politics

I seriously believed for some time that Watergate was about a huge (and apparently long-lasting!) flood caused by the president who had screwed up and left a big Gate open and lots of Water came through it, which explained why people were mad at him. I was convinced that this had all been on the news. My guess now is that I had been seeing TV reports about major flooding on the East Coast in 1972 from Hurricane Agnes, at about the same time as the Watergate burglary, so when they started talking about Watergate, I just combined the news stories in my mind...

Cheri

I used to believe that communist is someone who wears weird military uniform, grows a bushy moustache (I watched too many films in primary school) and hates Church and religion - so since my neighbour never goes to church and isn't shy to tell he doesn't believe in God, I was convinced that he is civil form of communist. Then when in school, at history lesson, our teacher told as that communist countries like Soviet Union or Northern Korea were to blame for genocides of millions and that communism is the most bloody form of governing in history. I was scared like hell because putting two and two together I came to conclusion that we live next to insane murderer!

Still not leftwinger

I thought Richard Nixon was God because he could interrupt any TV show, even on public television (this was during Watergate when I was 7 or 8; tricky dick was on TV a lot then)

Anon

I used to believe that a ballot is just a blank piece of paper where you write the name of who you vote for in giant letters.

Trisha Gaurav

My 18 year old brother thought the former vice president was named Al Gorbachov.

Jeff

I used to believe that there weren't any private quarters in the White House. That is, that the president and his family actually lived in the big ballrooms and such.

Anon

i used to believe that Margeret Thatcher was the queen (because of the amount of coverage on TV) and that Great Britain was the only land in the world surrounded by endless sea.. i put this down to the weather updates on TV, which one day confused the hell out of me when it zoomed out to europe...what planet was this??!

My older sister also used to believe that the world in 'olden times' was actually black and white as shown on the TV.

Greig (Torquay)

i used to believe that everytime we elected a president was because the old one died!!:)

angel

I used to believe that politicians actually ran (like in a race) for office.

m

I used to believe that "the bomb" was literally one bomb and resided in the White House, and I was fearful that some cleaning lady might drop it when dusting and that would be the end of us.

tcbyrd

When I was younger, every year on the fourth of July, my dad would ask me to help him put the flag up on the front of our house. My father is a civil war buff, and because of that, we had been to Gettysburg many times by the time of this particular incident and I knew about Lincoln and was particularly fascinated by him because he was talking in the wax museum. :-O Anyway, I was helping my father, and I drooped the flag a bit too low. He said to me "Don't droop the flag, you'll make Lincoln angry!" All I could picture in my head was a giant Lincoln head in the sky, steaming from his ears, yelling obscenities commanding the Union Army to attack me because I drooped the flag. I never helped my dad again.

Renae

I thought every single organisation had a government observer and the entire nation was working for some sort of plan that all the adults were hiding from us.

MP

If you lost a Presidential election, you had to leave the country. This came from me mishearing the words "lead the country" from a TV ad talking about the election that was going on back then.

Anon

Growing up in the early 70s I used to think that England was part of America. My father would have the radio news on every morning, and all they would talk about was President Nixon, Watergate and Americans fighting in Vietnam.

David Coppin

When I was young, I believed that Abe Lincoln had a tail.
The reason for this is perfectly logical (or it was at the time). When you flip a coin you say "Heads or tails!", right? So I figured out that while the front half of the penny depicted Lincoln's head, the back half was a picture of his tail.

Bash

I used to believe the president of the United States sat upon a throne and ruled like a king. The only difference was his garb-- he wore a suit and tie instead of a robe and a crown.

David

When i was in kindergarten George Bush was president(the first George Bush) and there was this kid in my class whos last name was bush and i thought he was the president's kid.

j

i used to think that groucho marx and karl marx were brothers.

Anon

I used to believe that the Jewish Settlers in Gaza and the West Bank should move back and give the land back to the Palace Indians.

El Gringo

I was absolutely horrified to find out that a president could be elected before everyone - ie ALL voters - had agreed to who was the best candidate. I thought the job was much too important to hire someone lots of people didn't want.

K.