 August 2009. Archived from the original on 28 January 2011. Retrieved 28 January 2011. ---- Mark Dice, The Illuminati: Facts & Fiction, 2009. ISBN 0-9673466-5-7 ---- Myron Fagan, The Council on Foreign Relations. Council On Foreign Relations By Myron Fagan ---- markdice dot com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=118:what-brad-meltzers-decoded-missed&catid=66:articles-by-mark-dice&Itemid=89 ---- gawker dot com/5886988/a-comprehensive-guide-to-the-illuminati-the-conspiracy-theory-that-connects-jay-z-and-queen-elizabeth/allOther readingHermann Schüttler, Reinhard Markner, Forschungsliteratur zum Illuminatenorden / Research Bibliography at Illuminaten WikiEngel, Leopold (1906). Geschichte des Illuminaten-ordens (in German). Berlin: Hugo Bermühler verlag. OCLC 560422365. (Wikisource)Gordon, Alexander (1911). "Illuminati". In Hugh Chisholm. Encyclopædia Britannica 14 (11 ed.). NY: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 2011-01-27.Le Forestier, René (1914). Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande (in French). Paris: Librairie Hachette et Cie. OCLC 493941226.Markner, Reinhold; Neugebauer-Wölk, Monika; Schüttler, Hermann, eds. (2005). Die Korrespondenz des Illuminatenordens. Bd. 1, 1776–81 (in German). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. ISBN 3-484-10881-9.Melanson, Terry (2009). Perfectibilists: The 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati. Walterville, Oregon: Trine Day. ISBN 9780977795383. OCLC 182733051.Mounier, Jean-Joseph (1801). On the Influence Attributed to Philosophers, Free-Masons, and to the Illuminati on the Revolution of France. Trans. J. Walker. London: W. and C. Spilsbury. Retrieved 27 January 2011.Robison, John (1798). Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies (3 ed.). London: T. Cadell, Jr. and W. Davies. Retrieved 27 January 2011.Utt, Walter C. (1979). "Illuminating the Illuminati" (PDF). Liberty (Washington, D. C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association) 74 (3, May–June): 16–19, 26–28. Retrieved June 24, 2011.Burns, James; Utt, Walter C. (1980). "Further Illumination: Burns Challenges Utt and Utt Responds" (PDF). Liberty (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association) 75 (2, March–April): 21–23. Retrieved June 25, 2011.External linksGruber, Hermann (1910). "Illuminati". The Catholic Encyclopedia 7. NY: Robert Appleton Company. pp. 661–663. Retrieved 2011-01-28.Melanson, Terry (5 August 2005). "Illuminati Conspiracy Part One: A Precise Exegesis on the Available Evidence". Conspiracy Archive. Archived from the original on 28 January 2010. Retrieved 28 January 2010.And a summary re. Skull and Bones founders: What is the Illuminati connection to Skull and Bones? A group of students calling themselves File and Claw actually broke into the Skull and Bones headquarters in 1876, a building they own called the Tomb. They published a several page newsletter around Yale University shortly after their break-in, explaining what they found inside. The File and Claw intruders found a card reading “From the German Chapter. Presented by Patriarch D.C. Gilman of D. 50.” The card was reportedly placed in a frame and hung on the wall inside the Tomb. One of the founders of Skull and Bones, William Huntington Russell, was studying abroad in Germany just before returning founding the secret society in America in 1832. So let’s spell this out. One of the two founders of Skull and Bones was studying in Germany, where the Illuminati was founded just several years earlier, and then as soon as he comes back to the United States, he starts his own secret society. Then, the break-in by some Yale students (File and Claw) revealed a plaque on the wall inside the Skull and Bones headquarters saying it was a gift from “the German Chapter.”

The intensity of this question has upset the roots of humanity as we know it. Is this a metaphor for when we took Puerto Rico away for ourselves? We simply do not have the mental capacity to understand this question. As the great Copernicus once said “How doneth oneth runneth ineth thouh game” And he figured out that the answer to his question was simple, hold LShift allow me to explain:In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat. The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes. The abolition of existing property relations is not at all a distinctive feature of communism. All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions. The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favour of bourgeois property. The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence. Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily. Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property? But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is 23 Chapter II: Proletarians and Communists based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism. To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power. When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character. Let us now take wage-labour. The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it. In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer. In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality. And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at. By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying. But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the other “brave words” of our bourgeois about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself. You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society. In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend. From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised, i.e., from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishes. 24 Chapter II: Proletarians and Communists You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible. Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations. It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us. According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work. The whole of this objection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can no longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital. All objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating intellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture. That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine. But don’t wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, law, &c. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class. The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property – historical relations that rise and disappear in the progress of production – this misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of property. Abolition [Aufhebung] of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists. On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution. The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital. Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty. But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social. And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, &c.? The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class. The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the 25 Chapter II: Proletarians and Communists family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour. But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the bourgeoisie in chorus. The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women. He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production. For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial. Our bourgeois, not content with having wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives. Bourgeois marriage is, in reality, a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is selfevident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private. The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word. National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat. In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end. The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination. Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views, and conception, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life? What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class. When people speak of the ideas that revolutionise society, they do but express that fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence. When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal 26 Chapter II: Proletarians and Communists society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge. “Undoubtedly,” it will be said, “religious, moral, philosophical, and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. But religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this change.” “There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.” What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms, antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs. But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of class antagonisms. The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder that its development involved the most radical rupture with traditional ideas. But let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism. We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the 27 Chapter II: Proletarians and Communists populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c. When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. III. Socialist and Communist Literature 1. Reactionary Socialism A. Feudal Socialism Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the aristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against modern bourgeois society. In the French Revolution of July 1830, and in the English reform agitation4 , these aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful upstart. Thenceforth, a serious political struggle was altogether out of the question. A literary battle alone remained possible. But even in the domain of literature the old cries of the restoration period had become impossible.* In order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy was obliged to lose sight, apparently, of its own interests, and to formulate their indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited working class alone. Thus, the aristocracy took their revenge by singing lampoons on their new masters and whispering in his ears sinister prophesies of coming catastrophe. In this way arose feudal Socialism: half lamentation, half lampoon; half an echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart’s core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history. The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. But the people, so often as it joined them, saw on their hindquarters the old feudal coats of arms, and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter. One section of the French Legitimists and “Young England” exhibited this spectacle. In pointing out that their mode of exploitation was different to that of the bourgeoisie, the feudalists forget that they exploited under circumstances and conditions that were quite different and that are now antiquated. In showing that, under their rule, the modern proletariat never existed, they forget that the modern bourgeoisie is the necessary offspring of their own form of society. For the rest, so little do they conceal the reactionary character of their criticism that their chief accusation against the bourgeois amounts to this, that under the bourgeois régime a class is being developed which is destined to cut up root and branch the old order of society. What they upbraid the bourgeoisie with is not so much that it creates a proletariat as that it creates a revolutionary proletariat. In political practice, therefore, they join in all coercive measures against the working class; and in ordinary life, despite their high-falutin phrases, they stoop to pick up the golden apples dropped from the tree of industry, and to barter truth, love, and honour, for traffic in wool, beetroot-sugar, and potato spirits.† As the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord, so has Clerical Socialism with Feudal Socialism. * Not the English Restoration (1660-1689), but the French Restoration (1814-1830). [Note by Engels to the English edition of 1888.] † This applies chiefly to Germany, where the landed aristocracy and squirearchy have large portions of their estates cultivated for their own account by stewards, and are, moreover, extensive beetroot-sugar manufacturers and distillers of potato spirits. The wealthier British aristocracy are, as yet, rather above that; but they, too, know how to make up for declining rents by lending their names to floaters or more or less shady joint-stock companies. [Note by Engels to the English edition of 1888.] 29 Chapter III: Socialist and Communist Literature Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat. B. Petty-Bourgeois Socialism The feudal aristocracy was not the only class that was ruined by the bourgeoisie, not the only class whose conditions of existence pined and perished in the atmosphere of modern bourgeois society. The medieval burgesses and the small peasant proprietors were the precursors of the modern bourgeoisie. In those countries which are but little developed, industrially and commercially, these two classes still vegetate side by side with the rising bourgeoisie. In countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie, and ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois society. The individual members of this class, however, are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an independent section of modern society, to be replaced in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen. In countries like France, where the peasants constitute far more than half of the population, it was natural that writers who sided with the proletariat against the bourgeoisie should use, in their criticism of the bourgeois régime, the standard of the peasant and petty bourgeois, and from the standpoint of these intermediate classes, should take up the cudgels for the working class. Thus arose petty-bourgeois Socialism. Sismondi was the head of this school, not only in France but also in England. This school of Socialism dissected with great acuteness the contradictions in the conditions of modern production. It laid bare the hypocritical apologies of economists. It proved, incontrovertibly, the disastrous effects of machinery and division of labour; the concentration of capital and land in a few hands; overproduction and crises; it pointed out the inevitable ruin of the petty bourgeois and peasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in production, the crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war of extermination between nations, the dissolution of old moral bonds, of the old family relations, of the old nationalities. In its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires either to restoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with them the old property relations, and the old society, or to cramping the modern means of production and of exchange within the framework of the old property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means. In either case, it is both reactionary and Utopian. Its last words are: corporate guilds for manufacture; patriarchal relations in agriculture. Ultimately, when stubborn historical facts had dispersed all intoxicating effects of self-deception, this form of Socialism ended in a miserable fit of the blues. C. German or “True” Socialism The Socialist and Communist literature of France, a literature that originated under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in power, and that was the expressions of the struggle against this power, was introduced into Germany at a time when the bourgeoisie, in that country, had just begun its contest with feudal absolutism. German philosophers, would-be philosophers, and beaux esprits (men of letters), eagerly seized on this literature, only forgetting, that when these writings immigrated from France into Germany, French social conditions had not immigrated along with them. In contact with German 30 Chapter III: