How many lies have I been spoonfed in US History classes since I started grade school?

Question

I've found many facts that contradict what I've already learned. What interesting facts have you learned that contradict what you were taught?

Answer 1

Ah, you have after all these years finally opened the doors to knowledge. Now the question is, will you walk through? Of course you have been told dozens and hundreds of lies, or perhaps they are fulfilling the primary function of a school, and that is to indoctrinate the youth into the culture (not to teach them facts) ....

One could go on and on and on ... July 4th should be July 2nd, Pocahontas married John Rolfe, the greatest mass murder in the history of mankind, not John Smith whom she had no relationship to at all; Paul Revere never shouted the "British are coming", heck, he was British, and he never made it out of Boston and its suburbs ... but we forget the good horseman who did make the journey all the way to Concord, the South did have the right to secede and there was no such thing as a 'free' state ...

But, one must be very careful, because in rejecting all of what has been taught to you, you can also reject the 90% which was true ... the trick is to know the difference ... that takes reading, research, and education ... in schools

Answer 2

Contradictions are not lies contradiction mean a different point of view, and what is more the contradictory new version could be a mistake, an honest mistake or an intentional lie.

A contradictory version should not be happy go lucky inmediatelly be accepted.

Anyhow, there are some versions of history generally accepted that are definitively wrong.

I would say that approximately 15% of accepted historical versions are liable to be wrong, no more.

Answer 3

traditionally every country has whitewashed their own past, esp. when teaching the very young; I studied this concept for a bit in college where you can usually explore levels not encouraged in lower grades.
We were friends with the Indians for a few years, then it fell apart--somehow the shortness is glossed over, as well as a number of tribes supported the Brits during the Revolution. The Pilgrims were actually a group of tight-a---- Puritan fanatics from England who came here so they could worship freely, but then refused the same privilege to others who came within their sphere. That's one of the big ones.
And that doesn't count the lies told at the time, like the Maine and the Spanish-American War.

Answer 4

A lie is an attempt to deliberately mislead. Many of these "lies" you speak of were likely errors, or ideas that just did not get updated until the new information became overwhelming.

Case in point, when I was a kid dinosaurs were thought to have been cold blooded reptiles and the really big ones had t live in the water because they were just too big to walk on land. But now, it's accepted that they were warm blooded and likely evolved eventually into birds. No a lie, just didn't know better then.

Answer 5

The Black Death was not spread by rats and fleas. It was most likely a viral infection.
The scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls were not Essenes.
When I was at school the rat, flea and Essenes stuff may represent the current knowledge, but now it is way outdated.
I don't think it's a matter of people telling lies, but of outmoded theories being passed on.

Answer 6

As far as the most recent history is concerned, I was taught that the Cold War had been won mostly because of Ronald Reagan's tough stance against the USSR. In reality, it turns out, the USSR collapsed under the weight of its own social and economic problems. Reagan had nothing to do with it.

Answer 7

I was told that the friggin men and women who came over from England and other countries that we made friends with the Indians. They never told me we slaughtered almost every one. It was all BS. When we came over we just started killing until we got to the Mexicans and then we just kept on killing. Pine cone turkeys my ***.