Your weekly fact-checks
This is our first week with only true statements!
#Other
True: More people are killed annually by cows than sharks.
Worldwide only 5 shark attacks resulting in fatalities have been reported in 2022 and cases have been declining for decades. In the US alone around 100 cattle-ranching-related fatal injuries have been recorded in 2021. (Source: Snopes)
True: Egas Moniz, the inventor of the controversial lobotomy technique for treating mentally ill patients (particularly people with schizophrenia), was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1949 for his work.
While it is true that Moniz was awarded for a controversial procedure, his win should be taken into context. At the time it was considered by many scientists as a good solution because the alternative was seen as worse: mental asylums filled with patients who were mistreated and often subjected to physical violence. However, the procedure also had increasingly poor results, and scientists turned their backs on it by the 1950s. (Source: Snopes)
True: The 1960 writers’ and actors’ strike resulted in healthcare, pensions, and residuals on broadcast film.
It can be argued that joint striking led to historic gains for workers in the industry. The 1960 actors and writers strike did indeed result in access to residuals from films broadcast on television, health and pension benefits. (Source: Snopes)
True: Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Ratzinger in Germany in 1927, was a member of the Hitler Youth.
When Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) turned 14 in 1941 in Germany, he was legally required to join the Hitler Youth. (Source: Snopes)
True: In the early 1940s, Hispanic homesteaders in Los Alamos, New Mexico, were forced off their land by the U.S. government and offered little to no compensation to make way for the Manhattan Project
About this rating While recollections vary about the length of time the Hispanic homesteaders were given to leave their lands, it is true that they were removed abruptly and offered little to no compensation for their loss. As the highly anticipated film "Oppenheimer" was release (Source: Snopes)
#WTF?! What The Fact?! of the week
Mostly-True: Florida “decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery.”
In a section in social studies about the duties and trades performed by enslaved people, the state adopted a clarification that said "instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit." Experts on Black history said that such language is factually misleading and offensive. (Source: PolitiFact)
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