If I had my history website…

… this would be something I would post to that blog.

Apparently, students tend to remember historical inaccuracies as fact if they saw them in a movie.  Duh.  Of course they do… I’m not sure why a psychologist needed to tell me that.  As a student of history, my professors often reminded us not to believe everything in historical movies, and they often took the time to point out the inaccuracies in popular movies.  However, I am glad there is a psychologist out there to tell us what we already know.  According to Mr. Butler:

…there's something really special about watching a film that lets people retain information from that film, even when they had read a contradictory account in the textbook.

My theory that that “something really special” is that you are watching it happen.  I mean, let’s think about it… if you saw an accident happen, you would remember it better than if someone just told you what happened.  This is common sense, right? 

Take this as a warning, and don’t say that I didn’t tell you that:

moviegoers might do well to take the Hollywood words "inspired by true events" with a very large pinch of salt.

via msnbc