Socialist and Communist Literature social conditions, this French literature lost all its immediate practical significance and assumed a purely literary aspect. Thus, to the German philosophers of the Eighteenth Century, the demands of the first French Revolution were nothing more than the demands of “Practical Reason” in general, and the utterance of the will of the revolutionary French bourgeoisie signified, in their eyes, the laws of pure Will, of Will as it was bound to be, of true human Will generally. The work of the German literati consisted solely in bringing the new French ideas into harmony with their ancient philosophical conscience, or rather, in annexing the French ideas without deserting their own philosophic point of view. This annexation took place in the same way in which a foreign language is appropriated, namely, by translation. It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic Saints over the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient heathendom had been written. The German literati reversed this process with the profane French literature. They wrote their philosophical nonsense beneath the French original. For instance, beneath the French criticism of the economic functions of money, they wrote “Alienation of Humanity”, and beneath the French criticism of the bourgeois state they wrote “Dethronement of the Category of the General”, and so forth. The introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of the French historical criticisms, they dubbed “Philosophy of Action”, “True Socialism”, “German Science of Socialism”, “Philosophical Foundation of Socialism”, and so on. The French Socialist and Communist literature was thus completely emasculated. And, since it ceased in the hands of the German to express the struggle of one class with the other, he felt conscious of having overcome “French one-sidedness” and of representing, not true requirements, but the requirements of Truth; not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general, who belongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only in the misty realm of philosophical fantasy. This German socialism, which took its schoolboy task so seriously and solemnly, and extolled its poor stock-in-trade in such a mountebank fashion, meanwhile gradually lost its pedantic innocence. The fight of the Germans, and especially of the Prussian bourgeoisie, against feudal aristocracy and absolute monarchy, in other words, the liberal movement, became more earnest. By this, the long-wished for opportunity was offered to “True” Socialism of confronting the political movement with the Socialist demands, of hurling the traditional anathemas against liberalism, against representative government, against bourgeois competition, bourgeois freedom of the press, bourgeois legislation, bourgeois liberty and equality, and of preaching to the masses that they had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by this bourgeois movement. German Socialism forgot, in the nick of time, that the French criticism, whose silly echo it was, presupposed the existence of modern bourgeois society, with its corresponding economic conditions of existence, and the political constitution adapted thereto, the very things those attainment was the object of the pending struggle in Germany. To the absolute governments, with their following of parsons, professors, country squires, and officials, it served as a welcome scarecrow against the threatening bourgeoisie. It was a sweet finish, after the bitter pills of flogging and bullets, with which these same governments, just at that time, dosed the German working-class risings. While this “True” Socialism thus served the government as a weapon for fighting the German bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, directly represented a reactionary interest, the interest of German Philistines. In Germany, the petty-bourgeois class, a relic of the sixteenth century, and since then constantly cropping up again under the various forms, is the real social basis of the existing state of things. 31 Chapter III: Socialist and Communist Literature To preserve this class is to preserve the existing state of things in Germany. The industrial and political supremacy of the bourgeoisie threatens it with certain destruction – on the one hand, from the concentration of capital; on the other, from the rise of a revolutionary proletariat. “True” Socialism appeared to kill these two birds with one stone. It spread like an epidemic. The robe of speculative cobwebs, embroidered with flowers of rhetoric, steeped in the dew of sickly sentiment, this transcendental robe in which the German Socialists wrapped their sorry “eternal truths”, all skin and bone, served to wonderfully increase the sale of their goods amongst such a public. And on its part German Socialism recognised, more and more, its own calling as the bombastic representative of the petty-bourgeois Philistine. It proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation, and the German petty Philistine to be the typical man. To every villainous meanness of this model man, it gave a hidden, higher, Socialistic interpretation, the exact contrary of its real character. It went to the extreme length of directly opposing the “brutally destructive” tendency of Communism, and of proclaiming its supreme and impartial contempt of all class struggles. With very few exceptions, all the so-called Socialist and Communist publications that now (1847) circulate in Germany belong to the domain of this foul and enervating literature.* 2. Conservative or Bourgeois Socialism A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind. This form of socialism has, moreover, been worked out into complete systems. We may cite Proudhon’s Philosophie de la Misère as an example of this form. The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire the existing state of society, minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally conceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois Socialism develops this comfortable conception into various more or less complete systems. In requiring the proletariat to carry out such a system, and thereby to march straightway into the social New Jerusalem, it but requires in reality, that the proletariat should remain within the bounds of existing society, but should cast away all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie. A second, and more practical, but less systematic, form of this Socialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the eyes of the working class by showing that no mere political reform, but only a change in the material conditions of existence, in economical relations, could be of any advantage to them. By changes in the material conditions of existence, this form of Socialism, however, by no means understands abolition of the bourgeois relations of production, an abolition that can be affected only by a revolution, but administrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations between capital and labour, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and simplify the administrative work, of bourgeois government. * The revolutionary storm of 1848 swept away this whole shabby tendency and cured its protagonists of the desire to dabble in socialism. The chief representative and classical type of this tendency is Mr Karl Gruen. [Note by Engels to the German edition of 1890.] 32 Chapter III: Socialist and Communist Literature Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression when, and only when, it becomes a mere figure of speech. Free trade: for the benefit of the working class. Protective duties: for the benefit of the working class. Prison Reform: for the benefit of the working class. This is the last word and the only seriously meant word of bourgeois socialism. It is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois is a bourgeois – for the benefit of the working class. 3. Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism We do not here refer to that literature which, in every great modern revolution, has always given voice to the demands of the proletariat, such as the writings of Babeuf and others. The first direct attempts of the proletariat to attain its own ends, made in times of universal excitement, when feudal society was being overthrown, necessarily failed, owing to the then undeveloped state of the proletariat, as well as to the absence of the economic conditions for its emancipation, conditions that had yet to be produced, and could be produced by the impending bourgeois epoch alone. The revolutionary literature that accompanied these first movements of the proletariat had necessarily a reactionary character. It inculcated universal asceticism and social levelling in its crudest form. The Socialist and Communist systems, properly so called, those of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, and others, spring into existence in the early undeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie (see Section I. Bourgeois and Proletarians). The founders of these systems see, indeed, the class antagonisms, as well as the action of the decomposing elements in the prevailing form of society. But the proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to them the spectacle of a class without any historical initiative or any independent political movement. Since the development of class antagonism keeps even pace with the development of industry, the economic situation, as they find it, does not as yet offer to them the material conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat. They therefore search after a new social science, after new social laws, that are to create these conditions. Historical action is to yield to their personal inventive action; historically created conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones; and the gradual, spontaneous class organisation of the proletariat to an organisation of society especially contrived by these inventors. Future history resolves itself, in their eyes, into the propaganda and the practical carrying out of their social plans. In the formation of their plans, they are conscious of caring chiefly for the interests of the working class, as being the most suffering class. Only from the point of view of being the most suffering class does the proletariat exist for them. The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favoured. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at large, without the distinction of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see in it the best possible plan of the best possible state of society? Hence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social Gospel. Such fantastic pictures of future society, painted at a time when the proletariat is still in a very undeveloped state and has but a fantastic conception of its own position, correspond with the first instinctive yearnings of that class for a general reconstruction of society. 33 Chapter III: Socialist and Communist Literature But these Socialist and Communist publications contain also a critical element. They attack every principle of existing society. Hence, they are full of the most valuable materials for the enlightenment of the working class. The practical measures proposed in them – such as the abolition of the distinction between town and country, of the family, of the carrying on of industries for the account of private individuals, and of the wage system, the proclamation of social harmony, the conversion of the function of the state into a more superintendence of production – all these proposals point solely to the disappearance of class antagonisms which were, at that time, only just cropping up, and which, in these publications, are recognised in their earliest indistinct and undefined forms only. These proposals, therefore, are of a purely Utopian character. The significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bears an inverse relation to historical development. In proportion as the modern class struggle develops and takes definite shape, this fantastic standing apart from the contest, these fantastic attacks on it, lose all practical value and all theoretical justification. Therefore, although the originators of these systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, their disciples have, in every case, formed mere reactionary sects. They hold fast by the original views of their masters, in opposition to the progressive historical development of the proletariat. They, therefore, endeavour, and that consistently, to deaden the class struggle and to reconcile the class antagonisms. They still dream of experimental realisation of their social Utopias, of founding isolated “phalansteres”, of establishing “Home Colonies”, or setting up a “Little Icaria”* – duodecimo editions of the New Jerusalem – and to realise all these castles in the air, they are compelled to appeal to the feelings and purses of the bourgeois. By degrees, they sink into the category of the reactionary [or] conservative Socialists depicted above, differing from these only by more systematic pedantry, and by their fanatical and superstitious belief in the miraculous effects of their social science. They, therefore, violently oppose all political action on the part of the working class; such action, according to them, can only result from blind unbelief in the new Gospel. The Owenites in England, and the Fourierists in France, respectively, oppose the Chartists and the Réformistes. * Phalanstéres were Socialist colonies on the plan of Charles Fourier; Icaria was the name given by Cabet to his Utopia and, later on, to his American Communist colony. [Note by Engels to the English edition of 1888.] “Home Colonies” were what Owen called his Communist model societies. Phalanstéres was the name of the public palaces planned by Fourier. Icaria was the name given to the Utopian land of fancy, whose Communist institutions Cabet portrayed. [Note by Engels to the German edition of 1890.] IV. Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties Section II has made clear the relations of the Communists to the existing working-class parties, such as the Chartists in England and the Agrarian Reformers in America. The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement. In France, the Communists ally with the SocialDemocrats* against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie, reserving, however, the right to take up a critical position in regard to phases and illusions traditionally handed down from the great Revolution. In Switzerland, they support the Radicals, without losing sight of the fact that this party consists of antagonistic elements, partly of Democratic Socialists, in the French sense, partly of radical bourgeois. In Poland, they support the party that insists on an agrarian revolution as the prime condition for national emancipation, that party which fomented the insurrection of Cracow in 1846. In Germany, they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revolutionary way, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie. But they never cease, for a single instant, to instil into the working class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that the German workers may straightway use, as so many weapons against the bourgeoisie, the social and political conditions that the bourgeoisie must necessarily introduce along with its supremacy, and in order that, after the fall of the reactionary classes in Germany, the fight against the bourgeoisie itself may immediately begin. The Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to be carried out under more advanced conditions of European civilisation and with a much more developed proletariat than that of England was in the seventeenth, and France in the eighteenth century, and because the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution. In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time. Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries. The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working Men of All Countries, Unite!5 * The party then represented in Parliament by Ledru-Rollin, in literature by Louis Blanc, in the daily press by the Réforme. The name of Social-Democracy signifies, with these its inventors, a section of the Democratic or Republican Party more or less tinged with socialism. [Engels, English Edition 1888] Letter from Engels to Marx, 24 November 1847* Paris, 23-24 November 1847 Dear Marx, Not until this evening was it decided that I should be coming. Saturday evening, then, in Ostend, Hôtel de la Couronne, just opposite the railway station beside the harbour, and Sunday morning across the water. If you take the train that leaves between 4 and 5, you’ll arrive at about the same time as I do. ... Tuesday evening Verte [PTO] Give a little thought to the “Confession of Faith.” I think we would do best to abandon the catechetical form and call the thing “Communist Manifesto.” Since a certain amount of history has to be narrated in it, the form hitherto adopted is quite unsuitable. I shall be bringing with me the one from here, which I did [“Principles of Communism”]; it is in simple narrative form, but wretchedly worded, in a tearing hurry. I start off by asking: What is communism? and then straight on to the proletariat – the history of its origins, how it differs from earlier workers, development of the antithesis between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, crises, conclusions. In between, all kinds of secondary matter and, finally, the communists’ party policy, in so far as it should be made public. The one here has not yet been submitted in its entirety for endorsement but, save for a few quite minor points, I think I can get it through in such a form that at least there is nothing in it which conflicts with our views. ... * From MECW Volume 38, p. 146; Written: 24 November 1847; First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, 1913. Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith* This document is the draft programme discussed at the First Congress of the Communist League in London on June 2-9, 1847. The Congress was a final stage in the reorganisation of the League of the Just – an organisation of German workers and craftsmen, which was founded in Paris in 1836-37 and soon acquired an international character, having communities in Germany, France, Switzerland, Britain and Sweden. The activity of Marx and Engels directed towards the ideological and organisational unity of the socialists and advanced workers prompted the leaders of the League (Karl Schapper, Joseph Moll, Heinrich Bauer), who resided in London front November 1846, to ask for their help in reorganising the League and drafting its new program me. When Marx and Engels were convinced that the leaders of the League of the Just were ready to accept the principles of scientific communism as its programme they accepted the offer to join the League made to them late in January 1847. Engels’ active participation in the work of the Congress (Marx was unable to go to London) affected the course and the results of its proceedings. The League was renamed the Communist League, the old motto of the League of the Just “All men are brothers” was replaced by a new, Marxist one: “Working Men of All Countries, Unite! “ The draft programme and the draft Rules of the League were approved at the last sitting on June 9, 1847. The full text of the “Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith” (Credo) became known only in 1968. It was found by the Swiss scholar Bert Andréas together with the draft Rules and the circular of the First Congress to the members of the League in the archives of Joachim Friedrich Martens, an active member of the Communist League, which are kept in the State and University Library in Hamburg. This discovery made it possible to ascertain a number of important points in the history of the Communist League and the drafting of its programme documents. It had been previously assumed that the First Congress did no more than adopt a decision to draw up a programme and that the draft itself was made by the London Central Authority of the Communist League (Joseph Moll, Karl Schapper and Heinrich Bauer) after the Congress between June and August 1847. The new documents show that the draft was ready by June 9, 1847 and that its author was Engels (the manuscript found in Martens’ archives, with the exception of some inserted words, the concluding sentence and the signatures of the president and the secretary of the Congress, was written in Engels’ hand). The document testifies to Engels’ great influence on the discussion of the programme at the Congress – the formulation of the answers to most of the questions is a Marxist one. Besides, while drafting the programme, Engels had to take into account that the members of the League had not yet freed themselves from the influence of utopian ideas and this was reflected in the formulation of the first six questions and answers. The form of a “revolutionary catechism” was also commonly used in the League of the Just and other organisations of workers and craftsmen at the time. It may he assumed that Engels intended to give greater precision to some of the formulations of the programme document in the course of further discussion and revision. After the First Congress of the Communist League, the “Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith” was sent, together with the draft Rules, to the communities for discussion, the results of which were to be taken into account at the time of the final approval of the programme and the Rules at the Second Congress. When working on another, improved draft programme, the Principles of Communism, in late October 1847, Engels made direct use of the “Confession of Faith”, as can be seen from the coincidences of the texts, and also from references in the Principles to the earlier document when Engels had apparently decided to leave formulations of some of the answers as they were. * From MECW Volume 6, p. 92; written by Engels, June 9 1847; first published in Gründungsdokumente des Bundes der Kommunisten, Hamburg, 1969, in English in Birth of the Communist Manifesto, International Publishers, 1971. 37 Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith A Communist Confession of Faith Question 1: Are you a Communist? Answer: Yes. Question 2: What is the aim of the Communists? Answer: To organise society in such a way that every member of it can develop and use all his capabilities and powers in complete freedom and without thereby infringing the basic conditions of this society. Question 3: How do you wish to achieve this aim? Answer: By the elimination of private property and its replacement by community of property. Question 4: On what do you base your community of property? Answer: Firstly, on the mass of productive forces and means of subsistence resulting from the development of industry, agriculture, trade and colonisation, and on the possibility inherent in machinery, chemical and other resources of their infinite extension. Secondly, on the fact that in the consciousness or feeling of every individual there exist certain irrefutable basic principles which, being the result of the whole of historical development, require no proof. Question 5: What are such principles? Answer: For example, every individual strives to be happy. The happiness of the individual is inseparable from the happiness of all, etc. Question 6: How do you wish to prepare the way for your community of property? Answer: By enlightening and uniting the proletariat. Question 7: What is the proletariat? Answer: The proletariat is that class of society which lives exclusively by its labour and not on the profit from any kind of capital; that class whose weal and woe, whose life and death, therefore, depend on the alternation of times of good and bad business;. in a word, on the fluctuations of competition. Question 8: Then there have not always been proletarians? Answer: No. There have always been poor and working classes; and those who worked were almost always the poor. But there have not always been proletarians, just as competition has not always been free. Question 9: How did the proletariat arise? Answer: The proletariat came into being as a result of the introduction of the machines which have been invented since the middle of the last century and the most important of which are: the steam-engine, the spinning machine and the power loom. These machines, which were very expensive and could therefore only be purchased by rich people, supplanted the workers of the time, because by the use of machinery it was possible to produce commodities more quickly and cheaply than could the workers with their imperfect spinning wheels and handlooms. The machines thus delivered industry entirely into the hands of the big capitalists and rendered the workers’ scanty property which consisted mainly of their tools, looms, etc., quite worthless, so that the capitalist was left with everything, the worker with nothing. In this way the factory system was 38 Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith introduced. Once the capitalists saw how advantageous this was for them, they sought to extend it to more and more branches of labour. They divided work more and more between the workers so that workers who formerly had made a whole article now produced only a part of it. Labour simplified in this way produced goods more quickly and therefore more cheaply and only now was it found in almost every branch of labour that here also machines could be used. As soon as any branch of labour went over to factory production it ended up, just as in the case of spinning and weaving. in the hands of the big capitalists, and the workers were deprived of the last remnants of their independence. We have gradually arrived at the position where almost all branches of labour are run on a factory basis. This has increasingly brought about the ruin of the previously existing middle class, especially of the small master craftsmen, completely transformed the previous position of the workers, and two new classes which are gradually swallowing up all other classes have come into being, namely: I. The, class of the big capitalists, who in all advanced countries are in almost exclusive possession of the means of subsistence and those means (machines, factories, workshops, etc.) by which these means of subsistence are produced. This is the bourgeois class, or the bourgeoisie. II. The class of the completely propertyless, who are compelled to sell their labour to the first class, the bourgeois, simply to obtain from them in return their means of subsistence. Since the parties to this trading in labour are not equal, but the bourgeois have the advantage, the propertyless must submit to the bad conditions laid down by the bourgeois. This class, dependent on the bourgeois, is called the class of the proletarians or the proletariat. Question 10: In what way does the proletarian differ from the slave? Answer: The slave is sold once and for all, the proletarian has to sell himself by the day and by the hour. The slave is the property of one master and for that very reason has a guaranteed subsistence, however wretched it may be. The proletarian is, so to speak, the slave of the entire bourgeois class, not of one master, and therefore has no guaranteed subsistence, since nobody buys his labour if he does not need it. The slave is accounted a thing and not a member of civil society. The proletarian is recognised as a person, as a member of civil society. The slave may, therefore, have a better subsistence than the proletarian but the latter stands at a higher stage of development. The slave frees himself by becoming a proletarian, abolishing from the totality of property relationships only the relationship of slavery. The proletarian can free himself only by abolishing property in general. Question 11: In what way does the proletarian differ from the serf? Answer: The serf has the use of a piece of land, that is, of an instrument of production, in return for handing over a greater or lesser portion of the yield. The proletarian works with instruments of production which belong to someone else who, in return for his labour, hands over to him a portion, determined by competition, of the products. In the case of the serf, the share of the labourer is determined by his own labour, that is, by himself. In the case of the proletarian it is determined by competition, therefore in the first place by the bourgeois. The serf has guaranteed subsistence, the proletarian has not. The serf frees himself by driving out his feudal lord and becoming a property owner himself, thus entering into competition and joining for the time being the possessing class, the privileged class. The proletarian frees himself by doing away with property, competition, and all class differences. 39 Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith Question 12: In what way does the proletarian differ from the handicraftsman? Answer: As opposed to the proletarian, the so-called handicraftsman, who still existed nearly everywhere during the last century and still exists here and there, is at most a temporary proletarian. His aim is to acquire capital himself and so to exploit other workers. He can often achieve this aim where the craft guilds still exist or where freedom to follow a trade has not yet led to the organisation of handwork on a factory basis and to intense competition. But as soon as the factory system is introduced into handwork and competition is in full swing, this prospect is eliminated and the handicraftsman becomes more and more a proletarian. The handicraftsman therefore frees himself either by becoming a bourgeois or in general passing over into the middle class, or, by becoming a proletarian as a result of competition (as now happens in most cases) and joining the movement of the proletariat – i. e., the more or less conscious communist movement. Question 13: Then you do not believe that community of property has been possible at any time? Answer: No. Communism has only arisen since machinery and other inventions made it possible to hold out the prospect of an all-sided development, a happy existence, for all members of society. Communism is the theory of a liberation which was not possible for the slaves, the serfs, or the handicraftsmen, but only for the proletarians and hence it belongs of necessity to the 19th century and was not possible in any earlier period. Question 14: Let m go back to the sixth question. As you wish to prepare for community of property by the enlightening and uniting of the proletariat, then you reject revolution? Answer: We are convinced not only of the uselessness but even of the harmfulness of all conspiracies. We are also aware that revolutions are not made deliberately and arbitrarily but that everywhere and at all times they are the necessary consequence of circumstances which are not in any way whatever dependent either on the will or on the leadership of individual parties or of whole classes. But we also see that the development of the proletariat in almost all countries of the world is forcibly repressed by the possessing classes and that thus a revolution is being forcibly worked for by the opponents of communism. If, in the end, the oppressed proletariat is thus driven into a revolution, then we will defend the cause of the proletariat just as well by our deeds as now by our words. Question 15: Do you intend to replace the existing social order by community of Property at one stroke? Answer: We have no such intention. The development of the masses cannot he ordered by decree. It is determined by the development of the conditions in which these masses live, and therefore proceeds gradually. Question 16: How do you think the transition from the present situation to community of Property is to be effected? Answer: The first, fundamental condition for the introduction of community of property is the political liberation of the proletariat through a democratic constitution. Question 17: What will be your first measure once you have established democracy? Answer: Guaranteeing the subsistence of the proletariat. Question 18: How will you do this? 40 Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith Answer. I. By limiting private property in such a way that it gradually prepares the way for its transformation into social property, e. g., by progressive taxation, limitation of the right of inheritance in favour of