Lies they told you in history class

AwkwardTurtle

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If I'm not mistake I believe that Paul Revere was one of three messengers sent to warn of the British attack. He was the only one that failed to deliver the message, was captured by the British, and told them secrets about the American resistance.

Of course I may be remembering this wrong. Please disregard if someone smarter comes along and corrects me. :D
 

Dimitriov

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May 24, 2010
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That school house rock video actually made me feel physically ill: I can't remember the last time I saw such a smug self-righteous piece of... propaganda aimed directly at children.

As for the actual topic, well, I actually always found that my history classes in school were pretty good. I may be biased but I think Canada is generally pretty good at trying to teach history in the public schools, at least in the last few decades. We do have some pretty shameful things in our past, but most of those were covered in school.

That being said there is of course some necessary oversimplification of ideas in a high school history class.
 

richetensor

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rayen020 said:
i don't know that i ever learned any lies because i've always had an interest in history and usually fact checked anything taught to me. something that has always interested me though is how the history syllabus usually went for me though. (this is in the US)

Learning period of six weeks
1)native american studies
2)american colonization and revolution
3)the US consitution/1780-1811
4)1815-1860
5)1870-1914
6)1919-1939/civil rights movement

ummm... not to complain but aren't we missing a couple of really major events on here? like world/nation changing events? oh yeah and i suppose i got the old oversimplification of the American Civil War being fought because of slavery.
Actually, that is not much of an oversimplification. You often here about the Civil War being fought over the issue of States' Rights, but if you refer to contemporary documents (the "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" being the least subtle of these), you find that the specific right at issue was the right to own slaves. You sometimes hear that cultural differences contributed to?or were even the cause of?the Civil War, but much of the modern 'dixified' Southern culture developed during and after Reconstruction. Prior to the Civil War, there were relatively few significant cultural differences between the North and South (slavery aside). Indeed, this lack of cultural distinction is often credited with the destruction of Southern morale during the period from 1863-64. As the exigencies of war forced the Confederacy to dismantle the institution of slavery, to the point of offering black slaves freedom in return for military service, the South?or rather, its people?having lost the very thing it was fighting for, also lost the will to continue fighting.

The myth of the Lost Cause is just that - a myth. The Civil War was fought over the right to continue owning slaves, as the Confederacy itself readily admitted at the time.
 

Atticus89

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AwkwardTurtle said:
If I'm not mistake I believe that Paul Revere was one of three messengers sent to warn of the British attack. He was the only one that failed to deliver the message, was captured by the British, and told them secrets about the American resistance.

Of course I may be remembering this wrong. Please disregard if someone smarter comes along and corrects me. :D
I don't know about the last bit, but I do know that there's this misconception that Paul Revere did it all by himself. The only reason American children know him is because his name made a good rhyme for a poem. He wasn't alone in alerting people.

Also, he probably didn't say "The British are coming!" because, for all intents and purposes, the colonials still saw themselves as British citizens. And then there's the misconception that the populace was split 50/50 on Patriots and Loyalists. The Loyalists, or the Tories, outnumbered the Patriots by a good margin.

Huh... guess I could think of some more. :)
 

Stalk3rchief

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No one's brought up Pearl Harbor yet? D:

Seriously, the United States pretty much bullied the Japanese into attacking us.
 

Soviet Steve

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I recall being taught that the US went to war over the sinking of the Lusitania (It said so in our history book)

Lusitania was sunk in 1915
US entered the war in 1917

I know US government likes to work slowly, buuuuuuuuut...
 

Comando96

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Well the only real lies about history throughout all I was taught was that the Roman Republic/Empire were all sparkling in fully covered body armour and all in unison since they surfaced onto the world stage. And to be honest that was about it.

Oh. They did say they believed the world was flat...

Some occasions they said "Put this in tests. Its more complicated than that but put this down."

On the topic of America... Ironically colonial taxes were lower than back over on the mother island... it was not taxes. In a sense taxes was a spark as a new tax was added onto tea (still at a low rate) and then the Boston Tea party became a populist movement. The real issue was lack of representation in Parliament, so they could become independent and form their own Government of the people for the people by the people. Oh... and lets not forget, a lot who went to the colonies... were cripplingly poor... like the Irish and the Scottish and some of the Welsh so its not like they were that loyal to their old country xD
 

Xmaspast

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Istvan said:
I recall being taught that the US went to war over the sinking of the Lusitania (It said so in our history book)

Lusitania was sunk in 1915
US entered the war in 1917

I know US government likes to work slowly, buuuuuuuuut...
Don't forget that the Lusitania was carrying ammunition. They never told us that in school. They always tried to make it seem like the Germans just upped and sank an ocean liner for the hell of it.
 

pppppppppppppppppp

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Xmaspast said:
Don't forget that the Lusitania was carrying ammunition. They never told us that in school. They always tried to make it seem like the Germans just upped and sank an ocean liner for the hell of it.
As proof of ignorance, I didn't know that till you posted that. You re-learn things everyday I guess.
 

Abengoshis

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I live in England. When I took History I never had to unlearn anything. I stopped doing history after GCSE (look that up if you don't know what that is) so I don't know if any GCSE knowledge is discarded, but before that we never had to unlearn anything. I have to say I don't remember any propaganda about Americans being taught ever, not for nor against them. We did learn about American history, mostly Wall St. Crash and stuff, but we never had opinions forced upon us - we had to evaluate all the opinions from sources.
 

