PugJesus"Our eyes are just REALLY good"
https://piefed.social/c/historymemes/p/1906791/our-eyes-are-just-really-good
Explanation: In WW2, Britain spread word that carrots improved night-time vision, and that its pilots were eating lots of carrots, in order to ‘explain’ why they were intercepting Nazi planes over Britain so reliably at night.
In reality, they’d figured out how to fit radar on their fighter planes, and wanted to keep that a secret for as long as they could. The hope was that Nazis keeping tabs on civilian British news would fall for the ruse, and buy UK plane radar a little more time undetected.
Carrots may prevent nutritional deficiencies that lead to poor night-time vision, but they aren’t going to make your MK1 eyeballs into NODs.
ummthatguyOne of my favorite historical “old wives tales” readily disproven, like cracking your knuckles causing arthritis or sitting too close to the TV (which definitely used to be a problem).
MohamedMoneyWait, cracking knuckles is unproblematic?
The myth was that it caused arthritis. A chap called Donald Unger decided to test it by only cracking the knuckles in one hand and never the other, for decades. There was no difference between the two hands.
You know, I’ve heard that story a bunch of times, but nobody ever says the conclusion. How long did it work?
I don’t think the Brits ever figured out if it was successful OR unsuccessful. Propaganda can be funny like that. XD
There’s evidence that the nazis at least knew about the claim, but everything I’ve ever found backs you up 100%, there’s no evidence that the nazis ever fell for or or dismissed it. I can’t imagine anyone gave it more than a minute’s thought though, like even back then it was pretty transparently silly.
This lie was repeated for years in American pop culture, so I think then and future generations of Americans fell for it more than the Germans did.
spicy pancakei mean, that tracks lol
German who grew up in the 21st century here. The myth that eating lots of carrots will improve your eyesight/nightvision significantly is still more or less alive and well here. I sort of believed it until I saw a variation on this meme for the first time.
I’d say it seems to have worked pretty well.
sawdustprophetGerman who grew up in the 21st century here. The myth that eating lots of carrots will improve your eyesight/nightvision significantly is still more or less alive and well here.
As a millennial American, I was taught it as a child, and I’d estimate most people I know believe it to be true.
Blind Nazi after eating carrot.
That’s also kinda why tanks are called tanks today.
When the British were building the Mark I Landship (world’s first “tank”) it was a top secret project. However there were hundreds of civilian workers working on the assembly lines. Expecting that workers would start questioning about what they were building, the British war department told the workers that they were building “water carrying tanks”.
Then since no popular formal name was given to the new armoured vehicles, the name “tank” stuck.
MinnesotaGoddamhuh. i was always told that they threw carrots at the other planes during dogfights as a way of taunting them. tomato tomato
it was the RAF so it was princess. remember she could fly
But when I do it it’s unethical and dehumanising for the patient.
It was double pronged, I think. Carrots are quick and easy to grow in an allotment. Telling British kids that the fighter pilots they saw overhead were eating lots of carrots helped a lot. If only for the morale of people.
Getting kids to eat their veg without complaining isn’t a new problem.