the state, etc., etc. II. By employing workers in national workshops and factories and on national estates. III. By educating all children at the expense of the state. Question 19: How will you arrange this kind of education during the period of transition? Answer: All children will be educated in state establishments from the time when they can do without the first maternal care. Question 20: Will not the introduction of community of property be accompanied by the proclamation of the community of women? Answer: By no means. We will only interfere in the personal relationship between men and women or with the family in general to the extent that the maintenance of the existing institution would disturb the new social order. Besides, we are well aware that the family relationship has been modified in the course of history by the property relationships and by periods of development, and that consequently the ending of private property will also have a most important influence on it. Question 21: Will nationalities continue to exist under communism? Answer: The nationalities of the peoples who join together according to the principle of community will be just as much compelled by this union to merge with one another and thereby supersede themselves as the various differences between estates and classes disappear through the superseding of their basis – private property. Question 22. Do Communists reject existing religions? Answer: All religions which have existed hitherto were expressions of historical stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But communism is that stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and supersedes them. In the name and on the mandate of the Congress. Secretary: Heide [Alias of Wilhelm Wolff in the League of the Just] President: Karl Schill [Alias of Karl Schapper in the League of the Just] London, June 9, 1847 The Principles of Communism* In 1847 Engels wrote two draft programmes for the Communist League in the form of a catechism, one in June and the other in October. The latter, which is known as Principles of Communism, was first published in 1914. The earlier document “Draft of the Communist Confession of Faith”, was only found in 1968. It was first published in 1969 in Hamburg, together with four other documents pertaining to the first congress of the Communist League, in a booklet entitled Gründungs Dokumente des Bundes der Kommunisten (Juni bis September 1847) [Founding Documents of the Communist League]. At the June 1847 Congress of the League of the Just, which was also the founding conference of the Communist League, it was decided to issue a draft “confession of faith” to be submitted for discussion to the sections of the League. The document which has now come to light is almost certainly this draft. Comparison of the two documents shows that Principles of Communism is a revised edition of this earlier draft. In Principles of Communism, Engels left three questions unanswered, in two cases with the notation “unchanged” (bleibt); this clearly refers to the answers provided in the earlier draft. The new draft for the programme was worked out by Engels on the instructions of the leading body of the Paris circle of the Communist League. The instructions were decided on after Engels’ sharp criticism at the committee meeting, on October 22, 1847, of the draft programme drawn up by the “true socialist“ Moses Hess, which was then rejected. Still considering Principles of Communism as a preliminary draft, Engels expressed the view, in a letter to Marx dated November 23-24 1847, that it would be best to drop the old catechistic form and draw up a programme in the form of a manifesto. At the second congress of the Communist League (November 29-December 8, 1847) Marx and Engels defended the fundamental scientific principles of communism and were trusted with drafting a programme in the form of a manifesto of the Communist Party. In writing the manifesto the founders of Marxism made use of the propositions enunciated in Principles of Communism. Engels uses the term Manufaktur, and its derivatives, which have been translated “manufacture”, “manufacturing”, etc., Engels used this word literally, to indicate production by hand, not factory production for which Engels uses “big industry”. Manufaktur differs from handicraft (guild production in mediaeval towns), in that the latter was carried out by independent artisans. Manufacktur is carried out by homeworkers working for merchant capitalists, or by groups of craftspeople working together in large workshops owned by capitalists. It is therefore a transitional mode of production, between guild (handicraft) and modern (capitalist) forms of production. * Written: October-November 1847; Source: Selected Works, Volume One, p. 81-97, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969; first published: 1914, by Eduard Bernstein in the German Social Democratic Party’s Vorwärts!; translated: Paul Sweezy; Transcribed: Zodiac, MEA 1993; http://marxists.org 1999; proofed and corrected by Andy Blunden, February 2005. Footnotes are from the Chinese Edition of Marx/Engels Selected Works Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1977, with editorial additions by http://marxists.org. 42 Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith The Principles of Communism – 1 – What is Communism? Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat. – 2 – What is the proletariat? The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor – hence, on the changing state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19th century.6 – 3 – Proletarians, then, have not always existed? No. There have always been poor and working classes; and the working class have mostly been poor. But there have not always been workers and poor people living under conditions as they are today; in other words, there have not always been proletarians, any more than there has always been free unbridled competitions. – 4 – How did the proletariat originate? The Proletariat originated in the industrial revolution, which took place in England in the last half of the last (18th) century, and which has since then been repeated in all the civilized countries of the world. This industrial revolution was precipitated by the discovery of the steam engine, various spinning machines, the mechanical loom, and a whole series of other mechanical devices. These machines, which were very expensive and hence could be bought only by big capitalists, altered the whole mode of production and displaced the former workers, because the machines turned out cheaper and better commodities than the workers could produce with their inefficient spinning wheels and handlooms. The machines delivered industry wholly into the hands of the big capitalists and rendered entirely worthless the meagre property of the workers (tools, looms, etc.). The result was that the capitalists soon had everything in their hands and nothing remained to the workers. This marked the introduction of the factory system into the textile industry. Once the impulse to the introduction of machinery and the factory system had been given, this system spread quickly to all other branches of industry, especially cloth- and book-printing, pottery, and the metal industries. Labor was more and more divided among the individual workers so that the worker who previously had done a complete piece of work now did only a part of that piece. This division of labor made it possible to produce things faster and cheaper. It reduced the activity of the individual worker to simple, endlessly repeated mechanical motions which could be performed not only as well but much better by a machine. In this way, all these industries fell, one after another, under the dominance of steam, machinery, and the factory system, just as spinning and weaving had already done. But at the same time, they also fell into the hands of big capitalists, and their workers were deprived of whatever independence remained to them. Gradually, not only genuine manufacture but also handicrafts came within the province of the factory system as big capitalists increasingly 43 Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith displaced the small master craftsmen by setting up huge workshops, which saved many expenses and permitted an elaborate division of labor. This is how it has come about that in civilized countries at the present time nearly all kinds of labor are performed in factories – and, in nearly all branches of work, handicrafts and manufacture have been superseded. This process has, to an ever greater degree, ruined the old middle class, especially the small handicraftsmen; it has entirely transformed the condition of the workers; and two new classes have been created which are gradually swallowing up all the others. These are: (i) The class of big capitalists, who, in all civilized countries, are already in almost exclusive possession of all the means of subsistence and of the instruments (machines, factories) and materials necessary for the production of the means of subsistence. This is the bourgeois class, or the bourgeoisie. (ii) The class of the wholly propertyless, who are obliged to sell their labor to the bourgeoisie in order to get, in exchange, the means of subsistence for their support. This is called the class of proletarians, or the proletariat.And there you have it your question answered efficiently and effectively in this short paragraph

HistoryAncient to early modern historyIn ancient Rome, the architectural feature called a vomitorium was the entranceway through which crowds entered and exited a stadium, not a special room used for purging food during meals.[1] Vomiting was not a regular part of Roman dining customs.[2]It is true that mean life expectancy in the Middle Ages and earlier was low; however, one should not infer that people usually died around the age of 30.[3] In fact, the low life expectancy is an average very strongly influenced by high infant mortality, and the life expectancy of people who lived to adulthood was much higher. A 21-year-old man in medieval England, for example, could by one estimate expect to live to the age of 64.[4]There is no evidence that Vikings wore horns on their helmets.[5] In fact, the image of Vikings wearing horned helmets stems from the scenography of an 1876 production of the Der Ring des Nibelungen opera cycle by Richard Wagner.[6]King Canute did not command the tide to reverse in a fit of delusional arrogance.[7] His intent that day, if the incident even happened, was most likely to prove a point to members of his privy council that no man is all-powerful, and we all must bend to forces beyond our control, such as the tides.There is no evidence that iron maidens were invented in the Middle Ages or even used for torture. Instead they were pieced together in the 18th century from several artifacts found in museums in order to create spectacular objects intended for (commercial) exhibition.[8]The plate armor of European soldiers did not stop soldiers from moving around or necessitate a crane to get them into a saddle. They would as a matter of course fight on foot and could mount and dismount without help. In fact soldiers equipped with plate armor were more mobile than those with chainmail armor, as chainmail was heavier and required stiff padding beneath due to its pliable nature.[9]Modern historians dispute the popular misconception that the chastity belt, a device designed to prevent women from having sexual intercourse, was invented in medieval times. Most existing chastity belts are now thought to be deliberate fakes or anti-masturbatory devices from the 19th and early 20th century. The latter were made due to thewidespread belief that masturbation could lead to insanity, and were mostly bought by parents for their teenage children.[10]Christopher Columbus's efforts to obtain support for his voyages were not hampered by a European belief in a flat Earth. Sailors andnavigators of the time knew that the Earth was roughly spherical, but (correctly) disagreed with Columbus's estimate of the distance toIndia, which was approximately one-sixth of the actual distance. If the Americas did not exist, and had Columbus continued to India, he would have run out of supplies before reaching it at the rate he was traveling. Without the ability to determine longitude at sea, he would not have learned that his estimate was an error in time to return. Many of the educated classes believed the Earth was spherical since the works of the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle.[11][12] Eratosthenes made an accurate estimate of the Earth's diameter in approximately 240 BCE.[13] See also Myth of the Flat Earth.The First Thanksgiving (c. 1914) ByJean Leon Gerome Ferris. Many of the elements depicted in this painting are erroneous or anachronistic.Columbus did not "discover America" in the sense of identifying a new continent. Although some historians argue he knew he had found a land between Europe and Asia,[14] most of his writings show he thought he reached the eastern coast of Asia.[15] Most of the landings Columbus made on his four voyages, including the initial October 12, 1492 landing (the anniversary of which forms the basis of Columbus Day), were in the Caribbean Islands. Columbus was not the first European to visit the Americas: at least one explorer, Leif Ericson, preceded him by reaching what today is believed to be Newfoundland.There is a legend that Marco Polo imported pasta from China[16] which originated with theMacaroni Journal, published by an association of food industries with the goal of promoting the use of pasta in the United States.[17] Marco Polo describes a food similar to "lagana" in his Travels, but he uses a term with which he was already familiar. Durum wheat, and thus pasta as it is known today, was introduced by Arabs from Libya, during their conquest ofSicily in the late 7th century, according to the newsletter of the National Macaroni Manufacturers Association,[18] thus predating Marco Polo's travels to China by about six centuries.Contrary to the popular image of the Pilgrim Fathers, the early settlers of the Plymouth Colony did not necessarily wear all black, and their capotains (hats) were shorter and rounder than the widely depicted tall hat with a buckle on it. Instead, their fashion was based on that of the late Elizabethan era: doublets, jerkins and ruffs. Both men and women wore the same style of shoes, stockings, capes, coats and hats in a range of colors including reds, yellows, purples, and greens. Children of both sexes wore identical clothing: achemise, an ankle-length gown, an apron and a close fitting cap tied under the chin. At the age of seven, boys were "breeched", i.e. allowed to wear adult men's clothing.[19] According to Plimoth Plantation historian James W. Baker, the traditional image was formed in the 19th century when buckles were a kind of emblem of quaintness.The thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony, widely believed to be the "First Thanksgiving", was not the first day of thanksgiving on the North American continent. Preceding thanksgiving days were held at the Spanish colony of Saint Augustine, Florida in 1565,[20][21] inFrobisher Bay in 1578,[22] in French Canada beginning in 1604, in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607,[23] and at Berkeley Hundred in 1619,[24]in addition to numerous similarly themed indigenous celebrations.[25] The association of Thanksgiving Day with the Plymouth celebration was largely the work of 19th-century writer Sarah Josepha Hale, who campaigned over multiple decades for a permanent national Thanksgiving holiday.[26]Marie Antoinette did not say "let them eat cake" when she heard that the French peasantry were starving due to a shortage of bread. The phrase was first published in Rousseau's Confessions when Marie was only 10 years old and most scholars believe that Rousseaucoined it himself, or that it was said by Maria-Theresa, the wife of Louis XIV. Even Rousseau (or Maria-Theresa) did not use the exact words but actually Qu'ils mangent de la brioche ("Let them eat brioche [a rich type of bread]"). Marie Antoinette was an unpopular ruler; therefore, people attribute the phrase "let them eat cake" to her, in keeping with her reputation as being hard-hearted and disconnected from her subjects.