Dumb historical beliefs you had as a kid

I thought the iron curtain was a giant metal wall across Europe

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  1. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Greece in eastern bloc
    W-what timeline are you from anon?

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      Looks like Turkey too. I guess no Truman doctrine in this world

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >literal Iron Curtain
      A pretty kino one, clearly.

  2. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I believed women were equal to men and they were just deliberately held down for all of history lol

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      this

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      This but with Black people.

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        If you talk to a layman about American/African black history, they will probably try and parrot the fantasy of a historically unique oppression of blacks that warrants current social politics. So try again.

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          Since 1989, whites receive on average 36% more callbacks than African Americans, and 24% more callbacks than Latinos. We observe no change in the level of hiring discrimination against African Americans over the past 25 years… Accounting for applicant education, applicant gender, study method, occupational groups, and local labor market conditions does little to alter this result. Contrary to claims of declining discrimination in American society, our estimates suggest that levels of discrimination remain largely unchanged, at least at the point of hire.

          http://m.pnas.org/content/114/41/10870.full

          The authors responded to more than 1,300 employment ads in the sales, administrative support, clerical, and customer services job categories, sending out nearly 5,000 resumes. The ads covered a large spectrum of job quality, from cashier work at retail establishments and clerical work in a mailroom to office and sales management positions.

          The results indicate large racial differences in callback rates to a phone line with a voice mailbox attached and a message recorded by someone of the appropriate race and gender. Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback... It indicates that a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience.

          http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

          Black-white residential segregation, while on the decline, still persists at high levels in most US metropolitan areas… Recent evidence suggests that household-level socioeconomic and demographic characteristics explain only a small proportion of the racial differences in location choices. Racial processes such as prejudice and housing market discrimination continue to drive black-white segregation patterns.

          http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0735-2166.2004.00205.x/full

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          This article analyzes sentencing outcomes for black and white men in Georgia. The analysis uses sentencing data collected by the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC). Among first-time offenders, both the race-only models and race and skin color models estimate that, on average, blacks receive sentences that are 4.25 percent higher than those of whites even after controlling for legally-relevant factors such as the type of crime.

          http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jels.12077/full

          Although there exists a large and well-documented “race gap” between whites and blacks in their support for the death penalty, we know relatively little about the nature of these differences and how the races respond to various arguments against the penalty… whites, who are highly resistant to persuasion and, in the case of the racial argument, actually become more supportive of the death penalty upon learning that it discriminates against blacks…

          http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00293.x/full

          Controlling for a wide array of factors, we found that in cases involving a White victim, the more stereotypically Black a defendant is perceived to be, the more likely that person is to be sentenced to death.

          http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01716.x

          Empirical studies of the death penalty continue to find that the race and gender of homicide victims are associated with the severity of legal responses in homicide cases even after controlling for legally relevant factors… In particular, we empirically test the hypothesis that defendants convicted of killing white females are significantly more likely to receive death sentences than killers of victims with other race-gender characteristics. Findings indicate that homicides with white female victims were more likely to result in death sentences than other victim race-gender dyads.

          http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07418820400096021

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          This paper assesses whether Blacks and Hispanics are disadvantaged at the sentencing phase of the justice system and whether the findings depend on the use of traditional regression-based methods to control for legally relevant variables vs. the use of precision matching methods, which attend to potential sample selection bias that occurs when there are not exact matches for those sentenced to incarceration and non-incarceration. Analysis of the population of Florida offenders from 1994 to 2006 using both methodologies indicates that Black offenders continue to be disproportionately incarcerated compared to White or Hispanic offenders, and that Hispanic offenders were slightly more likely than White offenders to be incarcerated.

          http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07418825.2012.659674?src=recsys

          Using unique data on misdemeanor marijuana cases, this study examines the impact of defendants’ race on prosecutors’ decisions to make (a) plea offers for a lesser charge and (b) sentence offers for non-custodial punishments. Preliminary findings indicated that black defendants were less likely to receive reduced charge offers, and both black and Latino defendants were more likely to receive custodial sentence offers. However, these disparities were largely explained by legal factors, evidence, arrest circumstances, and court actor characteristics, though black defendants were still more likely to receive custodial sentence offers after including these controls

          http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07418825.2014.915340?src=recsys

