History WrittenByTheWinners / RealLife

** [[{{Pirate}} Privateers]] get this naturally... some of the biggest and most well known? UsefulNotes/SirFrancisDrake and Capt. Morgan (the one who... you know... has a certain drink named after him). Celebrated heroes in England... demons of history to Spain. Likewise, during UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfPiracy, 25% of all pirate crews were runaway slaves joining the pirate crews at a time when slavery was totally ''legal'' and ''profitable'' and most of the sailors in the English navy were denied meritorious advancement, and a lot of them were press-ganged, poor men kidnapped from England and forced to work crappy jobs. Oh, and UsefulNotes/{{Blackbeard}} accepted a pardon before being attacked by GlorySeeker officers who attacked him while and he and his crew were drunk to elevate their reputation and in a modern legal sense, one would argue that Blackbeard was a victim of extra-legal vigilante execution and denied due process.

* In much the same manner of Richard III, [[Theatre/{{Macbeth}} Macbeth]], King of Scotland, was rather unsurprisingly vilified by some rather biased English scholars after his death. In truth, none of the contemporary sources of the time dubbed him a tyrant. In reality, Macbeth's rule was by many accounts very successful, not to mention lengthy. In a period where monarchs were being killed and overthrown in short accord, his reign lasted 17 years. In fact, his reign was so secure he was even able to safely make a pilgrimage to Rome, a journey few rulers of the time would have undertaken for fear of being usurped in their lengthy absence. He'd also won the throne by defeating Duncan in battle, rather than through murder and betrayal (Macbeth was not his retainer), while his wife is barely mentioned in history -- there's no indication of her doing anything like Lady Macbeth. However, James I, whom Shakespeare made the play for, claimed his descent from Banquo, so Macbeth became a horrible villain.

** The most common misconceptions about Napoleon, namely his height (TheNapoleon) comes from the success of English propaganda and the rise of the Anglophone. It is a fact that Napoleon was of average height for his time[[note]]The image of him being short stemmed from him usually being surrounded by his bodyguard unit, which was staffed by very tall men, making him look short by comparison[[/note]] and no historian has found conclusive proof that Napoleon was driven to conquest because of insecurity regarding his height. On the flip-side, it should be noted that Napoleon published his memoirs a mere few years after his defeat, and it became an instant best-seller and cemented his legend, so even though Napoleon lost, he did write his own take on history, a highly self-centered and self-pitying one at that, but equally influential nonetheless.
** The discourse of UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars itself. The British argue that they were defending and liberating Europe from a tyranny, conveniently forgetting that they were the ones who first broke the Treaty of Amiens and started the war, after refusing to honor the terms of the original agreement (removing ships from Malta) and that they were themselves an Empire. Napoleonic supporters emphasize his meritocracy, modernization, secularization (liberation of Jews from ghettos) while ignoring the fact that he brought back slavery after Revolutionary France had abolished it, and the large scale colonisation and WarForFunAndProfit that underpinned Napoleon's administration.

** The Spanish in general have a term called "Black legend" where they note that writers of UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment such as Creator/{{Voltaire}}[[note]]Who for all his status as a free-speech icon and critic of the Church was a strong anti-Semite[[/note]] as well as English writers tended to paint Spain as autocratic, backward, medieval and generally less enlightened than the Northern European nations. English writers made much of the New World colonization and treatment of indigenous peoples and likewise exaggerated the early bloody years of The Inquisition to a period stretching for centuries. In actual practice, the Inquisition executed fewer people in its entire period (it ended during UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte's invasion) than the numbers killed in the reign of Elizabeth alone and practiced none of the witch burnings which were active in the Protestant nations, but the famous Creator/CateBlanchett biopic will give you the opposite impression.

* [[ValuesDissonance Because the idea of racial superiority was a widely held belief at the time]], in the early days of archaeology a lot of historical achievements of non-white peoples were either ignored, downplayed, or were theorized to actually be done by white people. The ancient city of Great Zimbabwe is probably the most infamous example of this, to the point where the Rhodesian government in the 1960s and 70s censored archaeologists who said it was built by blacks. In time a lot of these racist ideas were discarded.