[27]George Washington did not have wooden teeth. His dentures were made of gold, hippopotamus ivory, lead, and human and animal teeth (including horse and donkey teeth).[28]The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence did not occur on July 4, 1776. The final language of the document was approved by the Second Continental Congress on that date and it was printed and distributed on July 4 and 5,[29] but the actual signing occurred on August 2, 1776.[30]The United States Constitution was written on parchment, not hemp paper. However, drafts were likely written on hemp paper, as most paper at the time was made from hemp.[31]Modern historyNapoleon on the Bellerophon, a painting of Napoleon I byCharles Lock Eastlake. Napoleon was taller than his nickname, The Little Corporal, suggests.Napoleon Bonaparte (pictured) was not short; rather he was slightly taller than the average Frenchman of his time.[32][33] After his death in 1821, the French emperor’s height was recorded as 5 feet 2 inches in French feet, which is 5 feet 7 inches (1.69 m).[34][35] Some believe that he was nicknamed le Petit Caporal (The Little Corporal) as a term of affection.[36]Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day, but the celebration of the Mexican Army's victory over the French in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Mexico's Independence from Spain is celebrated on September 16.[37][38]The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was not caused by Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern. A newspaper reporter invented the story to make colorful copy.[39]The claim that Frederick Remington, on assignment to Cuba, telegraphed William Randolph Hearstthat "...There will be no war. I wish to return" and that Hearst responded, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war" is unsubstantiated. Although this claim is included in a book byJames Creelman, there is no evidence that the telegraph exchange ever happened, and substantial evidence that it did not.[40][41]The popular image of Santa Claus was not created by The Coca-Cola Company as an advertising gimmick; by the time Coca-Cola began using Santa Claus's image in the 1930s, Santa Claus had already taken his modern form in popular culture, having already seen extensive use in other companies' advertisements and other mass media.[42]Italian dictator Benito Mussolini did not "make the trains run on time". Much of the repair work had been performed before Mussolini and the Fascists came to power in 1922. Accounts from the era also suggest that the Italian railways' legendary adherence to timetables was more propaganda than reality.[43]There is no evidence of Polish cavalry mounting a brave but futile charge against German tanks using lances and sabres during the German invasion of Poland in 1939. This story may have originated from German propaganda efforts following the charge at Krojanty in which a Polish cavalry brigade surprised German infantry in the open and charged with sabres until driven off by armoured cars. While Polish cavalry still carried the sabre for such opportunities, they were trained to fight as highly mobile, dismounted cavalry (dragoons) and issued with light anti-tank weapons.[44][45]During the occupation of Denmark by the Nazis during World War II, King Christian X of Denmark did not thwart Nazi attempts to identify Jews by wearing a yellow star himself. Jews in Denmark were never forced to wear the Star of David. The Danish resistance didhelp most Jews flee the country before the end of the war.[46]Albert Einstein did not fail mathematics in school, as is commonly believed. Upon being shown a column claiming this fact, Einstein said "I never failed in mathematics... Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus."[47][48] Einstein did however fail his first entrance exam into Federal Polytechnic School in 1895, although at the time he was two years younger than his fellow students and did exceedingly well in mathematics and science on the exam.[49]Actor Ronald Reagan was never seriously considered for the role of Rick Blaine in the 1942 film classic Casablanca, eventually played by Humphrey Bogart. This belief came from an early studio press release announcing the film's production that used his name to generate interest in the film. But by the time it had come out, Warner Bros. knew that Reagan was unavailable for any roles in the foreseeable future since he was no longer able to defer his entry into military service.[50] Studio records show that producer Hal B. Wallis had always wanted Bogart for the part.[51][52]U.S. Senator George Smathers never gave a speech to a rural audience describing his opponent, Claude Pepper, as an "extrovert" whose sister was a "thespian", in the apparent hope they would confuse them with similar-sounding words like "pervert" and "lesbian".Time, which is sometimes cited as the source, described the story of the purported speech as a "yarn" at the time,[53] and no Florida newspaper reported such a speech during the campaign. The leading reporter who covered Smathers said he always gave the same boilerplate speech. Smathers had offered US$10,000 to anyone who could prove he had made the speech; it was never claimed.[54]John F. Kennedy's words "Ich bin ein Berliner" are standard German for "I am a Berliner."[55][56] An urban legend has it that due to his use of the indefinite article ein, Berliner is translated as jelly doughnut, and that the population of Berlin was amused by the supposed mistake. The word Berliner is not commonly used in Berlin to refer to the Berliner Pfannkuchen; they are usually called ein Pfannkuchen.[57]Eva Perón never uttered the quote "I will return and I will be millions". The quote was first formulated by the indigenous leader Túpac Katari in 1781 shortly before being executed. The misattribution to Eva Perón originates from a poem by José María Castiñeira de Dioswritten in Eva Perón's first-person narrative nearly ten years after her death. The quotation could have been inspired by a similar one in the contemporary film Spartacus.[58]The Rolling Stones were not performing "Sympathy for the Devil" at the 1969 Altamont Free Concert when Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by a member of the local Hells Angels chapter that was serving as security. While the incident that culminated in Hunter's death began while the band was performing the song, prompting a brief interruption before the Stones finished it, it concluded several songs later as the band was performing "Under My Thumb".[59][60] The misconception arose from mistaken reporting in Rolling Stone.[61]GeneralDespite appearance to the contrary, death per capita due to warfare was much higher in earlier times.A common misconception often quoted by media, politicians, activists is that violence is on the rise and has historically been much lower.[62] Similarly, the trend in post-colonial anthropology has been to regard historically indigenous and tribal societies as more peaceful than contemporary Western society.[63][64] However, archaeological evidence shows that previous societies had very high level of violence.[65] Likewise, modern tribal societies typically too have extremely high rates of violence, with more than half of deaths being violence related in some cases.[66][67] Ancient and medieval empires had lower rates of violence, and the violence decreased further as empires became more organized.[68] Modern societies saw still lower rates of violence from the medieval period onwards, with significant decreases after World War II.[69][70] This trend is general across all categories of violence, from large-scale warfare to murder and animal cruelty, and the trend is discernible on both millennium, century and decade scale, making modern societies the most peaceful the world has even seen.[71]Legislation and crimeIt is rarely necessary to wait 24 hours before filing a missing person's report; in instances where there is evidence of violence or of an unusual absence, law enforcement agencies in the United States often stress the importance of beginning an investigation promptly.[72]The UK government Web site says explicitly in large type "You don’t have to wait 24 hours before contacting the police".[73]Entrapment law in the United States does not require police officers to identify themselves as police in the case of a sting or other undercover work.[74] The law is specifically concerned with enticing people to commit crimes they would not have considered in the normal course of events.[75]Embassies and consulates are not the territory of the country they represent, but remain part of the host country, although they do enjoy special legal protections in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, such as inviolability of diplomatic premises, which dictates that agents of the host state cannot enter without permission from the country represented.[76][77] Inviolability has been challenged, however: when Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was given asylum in the embassy of Ecuador in London, England, the British government threatened to arrest him based on the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987.[78]Food and cookingRoll-style Western sushi. Contrary to a popular misconception, sushi can contain any number of ingredients, including vegetables and other non-meat products.Searing meat does not "seal in" moisture, and in fact may actually cause meat to lose moisture. Generally, the value in searing meat is that it creates a brown crust with a rich flavor via the Maillard reaction.[79][80]Some people believe that food items cooked with wine or liquor will be totally non-alcoholic, because alcohol's low boiling point causes it to evaporate quickly when heated. However, a study found that some of the alcohol remains: 25 percent after one hour of baking or simmering, and 10 percent after two hours.[81][82]Monosodium glutamate (MSG) has a widespread reputation for triggering migraine headache exacerbations, but there are no consistent data to support this relationship. Although there have been reports of an MSG-sensitive subset of the population, this has not been demonstrated in placebo-controlled trials.[83][84]Sushi does not mean "raw fish", and not all sushi includes raw fish. The name sushi means "sour rice", and refers to vinegared rice.[85]Microwave ovens do not cook food from the inside out. Upon penetrating food, microwave radiation decays exponentially due to the skin effect and does not directly heat food significantly beyond the skin depth. As an example, lean meat has a skin depth of only about 1 centimeter (0.4 in) at microwave oven frequencies.[86]Placing metal inside a microwave oven does not damage the oven's electronics. There are, however, other safety-related issues:electrical arcing may occur on pieces of metal not designed for use in a microwave oven, and metal objects may become hot enough to damage food, skin, or the interior of the oven. Metallic objects designed for microwave use can be used in a microwave with no danger; examples include the metalized surfaces used in browning sleeves and pizza-cooking platforms.[87]The functional principle of a microwave oven is not related to the resonance frequencies of water, and microwave ovens can therefore operate at many different frequencies. The resonance frequencies of water are about 20 GHz, which would be much too large to penetrate common foodstuffs. Microwave ovens work on the principle of dielectric heating.[88]The Twinkie does not have an infinite shelf life; its listed shelf life is approximately 45 days[89] (25 in its original formulation)[90] and generally remains on a store shelf for only 7 to 10 days.[91]Words and phrasesMain articles: List of common false etymologies and Common English usage misconceptionsNon-standard, slang or colloquial terms used by English speakers are sometimes alleged not to be real words. For instance, despite appearing as a word in numerous dictionaries,[92] "irregardless" is sometimes dismissed as "not a word".[93][94] All words in English originated by becoming commonly used during a certain period of time, thus there are many informal words currently regarded as "incorrect" in formal speech or writing. But the idea that they are somehow not words is a misconception.[95] Examples of words that are sometimes alleged not to be words include "conversate", "funnest", "mentee", "impactful", and "thusly".[96] All of these appear in numerous dictionaries as English words.[97]The word "fuck" did not originate in Christianized Anglo-Saxon England (7th century CE) as an acronym for "Fornication Under Consent of King"; nor did it originate as an acronym for "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", either as a sign posted above adulterers in the stocks, or as a criminal charge against members of the British Armed Forces; nor did it originate during the 15th-century Battle of Agincourt as a corruption of "pluck yew" (an idiom falsely attributed to the English for drawing a longbow).[98] Modern English was not spoken until the 16th century, and words such as "fornication" and "consent" did not exist in any form in English until the influence of Anglo-Normanin the late 12th century. The earliest recorded use of "fuck" in English comes from c. 1475, in the poem "Flen flyys", where it is spelledfuccant (conjugated as if a Latin verb meaning "they fuck"). It is of Proto-Germanic origin, and is related to either Dutch fokken and German ficken or Norwegian fukka.[99]The word "crap" did not originate as a back-formation of British plumber Thomas Crapper's surname, nor does his name originate from the word "crap", although the surname may have helped popularize the word.[100] The surname "Crapper" is a variant of "Cropper", which originally referred to someone who harvested crops.[101][102] The word "crap" ultimately comes from Medieval Latin crappa, meaning "chaff".[103]It is frequently rumored that the expression "rule of thumb", which is used to indicate a technique for generating a quick estimate, was originally coined from a law allowing a man to beat his wife with a stick, provided it was not thicker than the width of his thumb.[104] In fact, the origin of this phrase remains uncertain, but the false etymology has been broadly reported in media including The Washington Post (1989), CNN (1993), and Time magazine (1983).[105]"Golf" did not originate as an acronym of "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden".[106] The word's true origin is unknown, but it existed in the Middle Scots period.[107][108][109]The word "gringo" did not originate during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), the Venezuelan War of Independence (1811–1823), the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), or in the American Old West (c. 1865–1899) as a corruption of the lyrics "green grow" in either "Green Grow the Lilacs" or "Green Grow the Rushes, O" sung by US-American soldiers or cowboys;[110] nor did it originate during any of these times as a corruption of "Green go home!", falsely said to have been shouted at green-clad American troops.[111] The word originally simply meant "foreigner", and is probably a corruption of Spanish griego, "Greek".[112]"Xmas" used on a Christmas postcard (1910)"420" did not originate as the Los Angeles police or penal code for marijuana use.[113] Police Code 420 means "juvenile disturbance",[114] and California Penal Code section 420 prohibits the obstruction of access to public land.[113][115] The use of "420" started in 1971 at San Rafael High School, where it indicated the time 4:20 pm, when a group of students would go to smoke under the statue of Louis Pasteur.[113]Despite being commonly believed today, people during the Old and Middle English speaking periods never pronounced or spelled "the" as "ye".[116] The confusion derives from the use of the characterthorn (þ) in abbreviations of the word "the", which in Middle English text () looked similar to a y with a superscript e.[117][118]"Xmas" is not a secular plan to "take the Christ out of Christmas".[119] X stands for the Greek letterChi, the starting letter of Χριστός, or "Christ" in Greek.