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          Recent studies by police departments and researchers confirm that police stop persons of racial and ethnic minority groups more often than whites relative to their proportions in the population… In this article we analyze data from 125,000 pedestrian stops by the New York Police Department over a 15-month period… We find that persons of African and Hispanic descent were stopped more frequently than whites, even after controlling for precinct variability and race-specific estimates of crime participation.

          http://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1198/016214506000001040#.WkATqno7af0

          Although Medicare provides beneficiaries with primary access to the health care system, racial/ethnic disparities in health care experiences and preventive care are well documented in the Medicare population… In the absence of major health problems, whites have better overall access to care than other Medicare beneficiaries.

          https://www.rand.org/pubs/external_publications/EP50370.html

          African Americans and Hispanics traditionally have faced many barriers that limit their access to and choice of housing. During summer and fall 2000, local fair housing organizations conducted 4,600 paired tests across 20 major metropolitan areas nationwide. These surveys directly compared real estate or rental offices' treatment of African Americans and Hispanics to that of whites. The study finds that disparate treatment discrimination in rental and owner-occupied housing markets persists...

          https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article-abstract/52/2/152/1659589

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          This paper tests for racial discrimination in the rental housing market using matched-pair audits conducted via e-mail for rental units advertised on-line… Generally, discrimination occurs against African American names… Racial discrimination is more severe in neighborhoods that are near “tipping points” in racial composition, and for units that are part of a larger building.

          http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119011000179

          Rapid actions to persons holding weapons were simulated using desktop virtual reality… Signal detection analyses revealed two race effects that led to Blacks being incorrectly shot at more than Whites: a perceptual sensitivity effect (when held by Blacks guns were less distinguishable from harmless objects) and a response bias effect (objects held by Blacks were more likely to be treated as guns).

          http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103103000209

          Research shows that participants shoot armed Blacks more frequently and quickly than armed Whites, but make don't-shoot responses more frequently and quickly for unarmed Whites than unarmed Blacks. We argue that this bias reflects the perception of threat — specifically, threat associated with Black males.

          http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103110002040

          The current work examined police officers' decisions to shoot Black and White criminal suspects in a computer simulation. Responses to the simulation revealed that upon initial exposure to the program, the officers were more likely to mistakenly shoot unarmed Black compared with unarmed White suspects.

          http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.00800.x

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          Police officers were compared with community members in terms of the speed and accuracy with which they made simulated decisions to shoot (or not shoot) Black and White targets. Both samples exhibited robust racial bias in response speed

          http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-07951-004

          Participants were exposed to a crime story embedded in a newscast… Afterward, participants were asked the likelihood that the depicted officer and perpetrator were either White or Black. In addition, participants were asked how positively they viewed the officer who was featured in the story. Results revealed that race unidentified perpetrators were rated as having a high likelihood of being Black. In addition, heavy news viewers were more likely than light news viewers to express a high likelihood that the unidentified officer was White. Finally, heavy news viewers were more likely than light news viewers to have positive perceptions of unidentified officers, but not of Black officers featured in a newscast.

          http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15213260701375660?src=recsys

          We conclude that disparities in military allocations of goods and burdens sometimes disadvantage racial minorities. This conclusion rests on a review of institutional analyses in five arenas to which researchers have paid close attention: racial patterns in enlistment, officer promotion rates, administration of military justice, risk of death in combat, and health care for wounded soldiers. Although not a direct or intended result of military policy and practice, in three of five cases there was evidence of racial bias and institutional racism.

          http://www.annualreviews.org/abs/doi/10.1146/annurev-soc-071811-145501

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          The results show that white respondents who saw an image of an African American voter and poll worker expressed greater support for voter id laws than those in the no image condition, even after controlling for the significant effects of racial resentment and political ideology. Exposure to an image of a white voter and poll worker did not produce a similar effect. The findings provide new evidence that public opinion about voter ID laws is racialized

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          hrough the use of a unique dataset from the 2006 elections, we analyze the impact that voter identification laws have on immigrant and minority voters in California, New Mexico and Washington... Because our data reflects the identification trends of actual voters, not just adult citizens, the findings go far to suggest that voter identification laws could immediately disenfranchise many Latino, Asian and African American citizens.