** UsefulNotes/TheCrusades was a huge deal for the Crusaders, but for the Saracens and Arabs, it wasn't any big deal, at least not until recently. Arab historians of the Middle Ages called it "the Frankish Wars" and saw it as a minor regional offshoot to the ongoing great game between Shia powers, Turks, UsefulNotes/{{Byzantine|Empire}}s and other groups. For them, it was not the big serious thing it was for the Christian knights. The biggest threat for them was the Mongols in the East and Baibars, the man who defeated the Mongols and set them back was their IconOfRebellion, not Saladin, who most of them didn't even know about. It was only in the 19th and 20th Century, in response to European colonialism, that the Arabs looked at the Crusades and they drew their view ''from Western historians'' like David Hume and others who in UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment came to see it as the OldShame of Europe. This was mostly driven by Arab nationalists who wanted to counter the demonization of racist imperialist propaganda, who naturally were keen to bring up the time when the Europeans were closer to the uncouth psychotic barbarians that they now painted them as.

** UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar was won by Sparta and its allies over Athenes and its allies, it is essentially handed down to us in the writings of two Athenians, Thucydides and Xenophon, the latter of whom incidentally fought for Sparta against Athens. Whether the Spartans wrote or not, we don't know, since, after their defeat at the Battle of Leuctra, they decayed and folded under Alexander. All of our information about Sparta comes from the Athenians, though it is heavily {{downplayed}} considering it was a representative government of some kind and so filled with political competition and partisan grudges does provide a lot of sophisticated insight into that conflict.

* Completely {{inverted}} when it comes to the fall of the (Western) Roman Empire. For a long, ''long'' time, it was commonly thought that the end of the Roman Empire marked the end of "proper" Western civilization and the dawn of TheDungAges of ignorance, superstition, and religious dogma until the Renaissance miraculously brought classical values back to the forefront. Setting aside how the ''Eastern'' Roman Empire survived almost full thousand years after the fact, Western Roman Empire was a VestigialEmpire barely holding on by a thread, with Odoacer's Kingdom of Italy being essentially a MercyKill. In fact, in many cases, the "barbarian" invaders actually [[GoingNative almost fully assimilated into the local, Roman-influenced cultures,]] going as far as to speak the local Latinate languages and following at least ''some'' degree of Roman law and traditions, which can be seen in France, Spain and Italy. The ill-fated attempts of ERE Emperor Justinian II to reform the Roman Empire as well as [[ThePlague the Justinian plague]] that shortly followed afterwards arguably did more damage to the structures of Late Antiquity mediterranean states than the fall of Rome, yet even now most laypeople still talk about the fall of Rome as a complete disaster - [[{{Irony}} most often the people who are descended from the ones who toppled it in the first place.]]

** Of course, this [[GoneHorriblyRight backfired rather spectacularly]] when the Mongol successor khanates started falling from power themselves, as their absolutely ''horrendous'' [[ZeroPercentApprovalRating reputation]] caused many of their subjects to enact bloody revenge on not only them, but other steppe nomads as well. In particular, it has been theorized by various historians that the Russians were so shell-shocked by the Mongol invasions to the point that their relentless expansion eastwards was mainly motivated by a desire to [[NevertBeHurtAgain never be oppressed by steppe nomads anymore.]]