[120] The use of the word "Xmas" can be traced to the year 1021 when "monks in Great Britain...used the X while transcribing classical manuscripts into Old English" in place of "Christ".[119] The Oxford English Dictionary's "first recorded use of 'Xmas' for 'Christmas' dates back to 1551."[121]The expression "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" does not come from an ancient Arab saying. Instead it comes from the Indian Kautilya. [122]ScienceSee also: Tornado myths and List of misconceptions about illegal drugsAstronomyA satellite image of a section of theGreat Wall of China, running diagonally from lower left to upper right (not to be confused with the much more prominent river running from upper left to lower right). The region pictured is 12 by 12 kilometres (7.5 mi × 7.5 mi).It is commonly claimed that the Great Wall of China is the only human-made object visible from the Moon. This is false. None of the Apollo astronauts reported seeing any specific human-made object from the Moon, and even Earth-orbiting astronauts can barely see it. City lights, however, are easily visible on the night side of Earth from orbit.[123] Shuttle astronaut Jay Apt has been quoted as saying that "the Great Wall is almost invisible from only 180 miles (290 km) up."[124] (See Man-made structures visible from space.) ISScommander Chris Hadfield attempted to find it from space, but said that it was "hard as it's narrow and dun-colored."[125]Black holes, contrary to their common image, do not necessarily suck up all the matter in the vicinity.[126] If, for example, the Sun were replaced by a black hole of equal mass, the orbits of the planets would be essentially unaffected, but in other situations a black hole can act like a cosmic vacuum cleaner and pull a substantial inflow of matter.[127]Seasons are not caused by the Earth being closer to the Sun in the summer than in the winter. In fact, the Earth is farthest from the Sun when it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Seasons are caused by Earth's 23.4-degree axial tilt. As the Earth orbits the Sun, different parts of the world receive different amounts of direct sunlight. When an area of the Earth's surface is oriented perpendicular to the incoming sunlight, it receives more radiation than when it is oriented at an oblique angle. In July, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun resulting in longer days and more direct sunlight; in January, it is tilted away. The seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere, which is tilted towards the Sun in January and away from the Sun in July.[128][129]Further information: Effect of sun angle on climateMeteorites are not necessarily hot when they reach the Earth. In fact, many meteorites are found with frost on them. As they enter the atmosphere, having been warmed only by the sun, meteors have a temperature below freezing. The intense heat produced during passage through the upper atmosphere at very high speed then melts a meteor's outside layer, but molten material is blown off and the interior does not have time to warm appreciably. Most meteorites fall through the relatively cool lower atmosphere for as long as several minutes at subsonic velocity before reaching the ground, giving plenty of time for their exterior to cool off again.[130]When a spacecraft reenters the atmosphere, the heat of reentry is not (primarily) caused by friction, but by adiabatic compression of airin front of the spacecraft.[131][132]BiologySee also: Common misunderstandings of geneticsVertebratesIt is a misconception that older elephants, sensing when they are near death, leave their herd and instinctively direct themselves toward a specific location known as an elephants' graveyard to die.[133]Bulls are not enraged by the color red, used in capes by professional matadors. Cattle are dichromats, so red does not stand out as a bright color. It is not the color of the cape, but the perceived threat by the matador that incites it to charge.[134]Contrary to popular belief, dogs do not sweat by salivating.[135] It is not true that dogs do not have sweat glands or have sweat glands only on their tongues. They do sweat, mainly through the footpads. However, dogs do primarily regulate their body temperature through panting.[136] See also Dog anatomy.Lemmings do not engage in mass suicidal dives off cliffs when migrating. They will, however, occasionally unintentionally fall off cliffs when venturing into unknown territory, with no knowledge of the boundaries of the environment.[citation needed] This misconception was popularized by the Disney film White Wilderness, which shot many of the migration scenes (also staged by using multiple shots of different groups of lemmings) on a large, snow-covered turntable in a studio. Photographers later pushed the lemmings off a cliff.[137]The misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late 19th century.[138]Bats are not blind. While many (most) bat species use echolocation as a primary sense, all bat species have eyes and are capable of sight. Furthermore, not all bats can echolocate and these bats have excellent night vision (see megabat, vs. microbat).[139]Ostriches do not hide their heads in the sand to hide from enemies.[140] This misconception was probably promulgated by Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79), who wrote that ostriches "imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of their body is concealed."[141]It is not harmful to baby birds to pick them up and return them to their nests, despite the common belief that doing so will cause the mother to reject them.[142] Some birds have limited sense of smell, and many species primarily rely on visual cues. It is however still best to leave a baby bird alone, as the parents will usually be close by.[143]The claim[144] that a duck's quack does not echo is false, although the echo may be difficult to hear for humans under some circumstances.[145]The notion that goldfish have a memory span of just a few seconds is false.[146][147] It is much longer, counted in months.A common misconception about chameleons and anoles is that the advantage of changing color is camouflage. In reality, changing color helps to regulate temperature and is used as a form of communication.[148] Some species, such as the Smith's Dwarf Chameleon, do change color as an effective form of camouflage.[149]Sharks can actually suffer from cancer. The misconception that sharks do not get cancer was spread by the 1992 Avery Publishingbook Sharks Don't Get Cancer by I. William Lane and used to sell extracts of shark cartilage as cancer prevention treatments. Reports of carcinomas in sharks exist, and current data do not allow any speculation about the incidence of tumors in sharks.[150]InvertebratesBombus pratorum over an Echinacea purpurea inflorescence; a widespread misconception holds that bumblebees should be incapable of flight.It is a common misconception that an earthworm becomes two worms when cut in half. However, only a limited number of earthworm species[151] are capable of anteriorregeneration. When such earthworms are bisected, only the front half of the worm (where the mouth is located) can feed and survive, while the other half dies.[152] Species of the planariafamily of flatworms actually do become two new planaria when bisected or split down the middle.[153]Houseflies do not have an average lifespan of 24 hours. The average lifespan of a housefly is 20 to 30 days.[154] However, a housefly maggot will hatch within 24 hours of being laid.[155]According to urban legend, the daddy longlegs spider (Pholcus phalangioides) is the mostvenomous spider in the world, but the shape of their mandibles leaves them unable to bite humans, rendering them harmless to our species. In reality, they can indeed pierce human skin, though the tiny amount of venom they carry causes only a mild burning sensation for a few seconds.[156] In addition, there is also confusion regarding the use of the name daddy longlegs, because harvestmen (order Opiliones, which are arachnids, but not spiders) and crane flies (which are insects) are also known as daddy longlegs, and share the misconception of being venomous.[157][158]The flight mechanism and aerodynamics of the bumblebee (as well as other insects) are actually quite well understood, in spite of the urban legend that calculations show that they should not be able to fly. In the 1930s, the French entomologist Antoine Magnan, using flawed techniques, indeed postulated that bumblebees theoretically should not be able to fly in his book Le Vol des Insectes (The Flight of Insects).[159] Magnan later realized his error and retracted the suggestion. However, the hypothesis became generalized to the false notion that "scientists think that bumblebees should not be able to fly".PlantsSunflowers with the sun clearly visiblebehind them.Poinsettias are not highly toxic to humans or cats. While it is true that they are mildly irritating to the skin or stomach,[160] and may sometimes cause diarrhea and vomiting if eaten,[161] an American Journal of Emergency Medicine study of 22,793 cases reported to the American Association of Poison Control Centers showed no fatalities and few cases requiring medical treatment.[162] According to the ASPCA, poinsettias may cause light to mid-range gastrointestinal discomfort in felines, with diarrhea and vomiting as the most severe consequences of ingestion.[163]Flowering sunflowers do not track the Sun across the sky.[164][165] The heads point in a fixed direction (East) all day long.[166] However, in an earlier development stage, before the appearance of flower heads, the buds do track the sun and the fixed alignment of the mature flowers is a result of this heliotropism.[167]EvolutionFurther information: Introduction to evolution and Objections to evolutionThe word theory in the theory of evolution does not imply mainstream scientific doubt regarding its validity; the concepts of theory andhypothesis have specific meanings in a scientific context. While theory in colloquial usage may denote a hunch or conjecture, ascientific theory is a set of principles that explains observable phenomena in natural terms.[168][169] "Scientific fact and theory are not categorically separable",[170] and evolution is a theory in the same sense as germ theory or the theory of gravitation.[171]Evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life[172] or the origin and development of the universe. While biological evolution describes the process by which species and other levels of biological organisation originate, and ultimately leads all life forms back to auniversal common ancestor, it is not primarily concerned with the origin of life itself,[173] and does not pertain at all to the origin andevolution of the universe and its components. The theory of evolution deals primarily with changes in successive generations over time after life has already originated.[174] The scientific model concerned with the origin of the first organisms from organic or inorganic molecules is known as abiogenesis, and the prevailing theory for explaining the early development of our universe is the Big Bangmodel.A reconstruction of Aegyptopithecus, a primate predating the split between the human and Old World monkey lineages inhuman evolutionHumans did not evolve from chimpanzees.[175] The two modern species (common chimpanzees and bonobos) are, however, humans' closest living relatives. The most recent common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees lived between 5 and 8 million years ago.[176]Finds of the 4.4 million year old Ardipithecus indicate the ancestor was a moderately competent bipedal walker rather than a knucklewalker, and was small and rather more long limbed than a chimpanzee and with a shorter snout. Contrary to the idea of chimpanzees as "primitive", they too have evolved since the split, becoming larger, more aggressive and more capable climbers.[177] Together with the other apes, humans and chimpanzees constitute the family Hominidae. This group evolved from a common ancestor with the Old World monkeys some 40 million years ago.[178][179]Evolution is not a progression from inferior to superior organisms, and it also does not necessarily result in an increase in complexity. A population can evolve to become simpler, having a smaller genome, but biological devolution is a misnomer.[180][181]Evolution does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. A common argument against evolution is that entropy, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, increases over time, and thus evolution could not produce increased complexity. However, the law does not refer to complexity and only applies to closed systems,[182] which the Earth is not, as it absorbs and radiates the Sun's energy.[183]See also: Entropy and lifeEvolution does not "plan" to improve an organism's fitness to survive.[184][185] For example, an incorrect way to describe giraffe evolution is to say that giraffe necks grew longer over time because they needed to reach tall trees. Evolution does not see a need and respond, it is instead a goalless process. A mutation resulting in longer necks would be more likely to benefit an animal in an area with tall trees than an area with short trees, and thus enhance the chance of the animal surviving to pass on its longer-necked genes. Tall trees could not cause the mutation nor would they cause a higher percentage of animals to be born with longer necks.[186] In the giraffe example, the evolution of a long neck may equally well have been driven by sexual selection, proposing that the long necks evolved as a secondary sexual characteristic, giving males an advantage in "necking" contests over females.[187] The misconception is encouraged as it is common shorthand for people who understand how evolution works to speak of a purpose as a concise form of expression (sometimes called the "metaphor of purpose");[188] it is less cumbersome to say "Dinosaurs may have evolved feathers for courtship" than "Feathers may have been selected for when they arose as they gave dinosaurs a selective advantage over their non-feathered peers".[189]Humans and (non-avian) dinosaurs did not coexist.[190] The last of the non-avian dinosaurs died 66 million years ago in the course of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, whereas the earliest Homo genus (humans) evolved between 2.3 and 2.4 million years ago. This places a 63 million year expanse of time between the last non-bird dinosaurs and the earliest humans.Tyrannosaurus rex. Non-aviandinosaurs died out in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event at the end of theCretaceous period.Dinosaurs did not become extinct due to being generally maladapted or unable to cope with normal climatic change, a view found in many older textbooks. In fact, dinosaurs comprised an extremely adaptive and successful group, whose demise was brought about by an extraordinary event that also extinguished many groups of plants, mammals and marine life.[191] The most commonly cited cause is that of an asteroid impact on the Yucatán Peninsula, triggering the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.[192] Also, not all dinosaurs went extinct. Birds evolved from small feathered theropods in the Jurassic, and while most dinosaur lineages were cut short at the end of the Cretaceous, some birds survived. Consequently, dinosaur descendants are part of the modern fauna.[193]Mammals did not evolve from any modern group of reptiles. Soon after the first reptiles appeared, they split into two branches, the sauropsids and the synapsids.[194] The line leading to mammals diverged from the line leading to modern reptilian lines (the sauropsids) about 320 million years ago, in the mid Carboniferous period. Only later (in the late Carboniferous or early Permian) did the modern reptilian groups (lepidosaurs, turtles and crocodiles) diverge. The mammals themselves, being the only survivors of the synapsid line, are the "cousins" rather than "siblings" of modern reptiles.[195]Human body and healthWaking sleepwalkers does not harm them. While it is true that a person may be confused or disoriented for a short time after awakening, this does not cause them further harm. In contrast, sleepwalkers may injure themselves if they trip over objects or lose their balance while sleepwalking. Such injuries are common among sleepwalkers.