Stuff You Missed In History Class

The Great Fear was a panic during the French Revolution that spread through rural areas. It all started with a conspiracy theory. Research: Davies, Alun. “The Origins of the French Peasant Revolution of 1789.” History, 1964, Vol. 49, No. 165 (1964). https://www.jstor.org/stable/24404527 Elster, Jon. “The Two Great Fears of 1789.” Prepared for the Conference on “Emotions and Civil War”, Collège de France June 10-11 2010. https://www.college-de-france.fr/media/jon-elster/UPL13205_LePillouerThe_two_great_fears_of_1789.pdf Hill, Henry Bertram. “An Aftermath of the Great Fear.” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Dec. 1950). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1875896 Kasal, Krystal. “Mapping out France's 'Great Fear of 1789' shows how misinformation spreads like a virus.” Phys.org. 8/28/2025. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-france-great-misinformation-virus.html Lefebvre, Georges. “The Great Fear of 1789; rural panic in revolut