places

I used to believe that the U.S. was the only continent on Earth and that my bedroom was in the middle of the world.

Anon

Whenever we saw something that said "Made In USA" our dad told us that "Yoosa" (USA) was an island in the Pacific.

Brad

I grew up on the Georgia coast and whenever my family took me to the beach I thought if you looked really hard for long enough, you could see Africa across the Atlantic Ocean. I knew the world was round and not flat but still thought it was close enough to see across the ocean.

Stephen

When I was a child I used to believe that when I touched the floor cracks I would fall to the center of the earth.

Sara

My Dad told us that Bodmin Beacon (a granite war memorial in Cornwall) was Cornwall's "Coal-fired space rocket", and that it just never got off the ground. We believed him.

Dr. Boggis

When I was small my mom went to Vegas all the time. I thought it was the city made out of gold in the sky, because I would see the plan take off and not land. :)

jaycee

I thought that Armagh and Baghdad were next to each other because the names went together ('Our Ma' and , em, 'Bag Dad').

Esty

When I was about 10 (not sure how old exactly), I heard that I was moving to Pennsylvania. With a feeling of shock and horror, I replied with, "Isn't that where Dracula lives?" Of course my folks got a big kick out of this and said yes, refusing to replace PENNsylvaina with TRANsylvania.

J.T.

When I was a real little kid I thought that the modern-day American west was as it was portrayed in westerns. As an older kid I saw a movie in which in English kid believed this. I thought, "how stupid this kid is" until it jogged my memory about my own belief as a little kid. 

Rocketeer 

I used to believe that "left" and "right" were cardinal directions like "East" and "West." I would point with my left had and ask my mother if that was left or right. She'd tell me left. I'd then turn 180 degrees and point in the same direction with my right hand, and thought she must be lying when she told me that it was now "right".

Wayne Zeller

My younger sister believed until she was 15 that New England was in England... which I'm sure confused her when I refered to friends in New Jeresy and in New England in the same breath. lol

Pandy

When I was quite young I got really interested in studying my dad's Atlas. I thought that the British Isles were Australia & New Zeland because they were the shape of a kangaroo and a koala bear.

Claire

My dad used to tell me that there was always, (come rain or shine) a loan piper standing at Scotch Corner. And he'd played the pipes to tell you you'd got as far as Scotland. And this was true because my dad said so!

Suzie

i live probably 15 miles away from antietam battlefield (where one of the bloodiest battles of the american civil war ocurred) i can remember going on a field trip there when i was about 4. they told us about Bloody Lane. I was really scared to go there. I thought there would actually be blood everywhere...but confused and somewhat disappointed to find that it was now a bloodless paved walkway.

candy

I used to believe that if I put my finger on a map on the city I was in I could see my finger out the window!

Jenai

i used to believe that when the sun went down, it actually went down into the earth over in japan, and that's why it was called the land of the rising sun

danielle

When very young, I believed that Great Britain must be the largest country in the world, because it was actually made up of fours different countries.

Anon

I think until I was like 12 I thought there were only like 3 countries in the world: the U.S., Russia and China. The U.S. and Russia were on this side of the world, and China was on the other side. This separation was due to the well known 'fact' that if you dug a deep enough hole, you would end up on the other side other world, in China. And Russia was in there because I think our history books talked about the "Cold War" with Russia and how little kids used to have the drills in school to prepare in case of attack. I remember when I first looked at a world map, I was totally confused, I thought the map must be wrong or something, because I had this idea so entrenched in my head.
All, I can say is: Where were all the world maps in elementary school!?!?!?!?!

backward in america

When I was young I loved game shows. When they would announce that something or someone had been picked "at random" I thought random was an actual place.

Anon

When I was young, shredded wheat was made in Niagara Falls and the package had a picture of shredded wheat going over Niagara Falls. When I saw Niagara Falls for the first time at eight years old,I wondered where the shredded wheat was!

Norma