          https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c910/559899789100536c71b2e577026ba0ea8d66.pdf

          Because voter-identification laws discourage voter turnout, particularly among identifiable minority groups, their implementation abridges a fundamental constitutional right. The U.S. Constitution includes a little-known remedy for denying or abridging the right to vote that reduces a state's congressional representation in proportion to the extent of the abridgements

          https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/voterid-laws-discourage-participation-particularly-among-minorities-and-trigger-a-constitutional-remedy-in-lost-representation/B68D9AA0153594843D09002D28909AF5

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          >all these cringe replies
          Do any of (you) (the one person replying lol) really believe that Blacks are exactly likes Whites, and Blacks are just as emotionally intelligent, just as smart, and just as capable, and that any time a minority is 'less likely' to get something or more likely to be killed it's because of SECRET INTERNALIZED RACISM? So sad, I feel bad for (you).

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        talking about these things outsid eof LULZ will sne doyu to jail in some countries.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Same

  3. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Richard Nixon was a military dictator and ruled from the Pentagon for some reason

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      Boomers taught you that

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      Can a POTUS rule from the Pentagon? It would be kino as hell ngl

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      h..how old are you?

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        Nixon left office almost 50 years ago, anon

  4. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    That every war was about good vs evil.

  5. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought the world was actually black and white like in those old movies and photos and Someone just invented color.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      That’s pretty stupid anon, I won’t lie to you

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      t. Calvin

  6. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I distinctly remember my dad telling me that Russia was only large during the USSR and that Russia after the USSR was actually a really small country. I don't know why I have this memory because it seems too moronic for him to say, yet its there. Pic related is how big I remember thinking Russia was, with a memory of a map where Russia was about that size.

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      perhaps your father was referring to the principality of muscovy?

      • 4 years ago
        Anonymous

        Doubtful, I remember it was because we saw a map with the USSR on it and him saying that Russia wasn't that big any more, and that Russia was actually a small country. It's a baffling memory but genuinely influenced my interpretation of Russia as a kid.

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          You thought Kaliningrad was whole Russia.

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        the principality of Moscovy united Russia

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      Could be he talked about Russia not being as large as it had formerly been. Your brain might have just taken that to mean small and ran with it.

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      You were probably looking at an old map or globe and your father pointed out that Russia is simply smaller than the USSR due to the fact that it had the Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine, and Central Asia in it.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      I remember a teacher saying that Russia isn't the biggest country in the world anymore after the USSRs collapse and that China was bigger.

      That is absolute bullshit, Russia is still by far the biggest country.

      Somehow it makes me mad when teachers talk moronic garbage they never fact-checked and believe is true, because a) they're spreading stupidity on the planet and b) they're authority figures and should be even better educated than the average pleb. I'm not a teacher and would never make moronic mistakes like that.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Related, altough not really a historical belief, but as a kid I tought that russia was just the kaliningrad oblast

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Related. My mom used to say our country Canada was the biggest country in the world now that the USSR broke up. My 10 year old self knew the truth, but didn’t understand my mom could be wrong about something yet.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Didn't you just mistake it for Kaliningrad? I remember also wondering why there are two Russias

  7. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I trought islam was just a branch of judaism

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      You weren't wrong. Islam and Protestantism are both israeli psyops.

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        based

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        Imagine accepting the Torah as part of your infallible and unique holy books and still pretending to you aren't israeli, and accusing people who reject the Torah of being israeli

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        >be israelites
        >create a religion that results in the KKK
        >create another religion that results in Hamas
        They didn't seem to think it all the way through.

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          Jews unironically have funded and supported every ideology you can ever possibly believe in

  8. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought the UN met in the International Space Station and all those photos you see of the UN were in space. I also thought armies only existed to combat terrorism and that countries didn't go to war with each other. As well every country started out as a tribe that just happened to settle there and grew untill it reached it's modern borders.

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      >every country started out as a tribe that just happened to settle there and grew untill it reached it's modern borders.

