Apocryphal

[@TheHistoryGuyChannel]

Somewhat ironically I flubbed the very first line. Johnson supposedly ate the tomatoes in 1820- which is 203 years ago today, not 113. I apologize for the error.

[@rhuephus]

ok ... but don't let it happen again ...

[@robertgolding]

@TheHistoryGuyChannel I notice the outro music is still overly loud and drowns out what you are saying.

[@leeblake3989]

I was thinking, "There were a lot of Italians in the US by 1910 that used tomatoes."

[@debbieellett9093]

No worries, I knew what you meant. Have a great day and thank you for consistently great content!

[@georgewnewman3201]

life happens

[@brogeoti]

When my mother pointed to some factoid printed in our local newspaper one morning as proof of its apparent truth, my father's retort was simply, "Dorothy, don't you know that paper doesn't refuse ink?" Likewise, I suppose, the internet doesn't refuse postings.

[@jimbob3332]

Of course that tomato story is apocryphal, those things are deadly! My grandpa ate them all his life and he died at only 80 years old!

[@dougsmith3015]

Aah, the beginning of the attack of the killer tomatoes

[@iskandartaib]

​@@dougsmith3015Ah, THAT was a MOVIE! 😁

[@KN-cool]

Everything is edible but some things are only edible twice daily for 80 years 🤣🤣

[@georgewnewman3201]

and my father ate them all his life and died at 76, just days before turning 77, but then he also ate lettuce, onions, pickles, bread, sausage, bacon, eggs, gravy, oysters, hamburgers and many other foods all his life as well. Maybe all those foods are poison as well.🤣

[@stargazer5784]

What a shame. Cut down in his prime. SMH.

[@annehallock5370]

You're still and always will be, my favorite history teacher. Thanks for all the wonderful history stories you share. I have learned soooo much from watching your videos. The history education I sorely lacked.

[@lexiekensington1408]

What a brilliant essay. Some of the best contemporary writing I experience these days comes from this channel. Thank You so much.

[@garylefevers]

Agreed

[@christinaoconnor1523]

@@garylefevers I second that!

[@nanoRat]

My cousin recently told me that, while visiting Verona, he stumbled upon the actual balcony where Romeo proclaimed his love to Juliet.

[@joshroolf1966]

That's so sweet!!!😂😂😂 May he never learn the truth.🤞

[@emmitstewart1921]

That's not so ridiculous. Her house is known and women are still leaving messages to her in her garden. The question is whether the balcony proclamation actually happened or was made up by William Shakespeare as a means of telling the story of their love.

[@nanoRat]

@@emmitstewart1921 Romeo & Juliet NEVER existed. It is pure fiction created by William Shakespeare. He borrowed parts of the story from a French translation of an Italian bedtime story that did not take place in Verona but Siena. That house & garden in Verona is nothing but a tourist trap.

[@alancourtney4000]

Excellent synopsis. Fables are made to illustrate or prove a point. But when people miss the point, the fable becomes apocryphal and the point is lost? THG's final point to "Just do our best" is the best point ever made! Well done!

[@cjpenning]

You could make an entirely new channel on this subject. "History that deserves to be forgotten."

[@deborahbarry8250]

That is a great idea...let me know when it's on 😅

[@goodun2974]

But if you talk about such history, will it ever be forgotten? 🤔😉

[@deborahbarry8250]

@@goodun2974 without history what would we know? To do it again or not...that is the question 🤔🥴

[@goodun2974]

@@deborahbarry8250 , As he aged and his health started to deteriorate, my dad used to say "if I had it to do all over again ---- I wouldn't do it!".

[@georgewnewman3201]

Look, guys, "warts" and all, it is still our history. There is a story that during WW2 Eisenhower formed a special G-2 Army Intelligence unit and charged them with documenting everything they could about the concentration camps as they encountered them because he foresaw that sometime in the future "someone will say this never happened!"

