Busting Historical Myths with Professor Buzzkill
8 years ago

We are excited to announce that Lifetime Member Dennis McMahon (TGIB #320), was recently the interview subject of "Professor Buzzkill". Professor Buzzkill is a blog and podcast that explores history myths in an illuminating, entertaining, and humorous way. The show has debunked everything from Sherman's march to the sea and Abner Doubleday inventing baseball to the Cuban Missile Crisis and Rosa Parks. After stumbling across the podcast on Twitter and enjoying a few episodes, we sent the Professor an idea to debunk the infamous Tomb Guard email forward. And the rest is, as they say... history.
As the professor would say, the podcasts:
"...seek to 'debunk' historical myths. A history myth is a story about the past which isn’t true, nevertheless, gets lots of attention. Many people believe what they hear without thinking critically about it, or checking to see whether it’s true. That’s how urban legends start — you know, the ones like Mikey from the Life Cereal commercials died while eating PopRocks and at the same time as drinking Coke. A history myth is just an urban myth about days gone by. Serious historians, however, are careful about saying categorically that something is 'true' or 'not true.' In fact, rather than saying something 'happened' or 'is true,' most historians prefer to say, 'there is good evidence for that.' And rather than saying something 'didn’t happen,' they prefer to say 'there is no good evidence for that.'”
Professor Buzzkill sometimes goes by the alias Joseph Coohill, and is a historian of modern Britain and Ireland. He has a doctorate in modern history from Oxford and an MA in history from the University of Melbourne and a BA from Humboldt State University in California. He is the author of Ideas of the Liberal Party and Ireland: a Short History (4 editions), as well as many articles and internet pieces on history.
This podcast will be released on November 10th, to coincide with Veterans Day. You can visit http://professorbuzzkill.com/ or find the podcast on iTunes here. We hope that you enjoy the podcast and have a great Veterans Day reflecting on the World War I Unknown interment 94 years ago.
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Did you know?
Do you guard in a blizzard or a bad thunderstorm?
YES, but the accomplishment of the mission and welfare of the Soldier are never put at risk. The Tomb Guards have contingencies that are ready to be executed if the weather conditions ever place the Soldiers at risk of injury or death (i.e. lightning, high winds, etc). This ensures that Sentinels can continue the mission while ensuring safety. It is the responsibility of the Chain of Command from the Sergeant of the Guard to the Regimental Commander to ensure mission accomplishment and soldier welfare at all times.
It was erroneously reported that during Hurricane Isabel, the Sentinels were ordered to abandon their posts for shelter and that they refused. No such order was ever given. All proper precautions were taken to ensure the safety of the Sentinels while accomplishing their mission. Risk assessments are constantly conducted by the Chain of Command during changing conditions to ensure that soldier welfare is maintained during mission accomplishment.