* The case of various Native American nations in North America is [[ZigZaggedTrope a rather complex one]], especially in the context of this trope. Whereas the predominant view in the past was of "civilized" European people bringing civilization to the frontier by defeating the "savages," now the popular view is the tragedy of the Native Peoples fighting a HopelessWar against the [[EvilColonialist rapacious European conquerors]]. In truth, [[MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds the main advantage the Europeans had over the natives were imported diseases]]; evidence exists that North America actually had a very large native population before foreign illnesses brought over from Europe wiped out the vast majority of the people living there. By the time the settlers showed up for good, there were very few, if any, Native Americans left to resist them compared to before.
** A popular view of pre-Columbian Native Culture even before the historical narrative started shifting against the settlers [[NobleSavage is that of great nobility and peace]]. While individual tribes may have been somewhat peaceful, tribes fought each other just as much as European states did and for the same reasons. One way to tell is by common tribal name. If the common name was given by the tribe itself, it likely means "the people" or something similar. If given a name by Europeans, [[LineOfSightName it often refers to a nearby natural characteristic (lake, waterfall, etc...)]]. If named by another tribe, there's a very good chance it means something close to "enemy". For instance, "Apache" possibly is from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". They call themselves the Indé. Some civilized groups, such as the Aztec, [[note]]It is additionally compounded that the Aztecs themselves had rewritten their own history less than a century before[[/note]] had a vast empire with cities, client states, brutal wars of conquest, and massive {{human sacrifice}}. Although they were likely outliers in terms of their violence, other centralized indigenous civilizations also existed. However, diseases brought by the Europeans struck them most, as they had dense populations, while more dispersed and isolated groups were spared (initially at least). The plains tribes are often given the most focus in the US because they were the last to be conquered and forcibly put into reservations. All in all, indigenous peoples in the Americas greatly varied, like everywhere else. Fictional depictions often gloss over the diversity (and conflicts) and just present all Native Americans as TheThemeParkVersion of the Plains Natives, though in all fairness little is known of many groups, particularly the ones wiped out in the aforementioned pandemics.

* The case of various Native American nations in North America is [[ZigZaggedTrope a rather complex one]], especially in the context of this trope. Whereas the predominant view in the past was of "civilized" European people bringing civilization to the frontier by defeating the "savages," now the popular view is the tragedy of the Native Peoples fighting a HopelessWar against the [[EvilColonialists rapacious European conquerors]]. In truth, [[MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds the main advantage the Europeans had over the natives were imported diseases]]; evidence exists that North America actually had a very large native population before foreign illnesses brought over from Europe wiped out the vast majority of the people living there. By the time the settlers showed up for good, there were very few, if any, Native Americans left to resist them compared to before.

** UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar was won by Sparta and its allies over Athenes and its allies, it is essentially handed down to us in the writings of two Athenians, Thucydides and Xenophon, the latter of whom incidentally fought for Sparta against Athens. Whether the Spartans wrote or not, we don't know, since, after their defeat at the Battle of Leuctra, they decayed and folded under Alexander. All of our information about Sparta comes from the Athenians, which considering it was a representative government of some kind and so filled with political competition and partisan grudges does provide a lot of sophisticated insight into that conflict.

* Completely {{inverted}} when it comes to the fall of the (Western) Roman Empire. For a long, ''long'' time, it was commonly thought that the end of the Roman Empire marked the end of "proper" Western civilization and the dawn of TheDungAges of ignorance, superstition, and religious dogma until the Renaissance miraculously brought classical values back to the forefront. Setting aside how the ''Eastern'' Roman Empire survived almost full thousand years after the fact, Western Roman Empire was a VestigialEmpire barely holding on by a thread, with Odoacer's Kingdom of Italy being essentially a MercyKill. In fact, in many cases, the "barbarian" invaders actually [[GoingNative almost fully assimilated into the local, Roman-influenced cultures,]] going as far as to speak the local Latinate languages and pursuing at least ''some'' degree of Roman law and traditions, which can be seen in France, Spain and Italy. The ill-fated attempts of ERE Emperor Justinian II to reform the Roman Empire as well as the [[ThePlague the Justinian plague]] arguably did more damage to the structures of late Antiquity mediterranean states than the fall of Rome, yet even now most laypeople still talk about the fall of Rome as a complete disaster - [[{{Irony}} most often the people who are descended from the ones who toppled it in the first place.]]

* From a class perspective as opposed to a national one: most of history (at least until modern times) focused on ruling and upper-class males because ruling and upper-class males dominated society, were generally the ones who knew how to write history, and were only interested in the affairs of their peers (i.e. other ruling and upper-class males). There were remarkably few historical works that focus exclusively on women or members of the peasant classes. Indeed, the development of sociology in the 19th Century led to what came to be called in the 20th Century as "history from below" with the intention of correcting and deconstructing the victor's history.

* Since most of world history has been very patriarchal, women were mostly written out of history. And if they ever came to power or were seen as influential, well they are demonized, made into TheVamp, subject to male PsychologicalProjection. Many historians have started correcting or qualifying the LadyMacbeth reputations of Livia Augusta, Theodora among many others.