[@JamesSmith-uc8tk]

The part about the point of the story is wher the value lies reminds me of The Simpsons episode where they find out Jebediah Springfield was actually a bad guy. However, the apocryphal story of Jebediah Springfield brings everyone together.

[@jliller]

If it takes lies to make someone happy then they deserve to be miserable.

[@georgewnewman3201]

"You played it for her, you can play it for me!" - actual line from Casablanca.

[@sandybarnes887]

Ilsa : Play it once, Sam. For old times' sake. Sam : [lying] I don't know what you mean, Miss Ilsa. Ilsa : Play it, Sam. Play "As Time Goes By."

[@Andrewm714]

The History Guy gets extra credit for 'Boink'. (I just about snorted my morning coffee out my nose.)

[@almitydave]

It is the sound of Scientific Progress, after all.

[@gerardtrigo380]

This points to the fact that it is so important to teach children critical thinking skills and give them a good "baloney detection kit."

[@jvleasure]

Harder than ever today.

[@dugroz]

Read the old books!

[@richardklug822]

"Believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear"... from "I Heard It Through the Grapevine".

[@adequatemagic]

"You played it for her, you can play it for me. If she can take it, I can take it. So, play it."

[@whispernorbury7985]

Ever since I was a kid, my takeaway from the story of Washington chopping down the cherry tree has been that Little George was a troublemaker for cutting the tree down in the first place.

[@markadams7046]

As Bart Ehrman would say, "History isn't the past, history is what we can show."

[@georgewnewman3201]

Yes, history is what we can show documented proof about, the rest is old wives tales and family legends.🤨

[@markadams7046]

@@georgewnewman3201 No, the rest may or may not have happened, we just can show that it happened. Just because we can't show that something happened, doesn't mean it didn't happen, nor does it mean that it did.

[@georgewnewman3201]

@@markadams7046 I did not mean to imply that it didn't happen without proof that it did. What I meant was something like this: my family has some tales that have come down through the generations, but the proof was lost because the story was repeated orally and never written down by the actual witnesses, so that say 200 years later, when I go to research the story, I can't find the proof. Example: was the Lt John Smith who served aboard HMS Africa at the Battle of Trafalgar the same John Smith who died in TN in 1823 and was a double brother-in-law to Duncan Brown (father of two TN governors Neil Smith and John C Brown); family and local legends say yes, but documentation of the fact is not there or is in repositories so far away it might as well not exist.

[@rsr789]

@@markadams7046 COULD have happened does it make it true though. The moment to accept something is true is AFTER you have demonstrable evidence, not before.

[@rsr789]

Ironic since Bart Ehrman is convinced of things that are in the gospels as history even though there is no way for him to show it, as they are written by anonymous authors at least 30 years after the events, in a completely different language, with a barrage of provable commonplace mistakes. If only he would take his own advice.

[@mj99a]

as a lifelong fan of history/myth and legend, your philosophical and insightful wrap up made this my favorite HG vid ever. lots to think about. thank you.

[@RailfanDownunder]

Never let truth get in the way of a good story..... Superb work again sir - fascinating

[@stevereightler4126]

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” ― George Orwell, 1984

[@goodun2974]

" So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past". F Scott Fitzgerald, from "The Great Gatsby"

[@alex0589]

"who misquotes and and mis-attributes words controls nothing, it's all chaos, chimps in the mud, fighting for a banana" -Me, 2023

[@briseboy]

All liars attempt to control the past; one could thus accurately say they live there, captured by their delusion. who controls youtube should control the vacuous quoters who seem to infest it, spamming uncontrollably their absence of anything worth saying.

[@deathwrenchcustom]

You know that he stole that line from a Rage Against the Machine song, right?

[@VarangianGuard13]

​@deathwrenchcustom Orwell wrote that line before Rage Against the Machine wrote the song "Testify," the presence of that line in their song is itself a reference to Orwells work. George Orwell wrote his novel "1984" in the year 1949, while that specific song and album by Rage Against the Machine came out in 1999.

