We had a cannonball in our back garden (I had a strange upbringing), and my brother told me it was the very one that had destroyed the castle at Scarborough, where we would go on holiday each summer. Later, it transpired this was a lie - it came instead from a museum my mum used to run in Dundee, and dates probably from the nineteenth century.

Nicholas Jones

During the Vietnam war, I had this belief that it could be brought to an end so simply. All the President had to do was stand up on a pedestal in the middle of the front line and just wave his hands and tell them to stop fighting. It would be over just like that.

Lynn

I was raised in the deep South. I assumed that the South won the Civil War. It was presented to us as a glorious fight and all the Civil War battles that we enacted as little boys featured glorious Confederates vrs. the cowardly yankees. When I was ten, my cousins from Wisconsin were visiting and made me look up The Civil War in The World Book. Finding out the actual outcome, I was devistated.

Neal E.

I thought that wars had to last four years... just like high school and college.

A. Falk

I used to believe that all wars lasted 4 years!

Bob Holschen

I sepnt a lot of my childhood growing up in the middle east with my Father who was in the armed forces there.
One day we were out in the desert with some of his friends when they discovered an unexploded mortar bomb.
I wanted to rush over and play with it, and my Dad couldn't understand why - until I explained to him that I wasn't afraid of 'WATER bombs...'.

Scott

When I was much younger (1970's) I was shocked when I saw Germans participating in an international game show (It's a Knockout for the UK readers) after all, weren't we at war with them?

Sharruma

My little brother is severly misinformed about World War II. First of all he thinks everyone hates the Germans and that we're still at war with them. He also thinks we (US) killed Hitler. And he thinks everyone except Americans are communists. I can only guess that he's somehow mixed up things he's heard on TV or in school because he leanred nothing of that sort in our house.

Anon

I used to believe that the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) club was actually a club for Very Fat Women. My older brother encouraged me in this belief.

George

I used to be convinced that the world was about to end in a nuclear war. I used to make my mum and dad kiss my hand every night before I went to bed so that I would still have their last kiss on me when I died.

Anon

I used to think wars started when a sergeant from one country socked a sergeant from another country.

recovering

I used to think all wars lasted only 4 years, like college or something.

Anon

I used to believe that wars were a thing of the distant barbarian past until I was about 8 and came to realize that the Vietnam war had just ended

reee

I used to believe that during the war and before that, that TV and cameras hadn't been invented and I used to be confused when I saw photos of Hitler. I have no idea why.

Fiz

I was young during Desert Storm, but I still remember hearing the the newscasters talking about Saddam Hussein... only I thought they always said "Saddam, who's saying.."

Kat

I used to believe that wars lasted for five minutes and can remember, age 5 or 6, being totally shocked when I realised that they could last for years and years.

Rainbow