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Most People Picture History Wrong, These Facts Will Set them Straight

Khalid Elhassan April 25, 2020 34 min

Franklin D. Roosevelt - Joseph Stalin — The Big Three of Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, at the Tehran Conference in 1943. Rare Historical Photos

16. Birth of a Fake Robin Hood Legend

Brothers Jesse, left, and Frank James. St. Louis Post Dispatch

During the period of his early crime spree, Jesse James allied with the editor and founder of the Kansas City Time, which opposed Missouri’s Republican governor. The newspaper then took to falsely portraying Jesse as a Robin Hood figure driven by ideals, and not just greed and bloodthirstiness. In reality, there is no evidence that the gang had ever shared its loot with any outside their immediate personal circle. Nonetheless, the portrayal fell on receptive ears, particularly in the pro-Southern parts of Missouri.

The Pinkerton Agency was hired to go after the James-Younger Gang, but when two of its agents were killed, the agency’s founder, Allan Pinkerton, turned it into a vendetta. During a raid on the James household soon thereafter, a bomb was thrown that killed one of Jesse’s brothers, and severed his mother’s arm.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.