[@marcfiore4319]

While it is inevitable, I suppose, that the subject of today’s episode might cause you to have some misgivings about the TRUTH of some of the supposed FACTS which you have propounded over the years, never let that overshadow the importance of the general narrative of the History which you have so ably - and entertainingly - presented to your grateful audience over the years! Thank you for all you have done to keep History alive!

[@AndrewJonkers]

Apocryphal: In modern terms, plausible spin with a deniability exit strategy.

[@jeffdillon8816]

Very timely sir and definitely food for thought. When so many want to dismiss parts of our past it is definitely worrisome what our current times might look like when the future looks back at us. Or what that future itself might look like.

[@johnbenson4672]

In early ST fan conventions, Nichol Nichols would tell the story of being frustrated with her limited role in Star Trek and imagining what Martin Luther King would say to her as a black actress who at least had a consistent presence on a network show.. The story grew (helped by Nichol in her later years) to her actually meeting MLK. I love NN and she is the first lady of Star Trek, but that story first took place in her bathroom.

[@KAZVorpal]

I love this episode: I've been curating quotations for thirty years, and I always insist on finding the original quote in context in some text, otherwise I won't use it no matter how much I like it, or if I do I include its dubious credentials, specifically. Like "first attributed to [person] by [author]". I've had to surrender many of my favorite quotes, and also learned to recognize when the wording isn't actually contemporary to the speaker. I get the feeling that the Monticello website spends most of their time writing up apocryphal Thomas Jefferson quotes warnings.

[@brianfisher4858]

That's one of your most profound refections I've seen you do. Thanks!

[@TheHistoryGuyChannel]

Thank you!

[@theoldgrowler3489]

Outstanding perspective.

[@brettd3206]

1820 seems to be a very late date for tomato introduction. Italian ancestors were using them throughout the 18th century. Also, cajuns were using the veg/fruit for many dishes, also. I make a jambalaya that is supposedly based on a Thomas Jefferson family recipe.

[@goodun2974]

Cortez found tomatoes being grown by the Aztecs in South America and brought them back to Spain and Europe and various Spanish colonies, where cultivation of them began in the 1540s. The first tomatoes brought to the old world were probably yellow and very small, almost like berries.

[@jasonsilverman3125]

This is why professional historians, and teaching historiography, with the skills to know, find, and analyze primary sources, is so important.

[@cmciff4054]

Love this episode and your thoughts on myth and history.

[@goodun2974]

Another apocryphal-adjacent movie line, as it originally appeared: [Ransom Stoddard:] " You're not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?". [Maxwell Scott:] " No sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend". From "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance". This has been subsequently misquoted, misremembered, and modified, such as by novelist Larry McMurtry ---- "when you had to choose between history and legend, print the legend" ---- and film critic Richard Schickel: "when the truth becomes legend, print the legend".

[@hrhqueene]

This is one of the best episodes of THG in the years I’ve been watching.

[@75RWM]

"So to speak..." perfect.

[@theoccidilian4896]

My professors taught that even we, as scientists, form belief systems. You can only experience so much, and you try to connect the dots.

[@PelenTan]

As to the Newton and apple story, the "boink" makes it memorable. The only thing that could make it better is if it involved pirates.

[@goodun2974]

Cannonballs fired at other ships do not land on their target with a boink!

[@robertwazniak9495]

The Newton and the apple story can’t be true because gravity wasn’t invented until Newton invented it years later.😂

[@hammer-fn7gm]

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.😂

[@rhuephus]

or as the tRUMPubliKKKLans say "make up your own fake truth"

[@goodun2974]

" A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can put its boots on". Mark Twain

[@caroleweisbrod5464]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a very careful historian. I, for one, would love to see more videos about historical terms just like this one.

[@calvillj]

"Tomato, tomato" - LOL. Thank you for this enlightening episode!

