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

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

When I was litle I thought Andrew Jackson was a famous historic black man, since his last name was Jackson, and Michael Jackson was black.

persephone

I used to thing that vikings lived 50 years ago.

Sigrid

I used to belive that dinosaurus has lived until the WW2

Anon

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

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

When I was 8 I thought that James Madison built a secret passage behind the famous picture of G. Washington he rescued. I thought Presidents kept secret stuff back there and that G W Bush kept a guy locked up in there among other things.

Still wondering about it...

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

When I was in elementary school we were learning about history and our ancestors. I misheard the teacher and instead of ancestors I thought she said "aunt sisters." This baffeled me. So I raised my hand and ask what happened to the "uncle brothers."

Alicia

When I was 5 or 6, my mom and my aunt would watch the Watergate hearings with me in the room, and they loved making fun of Sen. Lowell Weicker because he would move his eyebrows up and down. They called him Wacky Weicker. So for years I thought there was a U.S. senator actually named Wacky Weicker.

Oh, and I used to believe Watergate was about a gate that held back water. I had no idea it was the name of an office building until I was in my early teens.

Anon

when i heard that Henry v111 had six wives, I thought he was married to all six at the same time. I had visions of him marrying a new wife as the others looked on.

anon

When I was little I had heard that the Roman Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome was burning. So I thought that he litterarally just sat around playing his fiddle while Rome was destroyed.

I think it's because of several cartoons that portrayed Nero as a fiddler that I developed this belief.

Glowworm

After a visit to the La Brea Tar Pits, I thought that the dinosaurs weren't alive any more 'cause they had all fallen in the tar pits!

Lyssa

When I was child I was very interested in history of ancient town in Biskupin (Poland), which in 600's BC was surrouned by earth-wooden wall. One day when I was reading magazine with photos of modern reconstruction of Biskupin, I got very astonished seeing entrance gate - there was only short section of wall surrounding huts and streets (they didn't want to rebuilt entire wall), and I thought there had been really only one piece of wall in ancient Biskupin. How could they, I thought, defend themselves with over 90% percents of border not protected?

Happy Pole

This is really the opposite of a silly belief but amusing anyways. I was a very skeptical little kid (and am now a skeptical adult). In addition to realizing by the age of 4 or so that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny weren't real, I went further and refused to believe that dinosaurs had ever actually existed. I had seen pictures of them in books and on TV, but my cynical little self already knew that not everything you read or saw was true, so I figured that dinosaurs were made up. I persisted in this until I was 7 and we went to the Smithsonian museum of natural history, and they had a bunch of dinosaur skeletons. I felt ok about believing them after that because if you acutally observed something for yourself, it was ok to believe in it. As you might imagine, I did well in science classes but had a tough time with CCD...

-the little cynic

At some point between the ages of 3 and 6, when I first learned about slavery, I thought that black people were still slaves. This belief was compounded by the fact that I live in a suburban Minnesota neighborhood where there were basically no black people to tell me I was wrong. Fortunately, I found out when I told my mom that I thought that making black people be slaves was mean, and that they should stop. She set the story straight before I ran into any trouble, because Minnesota is so white that the only black people I had ever seen at that point were on television. I was kinda embarassed, seeing as how I just asked her if she remembered back when the dinosaurs were still around.

BBQ Platypus

When i was a kid i watched lots of shows about history of kings and queens. Because kings and queens are often fat and unfit, i thought a logical explination for this would be that they stayed in they're thrones and never EVER got out!

HistoryluvR

When I was six, my parents took me to Germany to visit relatives. We had a three-hour layover at London Heathrow. I was very hopeful that I would see Robin Hood AND the Queen. My mother explained that Sherwood Forest was a long way from London, so a visit from Robin was out. The Queen wasn't as far away, but probably very busy. I was still a bit disappointed that there were no sightings!

chrisnick