history

I used to believe that in Texas and California and Idaho they still had slavery, becuase my 1st grade teacher had told us that slavery didn't exist anymore, except fro in some "very far away places." Those were the farthest-away places I could think of then. So funny!

R

I thought there were no pirates alive today!

Sp' Iyulgar

I used to believe that all autobiographies ended in a string of gibberish because I only ever read biographies of dead people so I assumed that an account of the subject's death was a necessary part of a biography and there was no way someone writing an autobiography would be able to get out the full account of their own death before collapsing at their keyboard.

Roger

I used to believe that the lady in a long white dress and blue sash holding a flame in her hand ...( I think it's Columbia Pictures.. please tell me if I am wrong).. any way I thought she was the Queen of England

Wombat

In our Kindergarten class, we were discussing the upcoming coronation of Queen Elizabeth (II, wise guy) in England. The teacher asked what she was before she was a queen. A girl answered, "a princess." The only princess I had ever heard of was the Indian Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring on the "Howdy Doody" children's show. I thought that meant that the Queen had been an Indian and used to dress in buckskin and had had long, braided hair which was cut when she became queen.

C.C.

I used to believe that historical movies were made while the real thing was happening. Like when a country would go into a battle one of the knights on horseback would be carrying a video camera and taping it all for history. I was very disappoointed when I learned that I hadn't been watching the real King Arthur and Julius Caesar but just people pretending to be the. What a rip-off!

Lyssa

This is horrible, but...when I was a little kid and I was learning about the civil rights movement in elementary school, I assumed that the "Brown" in Brown v. Board of Education signified brown skin, and that this brown-skinned person was speaking on behalf of all brown-skinned people! It made sense at the time...

Cat

I used to think that in the past, everything was black and white - there was no colour. So I'd always ask my mum 'when did the world get colour?'

Vee

When i was a little boy, our teacher asked if we knew hwo IBSEN was. (Henrik Ibsen is one of the most famous norwegian writers (19th century))

Well, I didn't now. But i thougt it had somthing to do with ISBN (Internationnal Standard of Book Numbers (or somthing like that)). I had seen that word on the backside of schoolbooks many times, but I was wise enough not to mention it..

Aikheel

A friend of muine said that he used to think that in the 20's and 30's people speed-walked everywhere they went, because that's how everyone walked in all the old news reels. Of course that was because the cameras weren't timed right.

mike, Sarasota

Every November in primary school we were told the story of Guy Fawkes. Except that I never saw the name written out, only heard it spoken, and so I thought it was Guy FOX. I started to think of him as the fox from the Disney "Robin Hood." He seemed sneaky enough!

lynne

When I was much younger my family visited Monticello on a trip to Virgina. This was way before I learned any American history in school. Anyways, I distinctly remember that during the guided tour I kept insisting to my parents that Thomas Jefferson was just upstairs asleep. I have no idea why I was so convinced he was still around... I guess I hadn't had any experience with death yet. I was POSITIVE that he was in the house and just didn't want to see us (forget trying to make me understand he would be hundreds of years old). I guess I just assumed that since it was house someone lived there. The concept of a museum celebrating an important figure in American History was lost on me. A few years later we went to the Hermitage. Seeing Andrew Jackson impersonator walking around the grounds there didn't help matters much either.

Suzanne

I used to thing that vikings lived 50 years ago.

Sigrid

For some reason I thought Hannibal was a Rastafarian man who rode an elephant up a mountain to help freedom of speech.

rosie

I used to think that when I saw something in a photograph that it was trapped in there forever. This belief began when I was about 5 and my older sister were looking at a photo that had my blankie in the background. She convinced me I'd never see it again...how cruel!

L

I used to believe the Wall Street Crash of 1929 was a literal car crashing into a bank.

Anon

I first heard about Hitler when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. I mixed him up with the painter Whistler. At some point I said something about Hitler being a painter and an adult said yes, he was that and alot more. (True-- Hitler was a failed artist.) When I finally found out about Hitler's deeds, I was horrified-- and very embarrassed that I'd gotten this so confused! Sorry Whistler......

Ellen Levitt

I used to be convinced that Abraham Lincoln had been the first president of the United States. I held onto that belief for years, even in the face of overwhelming proof.

Andi

in 3rd grade, my sister's class was learning about the presidents of the united states. one kid, David, (who, by the way, grew up to be a huge pothead) was confused by the two pictures of Grover Cleveland (the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms) on the poster (which showed all the presidents by order of term). My sister patiently explained to him that the map was actually a misprint, and that the second photo was of Grover Cleveland's twin brother Clover Cleveland, who also served as president. Little David felt enlightened by this information, and when the teacher asked the class "who can tell me about Grover Cleveland", he jumped up in his seat, raised his hand in the air, and shouted out, "ooh, ooh! Those are the twins, right?" The teacher had no clue what he was talking about! We still hang out, and he will DEFINATELY never live it down!

santeria

I used to think that the year zero was when God created the earth, and that everything, (dinosaurs becoming extinct, kings and queens, photographs becomeing colour) had happened in the roughly 2000 years since then. I remember trying to tell my Dad, there was once a year zero, and being really surprised not only that he already knew, but that it wasn't what I thought it was.

Theresa