[196][197]In South Korea, it is commonly and incorrectly believed that sleeping in a closed room with an electric fan running can be fatal. According to the Korean government, "In some cases, a fan turned on too long can cause death from suffocation, hypothermia, or fire from overheating." The Korea Consumer Protection Board issued a consumer safety alert recommending that electric fans be set on timers, direction changed and doors left open. Belief in fan death is common even among knowledgeable medical professionals in Korea. According to Yeon Dong-su, dean of Kwandong University's medical school, "If it is completely sealed, then in the current of an electric fan, the temperature can drop low enough to cause a person to die of hypothermia."[198] Whereas an air conditioner transfers heat from the air and cools it, a fan moves air without change of temperature to increase the evaporation of sweat. Leaving a fan running in an unoccupied room will not cool it; in fact, due to energy losses from the motor and viscous dissipation, a fan will slightly heat a room.Eating less than an hour before swimming does not increase the risk of experiencing muscle cramps or drowning. One study shows a correlation between alcohol consumption and drowning, but there is no evidence cited regarding stomach cramps or the consumption of food.[199]Drowning is often thought to be a violent struggle, where the victim waves and calls for help.[200] In truth, drowning is often inconspicuous to onlookers. In most cases, raising the arms and vocalising are impossible due to the instinctive drowning response.[200] Waving and yelling (known as "aquatic distress") is a sign of trouble, but not a dependable one: most victims demonstrating the instinctive drowning response do not show prior evidence of distress.[201]It is a common misconception that hydrogen peroxide is a disinfectant or antiseptic for treating wounds.[202][203] While it is an effective cleaning agent, hydrogen peroxide is not an effective agent for reducing bacterial infection of wounds. Furthermore, hydrogen peroxide applied to wounds can impede healing and lead to scarring because it destroys newly formed skin cells.[204]The caduceus, a symbol featuring two snakes around a staff, is often mistakenly used as a symbol of medicine instead of the Rod of Asclepius, which features a single snake around a staff. This error was popularised largely because of its adoption in the insignia of theUS Army medical corps at the insistence of an officer.[205][206]Human blood in veins is not blue. In fact, blood is always red due to hemoglobin. Deoxygenated blood has a deep red color, and oxygenated blood has a light cherry-red color. The misconception probably arises for two reasons: 1) Veins below the skin appear blue. This is due to a variety of reasons only weakly dependent on the color of the blood, including light scattering through the skin, and human color perception. 2) From the way diagrams use colors to show the difference between veins (usually shown in blue) and arteries(usually shown in red).[207]Exposure to a vacuum, or experiencing uncontrolled decompression, does not cause the body to explode, or internal fluids to boil. Instead, it would lead to a loss of consciousness once the body has depleted the supply of oxygen in the blood, followed by death fromhypoxia within minutes.[208]Antibiotics do not cure the common cold, because it is caused by a virus infection against which antibiotics are useless. Using antibiotics against the common cold might contribute to antibiotic resistance.[209][210][211]A person doesn't become resistant to certain antibiotics. It is a strain of microorganisms that can become resistant, not a person's body.[212][213]SensesAn incorrect map of the tongue showing zones which taste bitter (1), sour (2), salty (3) and sweet (4). In reality, all zones can sense all tastes.All different tastes can be detected on all parts of the tongue by taste buds,[214] with slightly increased sensitivities in different locations depending on the person, contrary to the popular belief that specific tastes only correspond to specific mapped sites on the tongue.[215] The original tongue map was based on a mistranslation of a 1901 German thesis[216] by Edwin Boring. In addition, there are not 4 but 5 primary tastes. In addition to bitter, sour, salty, and sweet, humans have taste receptors for umami, which is a savory or meaty taste.[217]Humans have more than the commonly cited five senses. Although definitions vary, the actual number ranges from 9 to more than 20. In addition to sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing, which were the senses identified by Aristotle, humans can sense balance and acceleration (equilibrioception), pain (nociception), body and limb position (proprioception or kinesthetic sense), and relative temperature (thermoception).[218] Other senses sometimes identified are the sense of time, itching, pressure, hunger, thirst, fullness of the stomach, need to urinate, need to defecate, and blood carbon dioxide levels.[219][220]Skin and hairWater-induced wrinkles are not caused by the skin absorbing water and swelling.[221] They are caused by the autonomic nervous system, which triggers localized vasoconstriction in response to wet skin, yielding a wrinkled appearance. This may have evolved because it gives ancestral primates a better grip in slippery, wet environments.[222][223]Shaving does not cause terminal hair to grow back thicker or coarser or darker. This belief is due to hair which has never been cut having a tapered end, whereas after cutting there is no taper; the cut hair appears to be thicker, and feels coarser due to the sharper, unworn edges. The shorter hairs being "harder" (less flexible) than longer hairs also contributes to this effect.[224]Hair and fingernails do not continue to grow after a person dies. Rather, the skin dries and shrinks away from the bases of hairs and nails, giving the appearance of growth.[225]Hair care products cannot actually "repair" split ends and damaged hair. They can prevent damage from occurring in the first place, and they can also smooth down the cuticle in a glue-like fashion so that it appears repaired, and generally make hair appear in better condition.[226]The redhead gene is not becoming extinct. In August 2007, many news organizations reported that redheads would become extinct, possibly as early as 2060, due to the gene for red hair being recessive. Although redheads may become more rare (for example, mixed marriages where one parent is from a group without the redhead gene will result in no children, but some grandchildren, with red hair), they will not die out unless everyone who carries the gene dies or fails to reproduce.[227] This misconception has been around since at least 1865, and often resurfaces in American newspapers.[228] (See also Disappearing blonde gene.)Nutrition, food, and drinkEight glasses or two to three litres of water a day are not needed to maintain health.[229] The amount of water needed varies by person (weight), activity level, clothing, and environment (heat and humidity). Water actually need not be drunk in pure form, but can be derived from liquids such as juices, tea, milk, soups, etc., and from foods including fruits and vegetables.[229]Sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children.[230][231] Double-blind trials have shown no difference in behavior between children given sugar-full or sugar-free diets, even in studies specifically looking at children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or those considered sensitive to sugar.[232]Alcoholic beverages do not make one warmer.[233] The reason that alcoholic drinks create the sensation of warmth is that they cause blood vessels to dilate and stimulate nerve endings near the surface of the skin with an influx of warm blood. This can actually result in making the core body temperature lower, as it allows for easier heat exchange with a cold external environment.[234]Alcohol does not necessarily kill brain cells.[235] Alcohol can, however, lead indirectly to the death of brain cells in two ways: (1) In chronic, heavy alcohol users whose brains have adapted to the effects of alcohol, abrupt cessation following heavy use can causeexcitotoxicity leading to cellular death in multiple areas of the brain.[236] (2) In alcoholics who get most of their daily calories from alcohol, a deficiency of thiamine can produce Korsakoff's syndrome, which is associated with serious brain damage.[237]It is untrue that a vegetarian or vegan diet cannot provide enough protein for adequate nutrition.[238][239] In fact, typical protein intakes ofovo-lacto vegetarians and vegans meet and exceed requirements.[240] However, a strict vegan diet does require supplementation ofvitamin B12 for optimal health.[238]Swallowed chewing gum does not take seven years to digest. In fact, chewing gum is mostly indigestible, and passes through the digestive system at the same rate as other matter.[241][242]Human sexualityThere is no physiological basis for the belief that having sex in the days leading up to a sporting event or contest is detrimental to performance.[243] In fact it has been suggested that sex prior to sports activity can elevate the levels of testosterone in males, which could potentially enhance their performance.[244]BrainGolgi-stained neurons in human hippocampal tissue. It is commonly believed that humans will not grow new brain cells, but research has shown that some neurons can reform in humans.Mental abilities are not absolutely separated into the left and right cerebral hemispheres of the brain.[245] Some mental functions such as speech and language (e.g. Broca's area,Wernicke's area) tend to activate one hemisphere of the brain more than the other, in some kinds of tasks. If one hemisphere is damaged at an early age, these functions can often be recovered in part or even in full by the other hemisphere (see Neuroplasticity). Other abilities such as motor control, memory, and general reasoning are served equally by the two hemispheres.[246]Until recently[when?], medical experts believed that humans were born with all of the brain cells they would ever have.[247] We now know that new neurons can be created in thepostnatal brain. Researchers have observed adult neurogenesis in avians,[248] Old World Primates,[249] and humans.[250] Adults of these species retain multipotent (see cell potency) neural stem cells in the subventricular zone of the lateral ventricles and subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus.[251][252] The newborn neurons generated in these areas migrate to theolfactory bulb and the dentate gyrus, respectively, and are believed to integrate into existing neural circuits. The function and physiological significance of adult-born neurons remains unclear. Some studies have suggested that post-natal neurogenesis also occurs in the neocortex,[253][254][255] an idea that is disputed.[256]Vaccines do not cause autism or autism spectrum disorders. Although fraudulent research by Andrew Wakefield claimed a connection, repeated attempts to reproduce the results ended in failure, and the research was ultimately shown to have been manipulated.[257]People do not use only ten percent of their brains. While it is true that a small minority of neurons in the brain are actively firing at any one time, the inactive neurons are important too.[258][259] This misconception has been commonplace in American culture at least as far back as the start of the 20th century, and was attributed to William James, who apparently used the expression metaphorically.[260]DiseaseSee also: Misconceptions about HIV and AIDSDrinking milk or consuming other dairy products does not increase mucus production.[261][262] As a result, they do not need to be avoided by those suffering from flu or cold congestion.Humans cannot catch warts from toads or other animals; the bumps on a toad are not warts.[263] Warts on human skin are caused by viruses that are unique to humans (human papillomavirus).Neither cracking one's knuckles nor exercising while in good health causes osteoarthritis.[264][265]Eating nuts, popcorn, or seeds does not increase the risk of diverticulitis.[266] These foods may actually have a protective effect.[267]The Trendelenburg position (lying on the back with the feet elevated) for treating hypotension or shock is not supported by evidence and may in fact be harmful.[268]Stress plays a relatively minor role in hypertension - contrary to common belief.[269] Specific relaxation therapies are not supported by the evidence.[270] Acute stress has been shown to temporarily increase blood-pressure levels.[269] Evidence from observational studies has shown a possible association between chronic stress and a sustained rise in high blood-pressure.[269] From the medical perspective, stress plays a small part in hypertension, whereas a recurring theme in studies of the attitudes of lay people was that stress was by far the most important cause.[269]In those with the common cold the color of the sputum or nasal secretion may vary from clear to yellow to green and does not indicate the class of agent causing the infection.[271][272]Materials scienceGlass does not flow at room temperature as a high-viscosity liquid.[273] Although glass shares some molecular properties found in liquids, glass at room temperature is an "amorphous solid" that only begins to flow above the glass transition temperature,[274] though the exact nature of the glass transition is not considered settled among theorists and scientists.[275] Panes of stained glass windows are often thicker at the bottom than at the top, and this has been cited as an example of the slow flow of glass over centuries. However, this unevenness is due to the window manufacturing processes used at the time. Normally the thick end of glass would be installed at the bottom of the frame, but it is also common to find old windows where the thicker end has been installed to the sides or the top.[274][275] No such distortion is observed in other glass objects, such as sculptures or optical instruments, that are of similar or even greater age. One researcher estimated in 1998 that for glass to actually flow at room temperatures would take many times the age of the earth.[274][275][276]Most diamonds are not formed from highly compressed coal. More than 99 percent of diamonds ever mined have formed in the conditions of extreme heat and pressure about 90 miles (140 km) below the earth's surface. Coal is formed from prehistoric plants close to earth surface, and is unlikely to migrate below 2 miles (3.2 km) through common geological processes. Most diamonds that have been dated are older than the first land plants, and are therefore older than coal. It is possible that diamonds can form from coal insubduction zones and in meteoroid impacts, but diamonds formed this way are rare and the carbon source is more likely carbonate rocks rather than coal.[277]MathematicsWhen an event with equally probable outcomes comes out the same way several times in succession, the other outcome is not more likely next time. For example, if a roulette[note 1] ball ends up on black many times in a row, and not once on red (as reportedly happened 26 times on August 18, 1913, in the Monte Carlo Casino[278]), the next ball is not more likely to land on red; red is not "due"[279] For a fair wheel, neither is red less likely. This misconception is known as the gambler's fallacy; in reality statistical independence holds, and red is just as likely or unlikely on the next spin as always—sometimes expressed as "the system has no memory". If the event is physically determined, and not perfectly random, the repeated outcome may be more likely. For example, a die that has rolled a six ten consecutive times might be loaded or controlled by hidden magnets, and would be more likely to roll another six. The misconception is due to the true fact that, before starting to roll, probability theory predicts that a run of the same colour several times in succession is unlikely, increasingly so the longer the run.There is no evidence that the ancient Greeks designed the Parthenon to deliberately match the golden ratio.