      Civ logic kek

  9. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    The roman empire never settled in the territory of modern germany. The barbarians caused the fall of Rome and not their corrupt politicians and in fighting. The eastern roman empire wasn't Rome. Rabbinic judaism is older than christianity. The french revolution was the first and only "real" revolution.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Rabbinic judaism is older than christianity.
      Rabbinic Judaism is slightly older than Christianity as a distinct religion and not a sect of Judaism. Prior to the time of bar kokhba Christians were hoping to become conventional Judaism, not a separate faith.

  10. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    Why are Greece and turkey eastern bloc?

  11. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    That the Berlin wall split the whole of East and West Germany, and not just Berlin.

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      Me too. I thought the border was the location of the wall. One time I wondered why the Berlin Wall was nowhere near Berlin.

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      Wait, it didn't?

      • 4 years ago
        Anonymous

        The "Berlin Wall" only surrounded west berlin. The inner german border was fortifified in the same way but scaled up. Noone outside of germany talks about the inner german border though, since it is apparently not as spectacular

        • 4 years ago
          Anonymous

          Wait, I just learned the West Berlin was actually located in East Germany.
          Why would any West German agree to live there and why even go to the trouble of splitting Berlin in two instead of just giving Berlin to East Germany?

          • 3 years ago
            Anonymous

            Are you serious? Check up on the yalta conference where the allies carved up post war europe. Each nation got their occupation zones, ofcourse the capital of the defeated enemy will be split the same the whole country was. stalin wanted west berlin so he isolated it, build the wall, etc. The allies stood strong (thankfully) and supplied west berlin by air (look up berlin airlift). But why would west germans leave west berlin, it is literally their home. Furthermore you cant really "decide" where to live anyway, its not like you could just buy a house anywhere in post war germany

          • 3 years ago
            Anonymous

            >ofcourse the capital of the defeated enemy will be split the same the whole country was
            This was actually a terrible idea for everyone involved, there's no "of course" about it.

          • 3 years ago
            Anonymous

            yea sure, just let 1 nation cuck the other 3 victorious allies for the sake of convenience. That is not how that works

          • 3 years ago
            Anonymous

            the western allies managing to hold West Berlin in the face of the Soviet blockade against it was a huge propaganda coup and one of the greatest logistical achievements ever accomplished

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Same

  12. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    That Napoleon guillotined the french king during the revolution and that he would guillotine all the kings of the countries he conquered so his rule couldn't be questioned. Also that you had to actually kill others kings to be an 'emperor'

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      that would have been ultra based lol

  13. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Wales was an island until only a few months ago after a friend and I got into an argument about it. I always thought it was an island off to the left of England and Scotland and between Ireland and Britain

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      I wish lol, fricking anglos/rapeugees

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      he is a murderer and he is still free because some cops were racist even though logically the case of cop racism and murder are 2 completely separate things

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        and then he was sent to jail on a massively outsized sentence for his armed robbery conviction. That I think was wrong. One failure of the justice system should not be fixed by another failure.

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          right, murderers should be let go free instead. in the name of democracy etc.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      You were thinking of the Isle of Sodor

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        Or maybe he was thinking about the Isle of Man

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >pittbul

      That dude never quits being a n****r, does he!

  14. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I used to believe the entirety of WW2 was about the United States liberating France from the Germans.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      burger education, everyone

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      that was the just the most signifigant part.

  15. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Red Alert 1 was an accurate depiction of an alternate history where nazi germany never existed.

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      At least you didn't believe Battlezone was an accurate depiction of the cold war like I did

  16. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought the romans invented pizza.

  17. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought the Civil War was the Silver War. Which sounded pretty cool. Confused the hell out of the school librarian when I asked for help finding a book.

  18. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I was afraid to take a shower for a week after I discovered gas chambers

  19. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    After watching Braveheart, I tought it was king's duty to lick all newly-wed women.

    I thought Columbus was Polish because in school we were taught that he was called "Krzysztof Kolumb".

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I thought Columbus was Polish because in school we were taught that he was called "Krzysztof Kolumb".
      This is what they don't want the world to know

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I thought Columbus was Polish because in school we were taught that he was called "Krzysztof Kolumb".
      FOOL! Now this information is in the wrong hands

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Similarly, I was under the impression that most of the explorers in North America were English because of the bastardized English names I was taught in school (i.e. John Cabot)

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        >John Cabot isnt english
        What the frick?!?

