Tuesday, June 18

The Debunker: Did Pirates Make Treasure Maps?

by Ken Jennings 2 days ago

June is the time of year the United Nations observes World Oceans Day and the U.S. celebrates National Oceans Month, so we’ve asked Skipper Ken Jennings to navigate us through four maritime myths that refuse to die. It turns out that none of them really hold water.

Ocean Myth #3: Pirates Made Treasure Maps.

Of course the bloodthirsty buccaneers of the Spanish Main drew treasure maps, right? How else would they find their way back to their hard-earned booty? We can probably even picture these historical maps: one hundred paces from the beach to the skull-shaped tree, follow its shadow at noon twenty paces, X marks the spot, et cetera et cetera. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Tuesday, June 11

The Debunker: Does the Ocean Look Blue Because It Reflects the Sky?

by Ken Jennings 9 days ago

June is the time of year the United Nations observes World Oceans Day and the U.S. celebrates National Oceans Month, so we’ve asked Skipper Ken Jennings to navigate us through four maritime myths that refuse to die. It turns out that none of them really hold water.

Ocean Myth #2: The Ocean Is Blue Because It Reflects the Sky.

I remember noticing as a child that a glass of water from the kitchen tap was colorless. So why were lakes and oceans blue? My parents told me that the blue color was due to the surface of the water reflecting the sky, and I believed them. Sure enough, on cloudy days (which were plentiful in Seattle, where I grew up) the lakes looked more gray than blue.

But my parents lied to me, friends—and maybe yours did too. Look at a photo of the Arctic or Antarctica: even on the grayest of days, glacial ice can have the kind of brilliant cyan blue you rarely see outside of an NBA jersey from the 1990s. The fact is that water is not colorless.

Tuesday, June 04

The Debunker: Can Sea Captains Officiate Weddings?

by Ken Jennings 16 days ago

June means summer and the promise of long, lazy days at the beach, which might be why this is the time of year the United Nations observes World Oceans Day and the U.S. celebrates National Oceans Month, in order to raise awareness of the seven seas, what Melville called “the watery part of the world.” In that vein, we’ve asked Skipper Ken Jennings to navigate us through four maritime myths that refuse to die. It turns out that none of them really hold water.

Ocean Myth #1: Sea Captains Can Marry People.

Well, yes, sea captains can marry someone. In fact, in eleven states and many foreign ports, a sea captain can now marry another seafarer of the same sex. But what they’re not allowed to do is marry other people—that is, officiate at wedding ceremonies, pronounce that couples arrrr! now man and wife.

Tuesday, May 28

The Debunker: Are People Only Considered "Missing" After 24 Hours?

by Ken Jennings 23 days ago

Unless you’ve dedicated a lot of time to breaking the law, most of what you know about the cops comes from movies and TV, and those may or may not be just the facts, ma’am. All month, Ken Jennings will be exploring the “thin blue line” between police fact and police fiction. If you actually thought this stuff was true—well, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the comments section.

Police Myth #4: You Have to Be Gone for 24 Hours to Be a “Missing Person.”

You’ve seen it in any number of TV and movie dramas: the frustrated loved one getting turned away from a precinct when they try to report a kidnapping. “I’m sorry, (sir/ma’am),” says the unhelpful desk sergeant. “Until (he/she) has been missing for 24 hours, we can’t file a missing persons report. Just go home. I’m sure your (lover/child/confused elderly person) will turn up.” Can you believe it? The red tape! The bureaucracy! We the viewers, of course, already know that the missing person in question is in a (car trunk/sex dungeon/shallow grave near the highway). The suspense mounts.

Tuesday, May 21

The Debunker: When You're Arrested, Are You Entitled to One Phone Call?

by Ken Jennings a month ago

Unless you’ve dedicated a lot of time to breaking the law, most of what you know about the cops comes from movies and TV, and those may or may not be just the facts, ma’am. All month, Ken Jennings will be exploring the “thin blue line” between police fact and police fiction. If you actually thought this stuff was true—well, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the comments section.

Police Myth #3: When You’re Arrested, You Get One Phone Call.

Police arrests in movies and TV shows are always followed by a phone call—for dramatic purposes, I assume. We need to see the ne’er-do-well tearily confessing his downfall to a parent or spouse or co-conspirator. (Or lawyer, I guess, but that seems to happen less often in the movies than it does in real life.) This cliché has become so deeply engrained in the popular imagination that arrestees—in movies and in real life as well—now know to ask for “my phone call,” as if they are entitled to exactly one.