* Of course with the greater secularism of history in the last two hundred years or so and the fact that Christianity is no longer the dominant belief in charge, it becomes necessary to counter some anti-religious and anti-Christian views, especially in the case of regimes that did promote an anti-religious viewpoint or use past propaganda for persecution. Nobody wins or loses forever after all:

** As for conversion and missionary activities, in cases of traditionalist societies such as India and UsefulNotes/{{Japan}} (cf, ''Film/{{Silence}}''), "conversion" is always regarded as "forced" and that Christian communities are really "Hindus waiting to be brought back". The idea that lower caste people were genuinely attracted to the egalitarian nature of Christianity (and Islam or Buddhism before it), that they would want to reject the casteist aspects of Hinduism out of religious freedom, naturally doesn't enter into this discourse. Even the likes of UsefulNotes/MahatmaGandhi, while peaceable and tolerant, projected this vision about Indian conversion while modern secular nationalism notes that while it was driven by imperialism, there was genuine authentic feeling among some groups, and these new converts were not necessarily well treated by the missionaries themselves ([[SocialClimber who largely used them to bridge a path to royal patronage]]) but they valued the faith and the message of Christ more than the people who represented it. This may have even predated Christianity - it's theorized that Buddhism was mostly destroyed in India because they advocated abolition of the caste system, causing many lower-caste people to convert and earning the violent anger of the establishment.

* The case of various Native American nations in North America is [[ZigZaggedTrope a rather complex one]], especially in the context of this trope. Whereas the predominant view in the past was of "civilized" European people bringing civilization to the frontier by defeating the "savages," now the popular view is the tragedy of the Native Peoples fighting a HopelessWar against the rapacious European conquerors. In fact, evidence exists that North America actually had a very large native population before foreign illnesses brought over from Europe wiped out the vast majority of the people living there. By the time the settlers showed up for good, there were very few people left to resist them compared to before. It actually works the other way as well. A popular view of pre-Columbian Native Culture [[NobleSavage is one of great nobility and peace]]. While individual tribes may have been somewhat peaceful, tribes fought each other just as much as European states did and for the same reasons. One way to tell is by common tribal name. If the common name was given by the tribe itself, it likely means "the people" or something similar. If given a name by Europeans, it often refers to a nearby natural characteristic (lake, waterfall, etc...). If named by another tribe, there's a very good chance it means something close to "enemy". For instance, "Apache" possibly is from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". They call themselves the Indé. Some civilized groups, such as the Aztec,[[note]]It is additionally compounded that the Aztecs themselves had rewritten their own history less than a century before[[/note]] had a vast empire with cities, client states, brutal wars of conquest, and massive {{human sacrifice}}. Although they were likely outliers in terms of their violence, other indigenous civilizations also existed. However, diseases brought by the Europeans struck them most, as they had dense populations, while more dispersed and isolated groups were spared (initially at least). The plains tribes are often given the most focus in the US because they were the last to be conquered and forcibly put into reservations. Overall though, indigenous peoples in the Americas greatly varied, like everywhere else. Fictional depictions often gloss over the diversity (and conflicts). In fairness though, little is known of many groups, particularly the ones wiped out in the aforementioned pandemics.

* UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler benefited from this. Sure, he was incredibly brutal, but it was that brutality that kept at bay the Ottomans who were trying to conquer Wallachia at every turn, at least for a time (Vlad ultimately failed to keep Wallachia free and ended his days in a Hungarian prison). As a result, modern Romanians consider him a national hero, who was "harsh but fair". Pretty good deal for a guy who spent decades putting people's heads on pikes. Of course, since those heads generally didn't belong to his own citizens, he did better than some of his contemporaries and of course Romantic xenophobic nationalism (which is the time when the Romanians started thinking fondly of Vlad) has a way of sanding off the rough edges of the past.

