history

When I was very young, I remember my father and his twin brother would swim with my cousins and I and we all would play Marco Polo. Mainly because my dad and uncle played it together I always believed that Marco Polo was two people. Twin brothers, one named Marco and the other was Polo, and that they were always getting lost and separated from one another.

Lynn

When I was in grade school we sang a song about the Erie Canal. I thought the Erie Canal was still in use until I moved to New York at age 24. Now I drive down Erie Boulevard, where it used to be.

Me again

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

Until I was in High School, I really thought that the "underground railroad" was under the ground.

S

I used to believe that Davey Crockett was a wonderful, gentle frontiersman, just like they portrayed him on the Wonderful World of Disney. I recently found out that he killed MANY Indians! Interesting how Disney left that part out. I don't care for Davey Crockett anymore. Maybe I was confused because Fess Parker also played Daniel Boone.

me

I used to believe that in Texas and California and Idaho they still had slavery, becuase my 1st grade teacher had told us that slavery didn't exist anymore, except fro in some "very far away places." Those were the farthest-away places I could think of then. So funny!

R

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 little kid in the early 90s, I really liked the albums from the 60s my family had and I read all about the hippies and stuff. I figured, in my innocent little mind, that the 60s was when cool was invented, and if you became a hippie in the 60s, you never had grow up, and you stayed cool by evolving with the decades. So that meant that the people who were hippies in the 60s/early70s were also the same people at the disco in the late 70s, then the punks/new wavers/whater was cool in the 80s, and now (meaning 1993) they were the skateboarders or grunge rockers or something. This also explains why I did not beleive my parents saying they were involved in anythin g in the 60s since they were old and never did anything fun.

Astrid

I used to believe that a childs life was a warm fuzzy, always happy one, having always lived on a small farm in Illinois. Then one day I went to the movies with my mother and father. Seen the huge bombs falling like rain on the German, English, Japanese towns,just to name a few in the world at that time. "Where do the kids go Dad?" He never answered me. I never seen life in the same happy eyes again.

Larry Bushue

when i was little i used to beleve that everyone in the 70s were hippys and all lived in mobile homes and no one lived in houses and dressed in mulitie coulourd clothing and there skin was the same

Kate

I used to think the Swastika was the "Swish-Swash"

Anon

Every November in primary school we were told the story of Guy Fawkes. Except that I never saw the name written out, only heard it spoken, and so I thought it was Guy FOX. I started to think of him as the fox from the Disney "Robin Hood." He seemed sneaky enough!

lynne

When I was in third or fourth grade I read a book about King Tut and heard about his "curse." I thought that from reading the book I was cursed too. I was so afraid I was going to die some sort of horrible death!

Ashley