[@darriendastar3941]

Glorious debunking. I remember being told (and later repeating) the tomato story - except that it happened in Paris in the 18th century! The truth is more palatable.

[@aymann7234]

I always heard it was Thomas Jefferson...

[@theemmjay5130]

As palatable as a ripe tomato, one might say.

[@davidelack8809]

Thank you so much for not using the ai garbage. as a fan of the olde west I find far too many videos purporting to be accurate and honest .... frankly neither. The spread of disinformation or just plain nonsense is staggering. Unfortunately young people as a rule either don't know or care , they just want 15 seconds of entertainment. I agree that is painting with a very broad brush, but that has been my experience listening to conversations among the 20-30 somethings I work with. Your commitment to truth is refreshing,I never regret watching your videos or wish to get the time back I invested. You are a gentleman and a scholar!

[@kraneiathedancingdryad6333]

You had me at "defiant munch" 🍅

[@robertwazniak9495]

The Charles Kuralt of the digital age. Thank you for everything, even with the errors.

[@thefoss5387]

Lance, I love your work. My favorite apocryphal story was an attempt to give weight to a historical moment, as well as a bowdlerization of the actual quote. Battle of Waterloo, the Imperial Guard has been forced to retreat. The Brits have called on the defeated guardsmen to surrender. There is a conflict as to who actually responded to the surrender demand, General Pierre Cambronne is usually credited, although it may have, actually, been, General Claude-Etienne Michel, "La Garde meurt mais ne se rend pas!" ("The Guard dies but does not surrender!"). The General's actual response (from some British sources)? "Merde!"

[@davemechanic1]

I don't know how I found you History guy but I love all your work. Please never stop. Much love and appreciation from New jersey 💯👍🤙

[@markthomas6980]

My dad grew the best tomatoes.. He ate many tomatoes. Thousands of them. They are deadly though, they killed him at 95 years old.

[@rhuephus]

breathing air can kill ya, too ...

[@goodun2974]

If he ate the tomatoes plain except for a bit of salt sprinkled on them, perhaps it was the salt that killed him at age 95.....😉

[@108u9]

Apocryphal tale: The History Guy in June 2023: Hold my philosophy textbook

[@GarthKlein]

This shows us the importance of differentiating between data, facts, and truth, none of which, when properly understood, are subjective.

[@patrickpilkington6241]

Such an outstanding presentation and delivery in each and every video. THG delivers something classically conveyed in my opinion.

[@bayoumanbryan]

As a follower of a few months i hereby "DECLARE YOU THE NEW PAUL HARVEY" may you have a long and prosperous career Sir!

[@TripleCrossProduct]

My Brother, all I can tell you, is, say what you believe and listen to HOLY SPIRIT, you will never be led astray. I love your work and thank you very much, GOD BLESS.

[@williambabbitt7602]

Once we get an idea in the war heads, whether it’s real, or not suddenly takes a backseat as to how interesting is it? That’s what makes you such a really good historian, because you can make a fact it might otherwise be forgotten, and dull into an exciting part of our own history. this causes us to think about history and a whole different way. History is not about what we really know, but what we think we know. If we could just keep those two separate, we might find ourselves in a lot less difficulty with each other.

[@adizmal]

The term you're looking for is historicity.

[@adreabrooks11]

"Death-defying noshing of love apples" may be my favourite phrase I've heard you utter! Also: I guess that consultant wasn't such a stickler after all...

[@mrb3405]

What Dr. Valara forgets when doing an analysis of history is that history only works as a discipline when someone WANTS to tell the stories forward. Thus, while he might have a firm grasp of the evidence from the past (that the rest of us cannot match), he misses the most important point: your channel is doing more for history because of your passion for the topic, engaging style, and amicable disposition than he ever can or will with his tenacious clinging to an ironclad and lifeless methodology.