[280][281] The Parthenon was completed in 438 BC, more than a century before the first recorded mention of the ratio by Euclid. Similarly, Leonardo da Vinci'sVitruvian Man makes no mention of the golden ratio in its text, although it describes many other proportions.[282][283]PhysicsThe Big Bang theory does not provide an explanation for the origin of the universe; rather, it explains its early evolution.[284]An illustration of the (incorrect) equal-transit-time explanation of airfoil lift.It is not true that air takes the same time to travel above and below an aircraft's wing.[285] This misconception, sometimes called the equal transit-time fallacy, is widespread among textbooks and non-technical reference books, and even appears in pilot training materials. In fact the air moving over the top of an airfoil generating lift is always moving much faster than the equal transit theory would imply,[285] as described in the incorrect and correct explanations of lift force.Blowing over a curved piece of paper does not demonstrate Bernoulli's principle. Although a common classroom experiment is often explained this way,[286] it is false to make a connection between the flow on the two sides of the paper using Bernoulli’s equation since the air above and below are different flow fields and Bernoulli's principle only applies within a flow field.[287] The paper rises because the air follows the curve of the paper and a curved streamline will develop pressure differences perpendicular to the airflow.[288] Bernoulli's principle predicts that the decrease in pressure is associated with an increase in speed, i.e. that as the air passes over the paper it speeds up and moves faster than it was moving when it left the demonstrator's mouth. But this is not apparent from the demonstration.[289]The Coriolis effect does not determine the direction that water rotates in a bathtub drain or a flushing toilet.[290] The Coriolis effect, while it indeed exists, is induced by the Earth's daily rotation and is far too weak to affect the direction of water in a typical bathtub drain. The effect becomes significant and noticeable only at much larger scales, such as in weather systems or oceanic currents. Other forces dominate the dynamics of water in drains.[291]Gyroscopic forces or geometric trail are not required for a rider to balance a bicycle or for it to demonstrate self-stability.[292][293]Although gyroscopic forces and trail can be contributing factors, it has been demonstrated that neither are required nor sufficient by themselves.[292]The idea that lightning never strikes the same place twice is one of the oldest and most well-known superstitions about lightning. There is no reason that lightning would not be able to strike the same place twice; if there is a thunderstorm in a given area, then objects and places which are more prominent or conductive (and therefore minimize distance) are more likely to be struck. For instance, lightning strikes the Empire State Building in New York City about 100 times per year.[294][295]A penny dropped from the Empire State Building will not kill a person or crack the sidewalk.[296] The terminal velocity of a falling penny is about 30–50 miles per hour (48–80 km/h), and the penny will not exceed that speed regardless of the height from which it is dropped. At that speed, its energy is not enough to penetrate a human skull or crack concrete, as demonstrated on an episode of MythBusters. As MythBusters noted, the Empire State Building is a particularly poor setting for this misconception, since its tapered shape would make it impossible to drop anything directly from the top to street level.When the ambient temperature is low, temporarily decreasing the temperature setting on a building's programmable thermostat (e.g. at night or when it is unoccupied) rather than maintaining a steady temperature can save a significant amount of energy.[297] A common myth is that if the building is allowed to cool, its furnace has to "work harder" to reheat it to a comfortable temperature, counteracting or even exceeding the energy saved while the temperature was allowed to drop. Actually this practice can result in energy savings of five to fifteen percent as the heat lost by a warm structure in a cold environment is proportional to the heat difference between the inside and outside of the structure.PsychologyThere is no scientific evidence for the existence of “photographic” or eidetic memory (the ability to remember images with so high a precision as to mimic a camera).[298] Many people have claimed to have a photographic memory, but those people have been shown to have good memories as a result of mnemonic devices rather than a natural capacity for detailed memory encoding.[299] There are rare cases of individuals with exceptional memory, but none of them has a memory that mimics a camera. In recent years, a phenomenon labeled hyperthymesia has been studied, where individuals have superior autobiographical memory—in some cases being able to recall every meal they have ever eaten. One example is actress Marilu Henner.[300]Schizophrenia is not the same thing as dissociative identity disorder, namely split or multiple personalities.[301] Etymologically, the term "schizophrenia" comes from the Greek roots skhizein (σχίζειν, "to split") and phrēn, phren- (φρήν, φρεν-; "mind") and is ajuxtaposition proposed by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, which may have given rise to this common misconception.SportsMarcos Torregrosa wearing a black belt with a red bar. In some martial arts, such as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Judo, red belts indicate a higher rank than black. In some cases, a solid red belt is reserved for the founder of the art, and in others, higher degrees of black belts are shown by red stripes.Abner Doubleday did not invent baseball.[302][303] (See Origins of baseball.)The black belt in martial arts does not necessarily indicate expert level or mastery. It was introduced for judo in the 1880s to indicate competency of all of the basic techniques of the sport. Promotion beyond black belt varies among different martial arts. In judo and some other Asian martial arts, holders of higher ranks are awarded belts with alternating red and white panels, and the highest ranks with solid red belts.[304]ReligionHebrew BibleThe forbidden fruit mentioned in the Book of Genesis is commonly assumed to be an apple,[305] and is widely depicted as such in Western art. However, the Bible does not identify what type of fruit it is. The original Hebrew texts mention only tree and fruit. Early Latin translations use the word mali, which can be taken to mean both "evil" and "apple". German and French artists commonly depict the fruit as an apple from the 12th century onwards, and John Milton's Areopagitica from 1644 explicitly mentions the fruit as an apple.[306] Jewish scholars suggested that the fruit could have been a grape, a fig, wheat, an apricot or an etrog.[307]BuddhismThe historical Buddha was not obese. The "chubby Buddha" or "laughing Buddha" is a 10th-century Chinese folk hero by the name of Budai. In Chinese Buddhist culture, Budai came to be revered as an incarnation of Maitreya, the Bodhisattva who will become a Buddha to restore Buddhism after the teachings of the historical Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, have passed away.[308]The Buddha is not a god. In early Buddhism, Siddhārtha Gautama possessed no salvific properties and strongly encouraged "self-reliance, self discipline and individual striving."[309] However, in later developments of Mahāyāna Buddhism, notably in the Pure Land (Jìngtǔ) school of Chinese Buddhism, the Amitābha Buddha was thought to be a savior. Through faith in the Amitābha Buddha, one could be reborn in the western Pure Land. Although in Pure Land Buddhism the Buddha is considered a savior, he is still not considered a god in the common understanding of the term.[310]ChristianityThere is no evidence that Jesus was born on December 25.[311] The Bible never claims a date of December 25, but may imply a date closer to September.[311] The fixed date is attributed to Pope Julius the First because in the year 350 CE he declared the twenty-fifth of December the official date of celebration.[312][313] The date may have initially been chosen to correspond with either the day exactly nine months after Christians believe Jesus to have been conceived,[314] the date of the Roman winter solstice,[315] or one of various ancient winter festivals.[314][316]Nowhere in the Bible does it say exactly three magi came to visit the baby Jesus, nor that they were kings, rode on camels, or that their names were Casper, Melchior and Balthazar. Matthew 2 has traditionally been combined with Isaiah 60:1–3.Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. 2For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. 3And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.Three magi are supposed because three gifts are described, and artistic depictions of the nativity after about the year 900 almost always depict three magi.[317] The wise men in the biblical narrative did not visit on the day Jesus was born, but they saw Jesus as a child, in a house as many as two years afterwards (Matthew 2:11).[318][319]The Immaculate Conception is not synonymous with the virgin birth of Jesus,[note 2] nor is it a supposed belief in the virgin birth of Mary, his mother. It is the Roman Catholic belief that Mary, unlike all other humans, was not in a state of original sin from the moment of conception.[320]Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute. She is often confused with a different, unnamed woman in the Gospel of Luke (immediately before Mary Magdalene's introduction) who indeed was a prostitute. The misconception stems from a 6th-century homily from Pope Gregory I, who assumed that the seven demons that Jesus cast out of Mary Magdalene corresponded to the still-nascent concept of the seven deadly sins.[321]Roman Catholic dogma does not say that the pope is either sinless or always infallible.[322] Catholic dogma since 1870 does state that a dogmatic teaching contained in divine revelation that is promulgated by the pope is free from error, although official invocation of papal infallibility is extremely rare. Otherwise, even when speaking in his official capacity, dogma does not hold that he is free from error.IslamA fatwā is a non-binding legal opinion issued by an Islamic scholar under Islamic law. The popular misconception[323][324] that the word means a death sentence probably stems from the fatwā issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran in 1989 regarding the authorSalman Rushdie, whom he stated had earned a death sentence for blasphemy. This event led to fatwās gaining widespread media attention in the West.[325]The word "jihad" does not always mean "holy war"; literally, the word in Arabic means "struggle". While there is such a thing as "jihad bil saif", or jihad "by the sword",[326] many modern Islamic scholars usually say that it implies an effort or struggle of a spiritual kind.[327][328] Scholar Louay Safi asserts that "misconceptions and misunderstandings regarding the nature of war and peace in Islam are widespread in both the Muslim societies and the West", as much following 9/11 as before.[329]The Quran does not promise martyrs 72 virgins in heaven. It does mention virgin companions, houri, to all people—martyr or not—in heaven, but no number is specified. The source for the 72 virgins is a hadith in Sunan al-Tirmidhi by Imam Tirmidhi.[330][331] Hadiths are sayings and acts of the prophet Mohammed as reported by others and as such not part of the Quran itself. Especially the hadiths that are weakly sourced, such as this one,[332] must not necessarily be believed by a Muslim. Furthermore, the correct translation of this hadith is a matter of debate.[330]LiteratureSee also: Wikiquote: List of misquotationsFrankenstein was not the name of the monster in the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley; rather it was the surname of the monster's creator, Victor Frankenstein. The monster is instead called Frankenstein's monster. Additionally, Frankenstein was a medical student in the novel, not a doctor as frequently portrayed.[333]MusicSee also: Mondegreen#In songs"Edelweiss" is not the national anthem of Austria, but is in fact an original composition created for the musical The Sound of Music. The actual Austrian national anthem is "Land der Berge, Land am Strome."[334]"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" was not composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; he only composed variations on the tune, which originated from a French folk song.[335]TechnologyInventionsGeorge Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter, though he reputedly discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more for soybeans, pecans, and sweet potatoes.[336][337]Thomas Crapper did not invent the flush toilet;[338] flushing toilets were first used in the Indus Valley Civilization, around the 26th century BCE. Crapper, however, did much to increase its popularity and came up with some related inventions, such as the ballcockmechanism used to fill toilet tanks. The derivation of the word 'crap' is unrelated to his name; this is mere coincidence.[339]Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb.[340] He did, however, develop the first practical light bulb in 1880 (employing a carbonizedbamboo filament), shortly prior to Joseph Swan, who invented an even more efficient bulb in 1881 (which used a cellulose filament).Henry Ford did not invent either the automobile or the assembly line. He did improve the assembly line process substantially, sometimes through his own engineering but more often through sponsoring the work of his employees.[341][342] Karl Benz (co-founder ofMercedes-Benz) is credited with the invention of the first modern automobile,[343] and the assembly line has existed throughout history.Guglielmo Marconi did not invent the radio, but only modernized it for public broadcasting and communication.[344] For more about the controversy about who invented radio, see invention of radio.Al Gore never said that he "invented" the Internet, although Gore did say, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."[345][346] Gore was the original drafter of the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991, which provided significant funding for supercomputing centers, and this in turn led to upgrades of a major part of the already existing, early 1990s Internet backbone, the NSFNet, and development of NCSA Mosaic, the browser that popularized the World Wide Web; however the history of the Internet predates these. Also see Al Gore and information technology.James Watt did not invent the steam engine,[347] nor were his ideas on steam engine power inspired by a kettle lid pressured open by steam.[348] Watt developed upon the first commercially successful Newcomen steam engine in the 1760s and 1770s; his new steam engine later gained huge fame.[349]ComputingComputers running Macintosh, Linux, or other non-Windows operating systems are not immune to malware such as trojan horses.[350]These operating systems are capable of being infected by malware designed for them; however, due to the market dominance of Microsoft Windows operating systems, most malware is designed to target them rather than other operating systems.[351]TransportationToilet waste is never intentionally jettisoned from an aircraft. All waste is collected in tanks which are emptied on the ground by toilet waste vehicles.[352] Blue ice is caused by accidental leakage from the waste tank. Passenger trains, on the other hand, have historically flushed onto the tracks; however, modern trains usually have retention tanks on board.Automotive batteries stored on a concrete floor do not discharge any faster than they would on other surfaces,[353] in spite of worry among Americans that concrete harms batteries.[354] Early batteries might have been susceptible to moisture from floors due to leaky, porous cases, but for many years lead-acid car batteries have had impermeable polycarbonate cases, and are maintenance-free, so they do not leak battery acid.[355][356]