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.

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

That the leader of each country was the smartest person in that country and that they were also the richest people in the country. Except for in America where i thought astronauts were richer and England where i thought the Queen was richer.

Tim Fawcett

I am 52 now (2007) so I grew up in the cold war. For many years, I believed that the nuclear holocaust was at hand, so much so that I would hear thunder and think it was a nuclear attack. I suppose the constant news on the subject was a contributor. I finally outgrew it.

John Price

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 am from Ireland but grew up in london in the 1980's. At that time Northern Ireland was in the news a lot as was Sinn Fein. Until i was 8 i thought Sinn Fein was a woman and i couldn't work out why she never came on tv herself.

Rosa

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 thought Santa was the President of the North Pole. It was stupid I know
lol

Lynn Wright

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

Anon

When election time came, I used to think that whoever was up for nominations, (about ten or twelve in number) came in first, got the presidency, and the one who came in second, was vice president.

Anon

I grew up in West-Berlin, when is still was in the middle of Communist territory. Passing the border by car to transit through East-Germany (for a holiday, typically) took hours and the controls were harsh, with dogs and seaches and lots of paperwork and lots of questions.
I thought the reason was fighting highway robbery and always felt uneasy when we were visiting countries like Denmark of Switzerland where you wouldn't be harrassed for hours when entering. I thought they were irresponsible and dangerous places!

Anon

When someone mentioned the word 'politician', I always pictured people who worked in washington D.C. who always wore red white and blue dress suits, and red white and blue tophats. I always believed that politicians carried a little american flag with them too.

God Bless America

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

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

Jeff

When I was a kid I found out Hitler was an artist. I could not believe he was an artist. Artists are colourful creative people and they dont look like that.

C S Wagon

On every Election Day, every state has 'electoral votes', I thought they said "electoral volts" which means something to do with electrical and whoever president has electrocuted by by a higher voltage win the election.

Anon

i used to think that 'uncle sam' was a real person...who took all my parent's money!

julie

i used to think that Nassar Hussein(the captain of the England cricket team) and Saddam Hussein were the same person.

Anon

I used to hear on TV all the time about the "government", and think it was an actual person who was even more important and powerful than the president, except nobody actually saw him or knew his name.

Brandon Campbell

I live in Kansas, and I have all my life. I always was a fairly logical kid (although my behavior apeared to contradict this!) and I always tried to make sense of complex things. When I was a little kid, I heard people talking about the Governer. Well, one time we went to the capital of the state, Topeka, Kansas. And we saw the Capitol building and iI remember Mom pointing out its ts big, green copper dome, etc. I remember Mom saying thats where the governer was. I thought that the governer headed the government and the president headed the country. I thought they were separate organizations that ruled the country. I always thought it was neat that they had the government based in Topeka. I always asked people things like, "Hey, why did they put the govermmnt in Kansas?" I always wondered why they would choose such a half-a**, redneck place like Kansas to put such an important thing. I was kind of stupid but smarter than other kids my age. at least I knew who the governor was.

Nick