[@leeblake3989]

In the John Wayne movie, "Legend of Liberty Valance", the newspaper man, after hearing the truth of the legend says, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend". Also John Wayne. He is often misquoted as saying, "A mans got to do what a mans got to do." In "Hondo" he said, "A mans got to do what he thinks is right".

[@cybersean3000]

Many myths and legends not only teach lessons, but are rooted in some kind of truth.

[@christinaoconnor1523]

Excellent presentation History Guy!

[@DouglasJenkins]

An apocryphal tomato story ... food for thought!

[@costrio]

We now call these things "urban legends" but they can be dangerous, especially when it comes to witch hunts, IMO.

[@briseboy]

Ahoy, Captain Imo! You may call, and still remain unheard.

[@georgemckenna462]

The tomato or French "Love Apple", without which the pizza and other earthly delights would not be possible.

[@rhuephus]

um ,, pizza is made from dough .. #duh

[@goodun2974]

There are of course pizzas made without tomatoes or tomato-based pizza sauce, but I prefer pizza with the added acidity and tartness of tomatoes. I generally prefer pasta that way as well, but there is definitely a place in my heart for pesto based pasta meals!

[@dirtcop11]

The idea that tomatoes were poisonous is from the fact that tomatoes are related to nightshade, which is poisonous. The confusion is understandable.

[@goodun2974]

The stems and leaves of the tomato plant smell kind of like oregano but are indeed toxic.

[@davidfriedman4979]

Terrific episode!

[@mikmik9034]

I heard the tomato story, as in New York City on a stoop. The NYC had outlawed tomato plants and the fruit as poisonous, and the guy ate one to prove it not.

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

"Play it Sam, play that song..."

[@frankgulla2335]

What a fabulous episode. Thank you, Mr. History Guy

[@WildWestGal]

Brilliant script, THG, especially for the times in which we now find ourselves.

[@susiegardener]

In the Weems account, the tree was "severely barked," not cut down, although it would eventually die from the experience. Furthermore, George cried, "I can't lie to you, Pa! You know I can't!" when his father lined the children up and asked each one who had done it. This would seem to me much more likely than a small boy's evincing superhuman strength by cutting down a tree with a small hatchet, and I'm glad he wasn't portrayed as an intolerable goody-goody who said, "I cannot tell a lie." I've read many writers' accounts purportedly debunking this story, but yours is the first I've seen by someone who seems to have read the original source material.

[@jliller]

Weems is infamous as a biographer. He's almost almost single-handed responsible for popularizing "Swamp Fox" Francis Marion with a biography full of embellishment and fabrication.

[@therob4371]

That was beautifully done. An excellent treatment of a sensitive subject. Thank you.

[@greggbaker7120]

Thank You

[@kurtsinger4763]

I think the episode is best taken as a warning to us, the consumers of modern media.

[@andyb1653]

When it comes to the George Washington cherry tree myth, as legendary as the story is I refuse to believe a 6-year-old chopped down a goddamn tree by themselves.

[@hobgoblinhollow4966]

I had to resist kicking my grandsons bum to the moon when his 7 year old self chopped 6 inches into a 3 n half ft center trunk of an 40 ft poplar. A cherry tree would have been long dropped

[@andyb1653]

@@hobgoblinhollow4966 Then your grandson must've been one beast of a kid. My 6-year-old nephew couldn't take out a poplar sapling with a stick of dynamite.

[@williamromine5715]

The story doesn't say how big the cherry tree was. A sapling would be pretty vulnerable to a kid with a hatchet. Kids back then would have been familiar with hatchets. One of my father's jobs at that age in the early 1920s was to chop kindling for the wood stove in rural Oklahoma farm.

[@constipatedinsincity4424]

I could've been stewed this evening 😕 but I'll have to Catsup !

[@rhuephus]

no, cuz you're a little behind. What? I don't have a little behind. What are you hiding behind there ?? Where? Over there ..

[@goodun2974]

​@@rhuephus, Constipated could be cured by ingesting some STEM research.....ingestion of tomato plant stems can cure you of Life.