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          His real name was Giovanni Caboto, he was born in Italy

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >After watching Braveheart, I tought it was king's duty to lick all newly-wed women

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I thought Columbus was Polish because in school we were taught that he was called "Krzysztof Kolumb".
      At last the truth comes out. It was a Polish genocide of the Taino.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I thought Columbus was Polish because in school we were taught that he was called "Krzysztof Kolumb".
      Why drop the -us? You might as well just call him Gołąb if you're trying to highlight the meaning of his name. (and yes, columb-us and golub are cognates with the same meaning, only obscured by the switch of k to g and the fact latin represented nassalisation by adding -m-).

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        based polish linguist

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      There's an actual theory that Columbus was the son of a Polish king that got exiled, I shit you not

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        WE

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          Hold your horses, said King was from Lithuanian-Ruthenian stock.

  20. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought all wars were decided by a single decisive battle, fought on one big open plain.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Almost this, I thought all battles were agreed upon beforehand and that real world strategy was comparable to chess

  21. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Serbia and Syria were the same thing.

    I thought Prussia was a cool and peaceful Disneyland-like country with castles, hills and shit.

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      I thought Prussia was just some Eastern European country that existed then didn’t exist at some point. I imagined it as like Russia-lite.

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        Pre-Russia? Kek

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I thought Serbia and Syria were the same thing.
      They are

  22. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    Rome was a massive empire until barbarians sacked Rome and it all collapsed once and Rome was completely deserted for decades

  23. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    At one point in my life I believed christianity destroyed scientific progress in the Middle Ages.

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      Guilty of this. I took my girlfriend to vatican and badmouthed Christianity in front of St. Peters. Now I just cringe thinking about that. Now I have to explain to her that I am now more enlightened than in past and shit.

      • 4 years ago
        Anonymous

        Even for your average fedora, that's cringe. Why did you even go to the Vatican if you disliked Christianity? That would be like me going to Israel and talking about how I hate israelites and they deserved the holocaust.

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          I was 20 and just out of college.
          I also went to Campo do Fiori in the same city where there is a statue of Giordino Bruno and put flowers below his statue while giving a loud ass speech about persecution of Science by the church.
          I hate myself.

          • 3 years ago
            Anonymous

            Well at least you're aware of it and grew as a person.

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          >That would be like me going to Israel and talking about how I hate israelites and they deserved the holocaust.
          That would be based tbh

  24. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    For some reason I got it in my head Athens won the Peloponnesian War. That's why we have democracy today and Sparta is seen as a bad guy. Western civilization would be inconceivably different is Sparta won.

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      Well I imagine learning about what actually happened must have lessened your fears about the consequences of a Spartan victory.
      Especially since they both just got absorbed by Macedon later anyways

  25. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought that 9/11 happened in Chicago

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      How?

      • 4 years ago
        Anonymous

        Because I saw on the news that America was attacked and America to me meant the place that I lived in which was Chicago

        • 4 years ago
          Anonymous

          That's okay, lad. When the Russians invaded Georgia in 2008, I didn't know Georgia was a nation in the Caucasus and I thought they were invading the US state (which I live adjacent to). I started to panic and wonder if my dad would have to fight them.

  26. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    King Arthur defended Britain from Garibaldi and his horde of Italians.

  27. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    i didn't know if we were christians, israelites, protestants or catholics. neither did my low iq mom when i asked her. i guess the school education is the one that failed. we and everyone around us are prots

    • 4 years ago
      Anonymous

      >i didn't know if we were christians, israelites, protestants or catholics. neither did my low iq mom when i asked her. i guess the school education is the one that failed. we and everyone around us are prots
      Lmao....... merimutts.....

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        Back to your containment board

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          Ya best start believin' in containment boards.. yer in one..

  28. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    >I thought the iron curtain was a giant metal wall across Europe
    So did I.
    I also believed that Hitler was the bad guy.
    I was a dumb kid.

