Glossed over was the fact that the US lost the War of 1812. Several teachers stated that the US has never lost a war. Let’s not even talk about the sorry state of the teaching of Native American affairs and the history of slavery.
We were also treated to a list of European discoveries, such as Angel Falls. I guess no one else knew there was a waterfall there previously.
Lastly was the myth that the Spaniards were heroes bringing enlightenment to the world.
How about that lemmings purposefully throw themselves to their own deaths.
I was mortified to learn the truth.
And that lions/predators kill their prey before eating them. I’ve since seen the footage of writhing, screaming prey being eaten alive by swarms of attackers.
I couldn’t even begin to tell you the lies that were perpetuated in school when I was a kid. (1977-1990) Columbus “discovering” that the Earth was round, that he was someone to be reverred. :rolleyes: We even got Columbus day off back then. Finally they wised up and we traded it for MLK day.
Lincoln “freeing” the slaves was purely a humanitarian and philanthropic act.
That Germans would never eat corn on the cob because that’s what pigs eat.
We got the Bernouli bullshit too. The list goes on and on.
I’ve dedicated the last several years to reeducating myself to unlearn the fallacies taught in public schools and college.
It’s still happening too. My friend’s 7 year old is being taught the same tripe and then some.
I can’t stand it.
The wires are multistranded for strength. Current is carried on the outside of the composite strand, not inside the wires.
:dubious: There’s quite enough ignorance on this topic for all parties to share. Ultimately, it is the action of the wing, redirecting the momentum of the air flowing past, which supports it. Technically speaking, neither a conventional application of Bernoulli’s equations nor the Coanda Effect properly describe lift on an aeroplane wing, insofar as each makes idealizations or describes a regime that fails to account for the conditions in flight. People who criticize the Bernoulli treatment often do so unfairly (as does the author of the link you provided) in failing to take into account the effect of geometry of the airfoil relative to the direction of flow (angle of attack) of airflow.
As for the OP…we were taught all sorts of ignorant garbage about American Indians all being primative nomadic hunter/gatherers who died out because of the decimation of the “buffalo” (American Bison, actually). That might be mostly true of the plains Indians, but they only made up a portion of the Native Americans, who ranged from nomads to migrational farmers to stationary land owners with large settlements (although more dispersed than Eurasian cities).
I can’t even begin to enumerate the various scientific errors that were provided, both by ignorant teachers and badly edited textbooks. And my French teacher provided an endless litany of mistaken or outdated factoids about Western Europe on which I’m still being corrected.
Don’t even get me started on the way long multiplication and division are taught. Totally ass-backward from a practical point of view.
Stranger
Well, the US government never ceded control of the vessel; ergo it was only engaged in piracy under its new masters. Ergo, they had no legal claim on it. Ergo they never legally changed its name or registry. Ergo, in the North’s eyes, it was the USS Merrimac, and not the CSS Virginia.
I don’t know whether this reasoning was applied in this particular case (at least consciously), but it certainly did affect negotiations and reporting during the war, such as they were, and several other aspects of war.
Well, do you count Russians? If so, he already did. But I know what you mean.
Unlikely. He had no real reason to conquer it, and Nazi policy was firly rooted in certain German ideas, none of which involved the Middle East. Besides which, had he won he would already have controlled or at least heavily influenced the Middle East, much of which was quasi-colonial. Note the prevelance of the Baath party in Iraq and Syria? They literally developed their political party by looking at the Nazis and learning from German emissaries during WW2.
Well, hold on. They were certainly no democrats, but neither were they particularly cold. In fact, they were apparently quite fond of some kinds of festivities, while considering others ungodly. They fought with Indians, and befriended others. Both “angles” are correct.]
The US didn’t lose. It turned into a mess for both sides (The US took more damage, but frustrated British strategic goals) and was resolved with a treaty and everyone went home slightly miffed and with little to show for it.
Well, again - sometimes they were. The history of Spain in the New World is not, push to shove, a history of wicked Spanish lords cackling as they herd the poor indians into death camps (though there’s enough truth there).