[@allenvaughan1]

Gary, this was an excellent episode!

[@rhuephus]

who is Gary ??

[@rhuephus]

don't know Gary .. who is he ?

[@BX138]

The history guy's name is Lance.

[@jz55859]

This is a very interesting subject that could be parsed further. Thank you for this!

[@tonyadams6375]

Another wonderful video! Your writing and verbiage is wonderful. Bravo!

[@johnstevenson9956]

One can only hope that there will be a website dedicated to showing potential historians which stories are apocryphal and which stories have at least some sustaining evidence. And one can only hope that potential historians will use it.

[@janerkenbrack3373]

Good to offer a general awareness to apocrypha. Thinking about the validity of a claim, or the accuracy of an attribution, might give people some pause about repeating sensational stories as true. In my experience there is often some sort of truth behind these apocryphal legends. It is often not even related to the tale at all, but borrowed from elsewhere as a tool for the moment. Writing a book about the integrity of our first President, it is possible an author would want to show that integrity to be a core principal of the man from childhood. Whether or not he chopped down the cherry tree and admitted the deed doesn't change the recorded actions of of Washington as General or as President. If anything, his later life seems a confirmation of the legend's authentic nature, if not it's actual truth. As to Stowe and Lincoln, the idea that her book, Uncle Tom's Cabin raised the conscious of the country to the plight of slaves in the years preceding the Civil War, is reasonable to believe. And it is not unrealistic that Lincoln might acknowledge the importance of her book in the times they faced. But the quote as we hear it could easily be the progressive refinement of misremembered or presumed dialog. It needn't ever be true that it happened, but it remains true that the book had some effect on the minds of people in their support for stopping the rebellion. Sometimes it is worthwhile to focus on why such claims would be invented and what they are trying to promote, rather than if they are accurate as reported. After all, as Lincoln also said, "you can't trust the internet when it quotes me."

[@Wingone18]

One Tomato story that is very true is the Fact, according to New Jersey Magazine, is Patti Scialfa aka Mrs. Bruce Springsteen single handedly saved the Jersey Tomato from extinction by finding the very last seeds and carefully planting them on her farm, tending to them and saving them from complete extinction! Thank you Ma'am! ❤

[@cpnscarlet]

Excellent and important episode.

[@johnashleyhalls]

So this is the origin of alternate facts in the U.S.A. I remember having the story of the "Dreaded Wolf Peach" in my Canadian schooling, the seeds will sprout inside you, the skin will coat your stomach, and the juice will dissolve your flesh. And the teacher did not point out that the story was apcrypha/satire.

[@tomh6183]

I have come to the conclusion that you my not always be right,but certainly you are never wrong.Thank you so much.

[@mellissadalby1402]

This is a really good episode.

[@rickharold7884]

Great story. Tomatoes are pure evil. Except when turned into pizza, ketchup, another fun things ha ha

[@debbieellett9093]

My brother in law loves all Italian dishes, yet he won't eat a raw tomato, lol! Makes no sense to me😄

[@Aramis419]

When I was in college, not TOO many years ago, I had to do a presentation on....something, I forget what, that I didn't want to do, so I made it all up. The professor goes, "Wow, is that really the truth?" "Truth? That's down the hall in philosophy. I thought we were here to study fact." She kicked me out! HAHA!

[@jliller]

That story sounds apocryphal.

[@theboyisnotright6312]

🤔pretty sure that happened at my college😂😂🤥

[@MarshOakDojoTimPruitt]

thanks

[@jamielondon6436]

12:03 What The History Guy meant to say here was: "… to make the story go more boink." ;-)

[@-jeff-]

Is apocrypha more about what people want to be true becoming their truth? If so then we are apt to be living in the new age of apocrypha. So thanks THG for the warning.