Tuesday, May 14

The Debunker: Do Police Outline Dead Bodies in Chalk?

by Ken Jennings a month ago

Unless you’ve dedicated a lot of time to breaking the law, most of what you know about the cops comes from movies and TV, and those may or may not be just the facts, ma’am. All month, Ken Jennings will be exploring the “thin blue line” between police fact and police fiction. If you actually thought this stuff was true—well, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the comments section.

Police Myth #2: Police Mark Murder Sites with Chalk Outlines.

If you’re ever murdered, don’t worry about trying to strike some hilarious pose. The old cliché of the tape or chalk silhouette might be a nice visual crutch for a cop movie or TV show, but the police aren’t supposed to outline murder victims anymore, if they ever were.

Tuesday, May 07

The Debunker: Do Undercover Cops Have To Identify Themselves?

by Ken Jennings a month ago

In 1962, a joint resolution of Congress made the third week of May “National Police Week,” a time to recognize the sacrifices made by the nation’s law enforcement officers. But let’s face it: unless you’ve dedicated a lot of time to breaking the law, most of what you know about the cops comes from movies and TV, and those may or may not be just the facts, ma’am. All month, Ken Jennings will be exploring the “thin blue line” between police fact and police fiction. If you actually thought this stuff was true—well, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the comments section.

Police Myth #1: Undercover Cops Have to Identify Themselves When Asked.

If everything you know about police procedure comes from an elite social circle of hookers, pot dealers, and paranoid college activists, then you probably agree wholeheartedly with this rule of thumb: any time you suspect someone of being a plainclothes cop, you can unmask them by this clever ruse of asking them! Presumably, at that point, the unconvincing john/buyer/whatever will shake his fist impotently at you, rip off his fake mustache, and stalk off into the night, his arrest thwarted.

Tuesday, April 30

The Debunker: Was the Civil War Fought Over States' Rights?

by Ken Jennings 2 months ago

Even though the Civil War hasn’t receded all that far into the past—the Associated Press reported last month that two children-of-Civil-War-vets are still alive and well and receiving government veterans’ benefits!—we may not remember very much about it. This month, Ken “Burns” Jennings will reveal that a lot of what you think you know about the Civil War is a bunch of Bull Run.

Civil War Myth #4: The War Wasn’t Really About Slavery.

A 2011 poll by the Pew Research Center commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War produced this shocking finding: only 38% of respondents said they believed that slavery was the war’s main cause. Nearly half—48%—opined that “states’ rights” was the real issue, while a wishy-washy 9% blamed both equally. Even more remarkably, younger people were more likely to be slavery skeptics than older ones!

Thursday, April 25

The Debunker: Did the Emancipation Proclamation End Slavery?

by Ken Jennings 2 months ago

Even though the Civil War hasn’t receded all that far into the past—the Associated Press reported last month that two children-of-Civil-War-vets are still alive and well and receiving government veterans’ benefits!—we may not remember very much about it. This month, Ken “Burns” Jennings will reveal that a lot of what you think you know about the Civil War is a bunch of Bull Run.

Civil War Myth #3: The Emancipation Proclamation Freed the Slaves.

Say what you will about the recent work of Steven Spielberg, at least it’s helped to shoot down a lot of historical myths about Abraham Lincoln. For example, most Americans dimly remembering their tenth-grade history class probably assume that slavery in the Republic was ended by the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. But as the movie Lincoln makes clear, abolition didn’t actually happen for almost three more years, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in December 1865.

Tuesday, April 09

The Debunker: Did the Monitor Fight the Merrimack?

by Ken Jennings 2 months ago

Even though the Civil War hasn’t receded all that far into the past—the Associated Press reported last month that two children-of-Civil-War-vets are still alive and well and receiving government veterans’ benefits!—we may not remember very much about it. This month, Ken “Burns” Jennings will reveal that a lot of what you think you know about the Civil War is a bunch of Bull Run.

Civil War Myth #2: The Ironclad Warships Monitor and Merrimack Faced Off in 1862.

Perhaps the most important naval engagement of the Civil War was fought on March 9, 1862, off Hampton Roads, Virginia. But the Battle of Hampton Roads is rarely known by its proper geographic name, since schools tend to teach it as “the battle of the Monitor and Merrimack.” These two ironclad ships fired on each other at close range for over three hours, but neither was able to sink (or even do much damage to) the other. The repercussions of the game-changing battle were felt as far away as Europe, where naval powers like Britain and France immediately abandoned the construction of wooden-hulled ships in favor of the ironclad warships that still plow the seas today.