Zetatrain

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Stalk3rchief said:
No one's brought up Pearl Harbor yet? D:

Seriously, the United States pretty much bullied the Japanese into attacking us.
While I agree that cutting off oil and scrap metal definitely provoked Japan, saying that the US bullied Japan makes it sound like the US had no good reason to place the embargoes in the first place (which was to halt Japan's invasion of China and the surrounding nations).

Out of curiosity, what did they teach you as a kid about Pearl Harbor?
 

gbemery

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Glass Joe the Champ said:
Hey guys, I'm taking a US History Class right in high school and recently our teacher showed us this video from School House Rock (a series of educational videos for kids).

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We then had to write an essay on why this video is stupidly inaccurate. (For example, I talked about how Euro-American relations were a lot more complicated than "America is awesome and England is full of dicks")

This is hardly the first time in class we've had to unlearn what is essentially propaganda we were taught as kids. It got me wondering if other schools/states/countries have the same kind of biases in the classroom.

So guys, what kind of lies, if any, did you learn in your history class?
just for funnzies tell me that you also wrote to be a smart ass that at 2:33 the flag has 14 stars so where did the extra colony come from, and that the $ symbol on the bags of money shouldn't have been used since the dollar had not been established yet.
 

sora91111

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Yea, after a six weeks of AP US history I saw some things Britain did were justified in some respects though sometimes poorly exacted in the explanation department. Also the video depicting the king counting huge stacks of money does follow mercantilism, but horribly inaccurate due to the fact Britain was in debt at the time. More so, the end where they're talking about having a president is ridiculous because the first form of government was made by the Articles of Confederation where there was no president. I think the list goes on and on, but seeing this video is kind of funny after learning the facts.
 

RedEyesBlackGamer

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Glass Joe the Champ said:
Xmaspast said:
Don't forget that the Lusitania was carrying ammunition. They never told us that in school. They always tried to make it seem like the Germans just upped and sank an ocean liner for the hell of it.
As proof of ignorance, I didn't know that till you posted that. You re-learn things everyday I guess.
The higher up in U.S. History you go, the more truth you get. I had A.P. U.S. History in high school. The theme of the class seemed to be "we are kind of huge dicks".
 

Comando96

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Abengoshis said:
I live in England. When I took History I never had to unlearn anything. I stopped doing history after GCSE (look that up if you don't know what that is) so I don't know if any GCSE knowledge is discarded, but before that we never had to unlearn anything. I have to say I don't remember any propaganda about Americans being taught ever, not for nor against them. We did learn about American history, mostly Wall St. Crash and stuff, but we never had opinions forced upon us - we had to evaluate all the opinions from sources.
Sounds like you did sorta the same stuff as me. Though the courses were a bit pick and mix schools could choose from xD

In that course there wasn't really any topic where they had to "lie" in order to simplify it though. Most "lies" are taught at a young age where you need to answer almost all questions in one sentence in order for the kids to absorb it.

Istvan said:
I recall being taught that the US went to war over the sinking of the Lusitania (It said so in our history book)

Lusitania was sunk in 1915
US entered the war in 1917

I know US government likes to work slowly, buuuuuuuuut...

Xmaspast said:
Don't forget that the Lusitania was carrying ammunition. They never told us that in school. They always tried to make it seem like the Germans just upped and sank an ocean liner for the hell of it.
Also don't forget that the Zimmermann Telegram (1917) probably stated the US involvement due to the fact Germany was trying to get Mexico to attack the USA... The Lusitania is just cited to try to make Americans slow to react and when they react, do a knee-jerk one.
 

maxmanrules

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Did any Americans learn history other than their own? I know that New Zealand history basically goes over the main points in our history (treaty of Waitangi, WW1, WW2, Springbok tour) pver and over again in gradually increasing detail. Interestingly (for anyone who knows NZ history) schoolchildren seem to identify more with the native Maoris, saying things such as "we" and "our" They are of course, not related to Maoris at all, and then was no such thing as a New Zealander then. They were far closer to the settlers then the illiterate stone age natives.
 

Phenx92

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Jun 28, 2009
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That Columbus "discovered" North America. It's funny cause the first question I asked after being told that is, "How do you discover something that's already got people living there?"
 

Sewer Rat

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That Columbus single handedly discovered America because he was awesome... Nope, just like alot of important discoveries, this was actually done by the Norse (that is of course, if you don't count the people already living there).
EDIT: Bleh, Ninjad
 

Ambi

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Fawxy said:
Ambi said:
History = His Story (God's story aka the bible) and EVOLUTION IS A LIE

And I don't even know about 9/11, he confused the hell out of me.
You had the worst history teacher ever. Did you go to a private school?

Because I know in most public schools that guy would get fired instantaneously.
Private Christian school.

They taught the "His Story" creation stuff in grade 8 history. In the optional biology class in our final year they taught evolution because it was part of the state curriculum. They did give us this nonsense anti-evolution booklet along with it, however. Our reasonable biology teacher let us trash it, but he still talked about creationism a bit.
 

UrieHusky

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Wow.. I genuinely feel bad for kids of america if they really grow up with things like that, it's also made me less pre-disposed towards the patriotic types if this is the kind of thing they're taught.

As for your question.. I honestly can't think of any off the top of my head, I didn't really pay attention in history since almost all of the time it was Australia's history, not even New Zealands so any attention I once had for the subject evaporated soon after