  29. 4 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought the German Empire under Willy II was conservative but socdempilled and generally a benevolent entity that dindunuffin in Belgium, eastern Europe, Africa or elsewhere and if they did it wasn't their fault and they tried to fix it.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      correct

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      this is true

  30. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Prussia was a shortened version of Polish Russia

  31. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought armies would be all coloured red or blue depending on which side they were on like in AoE 2. In all fairness this wasn't entirely wrong with regards to some parts of history.

  32. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought germany was divided right down the middle and Berlin was in the dead center of Germany.

  33. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Vietnam and Vermont were the same place.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      I thought America and Australia were the same place

  34. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    took me a while until i realized the holocaust was a hoax

  35. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I used to think there was a clear good and clear evil in every war

  36. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Russia invaded Georgia because of a Eurovision Song called "Put In".

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      It's actually caled "We Don't Wanna Put In"
      its a bit sexual haha

  37. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought that Spain was in South America. The idea of colonialism really confused me since I didn't understand why it was such a big deal that Columbus (some Spanish dude to young me) sailed from Spain to the Americas.

  38. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought all the Diadochi states around the Mediterranean were Arab

  39. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I used to think israelites were the bad guys

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      I used to think israelites were not exterminated and replaced by ethnic Germans.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      i used to think israelites were good

  40. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    Perhaps my dumbest idea was that all human languages evolved from Hebrew, which turned into Greek which turned into Latin. To be fair I was 11 at the time.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Before Leibniz everyone thought that way.

  41. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought that the cold war referred to the portuguese colonial wars

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      I mean every square is a rectangle

  42. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I believed racism was just an an irrational hatred of people based solely on skin colour.

    I also believed all cultures were equal.

  43. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought the Persian Empire was Muslim

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      There were a lot of Persian empires and most of them were Muslim. Do you mean the Sassanids?

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        Maybe he means the Achaemenids?

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          maybe he's just moronic

  44. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I used to think the cold war was a real war that started right after WW2

  45. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Canadians were all eskimos, lived in igloos huffing gasoline and played curling while drinking Labatts all day.

  46. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I got North Korea and North Dakota mixed up and thought their was an insane tyrannical US governor trying to get nukes for some reason.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      This would actually be a pretty based premise for a movie

  47. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Dumb historical beliefs you had as a kid
    That this guy was as bad as we were told.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      "Hitler wanted to take over the world" is a common one

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        Hitler wanted to take over the world and exterminate everyone who didn't have blue eyes and blonde hair.
        My CNN-addicted mother still believes this.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      He turned out to be even worse than we were taught, unironically

  48. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I didn't know there was a difference between the 3rd reich and the 3rd world, they were always talked about in a negative context so I just assumed they were the same thing
    That, however, raised the question why everyone was so scared of some skinny black kids

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      My baby boomer middle school history teacher made all the kids with brown hair or eyes stand up and told them that they all would have been executed on sight in Nazi Germany lol

  49. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    Hearing about the berlin wall + the iron curtain.
    I also thought their was a massive heavily fortified wall built by Soviets during the cold war spanning most of the Soviet/Ally split.

    Living in America most people just acted like there was only 3 parts to the world. Russian countries, America and friends , mexico and other mexicos.

  50. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Harvard was somewhere in the Midwest for some reason, and even now I have to remind myself it's in Boston

  51. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    That jetfuel could melt steel beams.

  52. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought that the Welsh and the Gauls were the same people due to the way it's written in Spanish ("Galés" and "Galo").
    Through that I also thought Caesar's conquest of Gaul was his invasion of Britain, and that the territory of modern day France was already Roman before him.

  53. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    Back in like 1st grade my concept of time was so fricked that I thought Benjamin Franklin and America was like only 50 years old

  54. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought the Gulf War was fought in the gulf of mexico.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      ESL here. I thought it was about golf and wondered why the frick people were looking for oil in a golf course.

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        Based weekend hacker

  55. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    As a child I thought Diana was a princess of literal Whales like a royally appointed warden of sea life and people respected her for her great works in Ocean conservation...

  56. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    It was mostly reinforced concrete or metal fencing, so yes, it was an 'iron' curtain.

  57. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Hitler was Australian and that he sailed to Germany to fight in WW1.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      best alternate timeline right there
      >Lets SMASH SOME VB AND BRITS c**tS!