** Of course, this [[GoneHorriblyRight backfired rather spectacularly]] when the Mongol successor khanates started falling from power themselves, as their absolutely ''horrendous'' [[ZeroPercentApprovalRating reputation]] caused many of their subjects to enact bloody revenge on not only them, but other steppe nomads as well, and the Mongols are mostly known for their atrocities rather than what they ''did'' manage to accomplish due to the inversion of this trope. In particular, it has been theorized by various historians that the Russians were so shell-shocked by the Mongol invasions to the point that their relentless expansion eastwards was mainly motivated by a desire to [[NevertHurtAgain never be oppressed by steppe nomads anymore.]]

* UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution. America won, so the war is written as downtrodden citizens rising up against an oppressive ruler. If America lost, it would have gone down as a minor footnote in the ''long'' history of the Anglo-French wars and the ''longer'' list of insurrections against Britain (of which the American Revolution would not even be the biggest or the costliest). As it is, Britain still exists, so you will still get the view that the war was just a glorified squabble over taxation policy.

* In 1862, the Prussian king aimed to increase the military budget, something the parliament denied him. The newly appointed chancellor UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck "solved" the crisis by disregarding the constitution and the rights of the parliament. He won the three wars that he provoked in the following decade, and today the Pn constitutional crisis is merely a footnote in his ascension. Sometimes the winner decides, which part of history not to write.

* Completely {{inverted}} when it comes to the fall of the (Western) Roman Empire. For a long, ''long'' time, it was commonly thought that the end of the Roman Empire marked the end of "proper" Western civilization and the dawn of TheDungAges of ignorance, superstition, and religious dogma until the Renaissance miraculously brought classical values back to the forefront. Setting aside how the ''Eastern'' Roman Empire survived almost full thousand years after the fact, Western Roman Empire was a VestigialEmpire barely holding on by a thread, with Odoacer's Kingdom of Italy being essentially a MercyKill. In fact, in many cases, the "barbarian" invaders actually [[GoingNative almost fully assimilated into the local, Roman-influenced cultures,]] going as far as to speak the local Latinate languages and pursuing at least ''some'' degree of Roman law and traditions, which can be seen in France, Spain and Italy. The ill-fated attempts of ERE Emperor Justinian II to reform the Roman Empire as well as the [[ThePlague the Justinian plague]] arguably did more damage to the structures of late Antiquity mediterranean kingdoms than the fall of Rome, yet even now people still talk about the fall of Rome as a complete disaster - [[{{Irony}} most often the people who are descendants from the ones who toppled it in the first place.]]

** Creator/KarlMarx was the first to challenge what we call "the Great Man" idea of history by insisting that most historical events such as changes of Kings or battles between one dynasty or another were meaningless to the vast majority of the subject peoples on either side and that real history was changes in means of productions and social classes. Historians following on from Marx such as Fernand Braudel devised the concept of the "longue duree" which more or less put geography, trade, and economic activity into focus, though historical materialism itself has become host to quite a few accusations of being [[TheFatalist a bit too determinist in nature.]]

** For instance, while Christianity at various points was involved in antisemitism, there have frequently been Christians standing against it as well. During the First Crusade, some Catholic Bishops and other priests risked their lives to protect Jews from the Rhineland pogroms, and they did it without extortion of conversion. Antisemitism actually increased with the decline of Church power over that of Kings (which many thinkers associated with "modernity"). The likes of UsefulNotes/EdwardTheFirst, King Philip IV (who moved UsefulNotes/ThePope from Rome to Avignon and crushed the Templars), and the Crown of Castile-Leon were the ones who expelled Jews from England, France, and Spain, and all three regimes are considered important in centralizing the Kingdom-Nation-State. The ghetto was invented in the very cosmopolitan and sophisticated Republic of Venice. Likewise, the deist Creator/{{Voltaire}} was a vicious antisemite.