[@ernestsmith3581]

Today, Fort Worth, Tx claiming to be "The place where the cattle drives began." and Nebraska claiming to be "The Beef State" brings a quiet smile to the faces of those of us who live in South Texas.

[@patrickjordan2233]

Myth/mythology is humans doing/saying tropes...? Just because a myth becomes culturally ingrained, doesn't necessarily mean it's factually and historically accurate... Sometimes...a joke can overtake reality...

[@stevedietrich8936]

THG starts out with an error in the first sentence, which he has noted in the pinned comment. THG, it's not how you start that's important, but how you finish This line has been attributed to Jim George, but in consideration of todays video, that attribution may well be apocryphal.

[@michaelfaklis8169]

Very good episode! I hope history will note purpose misrepresentations as in "Alternative Facts". It makes me wonder how many people actually believe that Abraham Lincoln really was a vampire hunter. We must do what we can to help people to distinguish facts, fiction, and lies.

[@nolanbrown84]

It's not the tomatoes I worry about. It's the beets!! That's all they had to feed those guys in the Civil War and they're all dead now!!

[@rhuephus]

and those other beats can kill you. but only if it's done by a big stick. Not to mention all that lead poisoning

[@goodun2974]

​@@rhuephus, Walking past a local farm where the workers had a radio playing, I was nearly devoured by the beats of the field....😂

[@skyden24195]

My favorite reference to the apocryphal Marie Antoinette "Let them eat cake" scenario is also the first time I had heard of the a ledged statement from the queen. That reference being included in 1989 film, "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure," in which a classmate of Bill & Ted is briefly shown giving a portion of her graduation-required, oral presentation of historic figures' speculative opinion of the modern (1989) world, (i.e. the catalyst for Bill & Ted's most excellent adventure.) In her presentation, the student suggests that instead of Marie Antoinette saying, "Let them eat cake." the queen would have said, "Let them eat fast food."

[@richardvickers8117]

Excellent.

[@CarolCrabtree-h9t]

I know without doubt that the tomato story is apocryphal because I am from the city of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, otherwise known as "The Birthplace of the Tomato." Alexander W. Livingston, plant breeder, horticulturist and seed merchant, who became internationally known through his development of the tomato. The first known variety of the tomato was the Paragon produced by Livingston by selection and crossing in a field of many varieties. His house is today a museum documenting his contributions to the development of the tomato. So there!

[@51WCDodge]

A little story: In Jersey channel Island's for many years tomatoes were grown out side. The feilds were lined with wodden crosses. A line of string was run across the bars of the crosses and the tomatoes grown up them. The story is a Tourist was heard to remark 'Jersey must be very unhealthy! Look at all the graveyards about' . Apocryphal? Oh I hope not! 🤣

[@goodun2974]

Well, that's the Jersey Channel Islands. Sone parts of New Jersey USA are most definitely unhealthy!

[@51WCDodge]

@@goodun2974 🤣 Well De Cartret was pirate! Though he'd have said he was a 'Privateer'. And as us on the Little Rock follwed the tradition, you Yanks got the French to invade us in 1781. THG has done the Vid. 😇

[@ricksaint2000]

Thank you History Guy

[@davidhilton1054]

I couldn’t wait to visit Crete last year. All I wanted to do was pet the Minotaur. I was very disappointed :(

[@kennethhigh8228]

As a youngster, I was told that the colonel didn't eat the tomatoes, but he made his wife eat them!

[@RetiredSailor60]

Good morning from HOT Ft Worth TX History Guy and everyone watching. Stay cool all

[@stevenrisso5535]

The last three minutes of this episode gives much food for thought, well d9ne

[@geoben1810]

Geez! What's a BLT sandwich without tomatoes?! Just Imagine, I mean, there would never have BEEN BLT sandwiches!!! And history would never have evolved to the present day of being able to eat a BLT sandwich with a hot bowl of tomato soup on a cold winter day! Certainly this is history that deserves to be remembered. ✌🙂🇺🇸