There’s a good book called “Lies my Teacher told me” by James Loewen (sp?) that talks about some of these that were mentioned, and some that weren’t. He also did I follow-up called “Lies Across America,” about some of the monuments & historical plaques & such in the U.S. that have erroneous or biased information on them - interesting reading.[/hijack]
In high school biology I was taught the whole “toilets in the Northern Hemisphere flush in a different direction than in the Southern Hemisphere,” as evidence for the coriolis effect.
In junior high I had a social studies teacher who astounded the class with the “fact” that “Cleopatra was black.” When I challenged this, based on recollections of Egyptian portraits, he rather defensively stated, “I mean she wasn’t white,” which I thought was a bit of a nonsequitor.
Years later I finally realized he must have meant, “She was colored.” He must have been telling that racist factoid for decades.
I thought this was true! I’ve seen warpy-looking glass in old windows; I thought that was the reason. It’s not??
Nope. It’s just due to the fact that glss making back then wasn’t the same as it is today. We are able to make windows much more consistantly uniform in thickness, something almost impossible to do back then.
I’m sure she doesn’t represent all Germans, but the German exchange student who stayed with us for two weeks absolutely refused to even try corn on the cob when we had it for dinner one night, and seems slightly appalled that we would serve it.
What do you consider setting the ship on fire and scuttleing it if not “ceding control”?
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
Re: Pilgrims
Well, hold on. They were certainly no democrats, but neither were they particularly cold. In fact, they were apparently quite fond of some kinds of festivities, while considering others ungodly. They fought with Indians, and befriended others. Both “angles” are correct.]
Hmmm. Maybe I am a victim of another myth! I have been taight that Pilgrims had no festivities whatsoever. Dancing: Forbidden, Drinking: Forbidden , Singing (except church hymns): Forbidden, Reading anything other than Scriptures: Forbidden
Christmas was supposed to be spent quietly reading the Bible.
Not true?
You make me realize I *always * pick up the chalk/ink/whatever and draw the third line top down. Makes me feel funny to draw it the other way. 
Not only was I taught about the “map of the tongue” nonsense, it’s still being taught.
Of course, no good textbook discussion of Columbus proving the world was round can’t be complete without an illustration of Chris looking thru a telescope (invented c1608)!
[QUOTE=TwoTrouts]
I believe you’re thinking of the Puritans, who are routinely confused with the Pilgrims.
[QUOTE=YaWanna]
Wow! You’re right. Ignorance has been fought! Thanks.
I was speaking to a German woman and her husband at a dinnner party a few weeks ago and I inquired of this and she said that she does, in fact, eat corn on the cob and had never heard of it being considered atrocious. This makes me think it could be a regional difference, perhaps an old East/West thing or whatnot. So, I’ll scratch this one off my list.
Also, when I was a yoot, we did not, EVER discuss the Vietnam war in school. It was taboo. The only time I was formally taught about it was when I got into 9th grade (1986) and that was by a history teacher that basically said to us, " I don’t care what the school system says, we are spending the quarter on this war"
If you asked a question in other classes, it was ignored. It’s not as though we were stupid and had no idea what happened there considering some of our friends had dads that came home crazy or not at all. Weird, eh? Anyone else growing up in the 70’s experience this?
I only had 1 history teacher between 7th and 12th grade that was willing to discuss the vietnam war. He even admitted he went into teaching to avoid getting drafted. This was around 1979-1980 I had him. My History teachers in High School would not talk about it. “We don’t cover current events in History”
Let’s see last Army unit was out in 1975 and this was around 1982-83, didn’t sound like a current event to me. I guess I should have included this as another piece of ignorance but I don’t think any student in my class took it seriously.
i was in High Schol at the end of the Vietnam War, and we certainly discused it in my World Cultures class. I even did a report on Howard Zinn’s book "The Logic of Withdrawl.
Only class in High School or College where I ever got any Chinese history.