* The case of various Native American nations in North America is [[ZigZaggedTrope a rather complex one]], especially in the context o this trope. Whereas the predominant view was of "civilized" European people bringing civilization to the frontier by defeating the "savages," now the popular view is the tragedy of the Native Peoples fighting a HopelessWar against the rapacious European conquerors. In fact, evidence exists that North America actually had a very large native population before foreign illnesses brought over from Europe wiped out the vast majority of the people living there. By the time the settlers showed up for good, there were very few people left to resist them compared to before. It actually works the other way as well. A popular view of pre-Columbian Native Culture [[NobleSavage is one of great nobility and peace]]. While individual tribes may have been somewhat peaceful, tribes fought each other just as much as European states did and for the same reasons. One way to tell is by common tribal name. If the common name was given by the tribe itself, it likely means "the people" or something similar. If given a name by Europeans, it often refers to a nearby natural characteristic (lake, waterfall, etc...). If named by another tribe, there's a very good chance it means something close to "enemy". For instance, "Apache" possibly is from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". They call themselves the Indé. Some civilized groups, such as the Aztec,[[note]]It is additionally compounded that the Aztecs themselves had rewritten their own history less than a century before[[/note]] had a vast empire with cities, client states, brutal wars of conquest, and massive {{human sacrifice}}. Although they were likely outliers in terms of their violence, other indigenous civilizations also existed. However, diseases brought by the Europeans struck them most, as they had dense populations, while more dispersed and isolated groups were spared (initially at least). The plains tribes are often given the most focus in the US because they were the last to be conquered and forcibly put into reservations. Overall though, indigenous peoples in the Americas greatly varied, like everywhere else. Fictional depictions often gloss over the diversity (and conflicts). In fairness though, little is known of many groups, particularly the ones wiped out in the aforementioned pandemics.

* Inverted with the chronicles of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England in the mid to late-5th century. All known records dating to the time of the Saxon migrations into the British Isles were written either by the Britons themselves, or historians sympathetic ''to'' the Britons (read: Christian monks and chroniclers). The main source dating to the period was Gildas, whose work was openly hostile and formed the basis of even the later ''Anglo-Saxon'' historians such as Bede. The Saxons themselves didn't begin keeping written records until a couple centuries later (the time of Bede). The Anglo-Saxons, therefore, received a significant HistoricalVillainUpgrade (''especially'' once they got tied into Arthurian myth).

** Of course, this [[GoneHorriblyRight backfired rather spectacularly]] when the Mongol successor khanates started falling from power themselves, as their absolutely ''horrendous'' [[ZeroProcentApprovalRating reputation]] caused many of their subjects to enact bloody revenge on not only them, but other steppe nomads as well. In particular, it has been theorized by various historians that the Russians in particular were so shell-shocked by the Mongol invasions, their relentless expansion eastwards was mainly motivated by a desire to [[NeverGetHurtAgain never get oppressed by any steppe nomads anymore.]]

* In 1862, the Prussian king aimed to increase the military budget, something the parliament denied him. The newly appointed chancellor UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck "solved" the crisis by disregarding the constitution and the rights of the parliament. He won the three wars that he provoked in the following decade, and today the Prussian constitutional crisis is merely a footnote in his ascension. Sometimes the winner decides, which part of history not to write.

* Subverted a few times where the events in question were much more important and significant to the losing side than to the winning one.

** UsefulNotes/TheCrusades was a huge deal for the Crusaders but for the Saracens and Arabs, it wasn't any big deal, at least not until rexently. Arab historians of the Middle Ages called it "the Frankish Wars" and saw it as a minor regional offshoot to the ongoing great game between Shia powers, Turks, UsefulNotes/{{Byzantine|Empire}}s and other groups. For them, it was not the big serious thing it was for the Christian knights. The biggest threat for them was the Mongols in the East and Baibars, the man who defeated the Mongols and set them back was their IconOfRebellion, not Saladin, who most of them didn't even know about. It was only in the 19th and 20th Century, in response to European colonialism, that the Arabs looked at the Crusades and they drew their view ''from Western historians'' like David Hume and others who in UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment came to see it as the OldShame of Europe. This was mostly driven by Arab nationalists who wanted to counter the demonization of racist imperialist propaganda, who naturally were keen to bring up the time when the Europeans were closer to the uncouth psychotic barbarians that they now painted them as.

* Completely {{inverted}} when it comes to the fall of the (Western) Roman Empire. For a long, ''long'' time, it was commonly thought that the end of the Roman Empire marked the end of "proper" Western civilization and the dawn of TheDungAges of ignorance, superstition, and religious dogma until the Renaissance miraculously brought classical values back to the forefront. Setting aside how the ''Eastern'' Roman Empire survived almost full thousand years after the fact, Western Roman Empire was a VestigalEmpire barely holding on by a thread, with Odoacer's Kingdom of Italy being essentially a MercyKill. In fact, in many cases, the "barbarian" invaders actually [[GoneNative almost fully assimilated into the local, Roman-influenced cultures,]] going as far as to speak the local Latinate languages and pursuing at least ''some'' degree of Roman law and traditions. The ill-fated attempts of ERE Emperor Justinian II to reform the Roman Empire as well as the [[ThePlague the Justinian plague]] arguably did more damage to the structures of late Antiquity mediterranean kingdoms than the fall of Rome, yet even now people still talk about the fall of Rome as a complete disaster - [[{{Irony}} most often the people who are descendants from the ones who toppled it in the first place.]]

** Creator/KarlMarx was the first to challenge what we call "the Great Man" idea of history by insisting that most historical events such as changes of Kings or battles between one dynasty or another were meaningless to the vast majority of the subject peoples on either side and that real history was changes in means of productions and social classes. Historians following on from Marx such as Fernand Braudel devised the concept of the "longue duree" which more or less put geography, trade, and economic activity into focus.

* The case of various Native American nations in North America. Whereas the predominant view was of "civilized" European people bringing civilization to the frontier by defeating the "savages," now the popular view is the tragedy of the Native Peoples fighting a HopelessWar against the rapacious European conquerors. In fact, evidence exists that North America actually had a very large native population before foreign illnesses brought over from Europe wiped out the vast majority of the people living there. By the time the settlers showed up for good, there were very few people left to resist them compared to before. It actually works the other way as well. A popular view of pre-Columbian Native Culture [[NobleSavage is one of great nobility and peace]]. While individual tribes may have been somewhat peaceful, tribes fought each other just as much as European states did and for the same reasons. One way to tell is by common tribal name. If the common name was given by the tribe itself, it likely means "the people" or something similar. If given a name by Europeans, it often refers to a nearby natural characteristic (lake, waterfall, etc...). If named by another tribe, there's a very good chance it means something close to "enemy". For instance, "Apache" possibly is from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". They call themselves the Indé. Some civilized groups, such as the Aztec,[[note]]It is additionally compounded that the Aztecs themselves had rewritten their own history less than a century before[[/note]] had a vast empire with cities, client states, brutal wars of conquest, and massive {{human sacrifice}}. Although they were likely outliers in terms of their violence, other indigenous civilizations also existed. However, diseases brought by the Europeans struck them most, as they had dense populations, while more dispersed and isolated groups were spared (initially at least). The plains tribes are often given the most focus in the US because they were the last to be conquered and forcibly put into reservations. Overall though, indigenous peoples in the Americas greatly varied, like everywhere else. Fictional depictions often gloss over the diversity (and conflicts). In fairness though, little is known of many groups, particularly the ones wiped out in the aforementioned pandemics.

* For some reason, Napoleon the master propagandist is considered a reliable witness of the era he helped shape, so his lapidary judgments on his contemporaries often take up a disproportionate amount of place. Even when he talks about his Republican rivals or potential rivals (Hoche, Desaix, Moreau, Kléber...). Of course, Napoleon did win over them.

** UsefulNotes/TheCrusades was a huge deal for the Crusaders but for the Saracens and Arabs, well until recently it wasn't any big deal. Arab historians of the Middle Ages called it "the Frankish Wars" and saw it as a minor regional offshoot to the ongoing great game between Shia powers, Turks, UsefulNotes/{{Byzantine|Empire}}s and other groups. For them, it was not the big serious thing it was for the Christian knights. The biggest threat for them was the Mongols in the East and Baibars, the man who defeated the Mongols and set them back was their IconOfRebellion, not Saladin, who most of them didn't even know about. It was only in the 19th and 20th Century, in response to European colonialism, that the Arabs looked at the Crusades and they drew their view ''from Western historians'' like David Hume and others who in UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment came to see it as the OldShame of Europe. This was mostly driven by Arab nationalists who wanted to counter the demonization of racist imperialist propaganda, who naturally were keen to bring up the time when the Europeans were closer to the uncouth psychotic barbarians that they now painted them as.