  58. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    My image of warfare between nations in the old times was that literally everybody, men, women, children, young and old, of those nations charged at each other, with whatever weapon they had.
    I got this idea when we were presented old tools in kindergarten, and some other kid asked if a potato smasher had been used in the Winter War.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      But potato mashers were used in the war as weapons.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      I literally thought the same.

      When we were kids we got to write to deployed soldiers around the start of Iraqi Freedom and I drew for him a picture of what I thought a battlefield looked like: smiling men and women in helmets, using oversized cartoony weapons like mallets and knives, clambering through an obstacle course made of electrified booby traps. I wonder what the soldier that got the letter thought of my drawing

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous
  59. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    When I was younger I thought that the pacific theater and the Vietnam war were cause because the US tried to invade Germany through Asia, then link up with the forces of the USSR, however in doing so they passed through asian countries that then declared war on them due to the US presence.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Probably thought you were some communist dick suck

  60. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought that countries always had their current borders up until like 3 years ago. When I tried to read a medieval Chinese history book I had no idea what the frick was going on. Now imagine how I felt looking at medieval Europe

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      How old are you

  61. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought that battles and wars were just the 2 sides charging at each other and fighting non stop until they basically manage to kill everyone on the opposing side. Also the planes in ww2 didnt ever land, they flew around for the whole war unless they got shot down

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I thought that battles and wars were just the 2 sides charging at each other and fighting non stop until they basically manage to kill everyone on the opposing side.

      You can thank Hollywood for that

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      I sometimes wish humanity was that brutal, we did come pretty close in the world wars to that

  62. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Mexico and Peru were direct continuations of the Inca and Aztec empires.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      This but with Italy and the Roman Empire.

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        based and mussolinipilled

  63. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Thought King Arthur and the Round Table guys like Sir Lancelot, etc. was real
    >Thought Alexander the Great was a myth
    >Thought The bible took place in pre-independence America near Texas because the pictured always looked desert-like until my uncle explained to me it didn't, got pissed at my uncle over that one. Briefly thought it was dumb that God wasn't American.
    >Thought Spain was with the Allies in both world wars
    >Thought pirates were some of the most fear warriors on the planet because they knew how to use both swords and guns
    >Thought Christopher Columbus was a pirate
    >Thought everyone who founded the Virginia colony were pirates
    >Thought Conquistadors were just Spanish pirates and that was the Spanish word for pirate
    >Thought vampires were real
    >Thought Aztec and Mayan priests were all vampires
    >Thought Dracula, Stalin, Hannibal, and probably a bunch more I'm forgetting were all vampires
    >Thought Hannibal from Silence of the Lambs was Hannibal from Carthage brought bac to life (My parents let me watch Silence of the Lambs at a very young age, it sort of fricked me up)
    >Thought Silence of the Lambs was real and Hannibal was out there plotting to eat people and ride elephants

    I wasn't a smart kid.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      that's some real moronic shit anon. hope you turned out fine tho

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      you are priceless

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Thought Silence of the Lambs was real and Hannibal was out there plotting to eat people and ride elephants
      This is true though?

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Holy shit; you win.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Thought pirates were some of the most fear warriors on the planet because they knew how to use both swords and guns

      That's actually cute

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Spanish conquistadors were pirates
      They were.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >>Thought The bible took place in pre-independence America near Texas because the pictured always looked desert-like until my uncle explained to me it didn't, got pissed at my uncle over that one. Briefly thought it was dumb that God wasn't American.
      Mormons disagree.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Thought Dracula was a vampire
      Anon... I..

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        Vampires aren't real

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      AYAYAYAY

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >>Thought The bible took place in pre-independence America near Texas because the pictured always looked desert-like until my uncle explained to me it didn't, got pissed at my uncle over that one. Briefly thought it was dumb that God wasn't American.
      Based and Patriotpilled

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      These are all based though

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Thought Aztec and Mayan priests were all vampires
      AWAKEN MY MASTERS!!

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Ah the classic stalin vampire theory

  64. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    not strictly historical, but until about 15 I held the belief that sherlock holmes was a real person. my mom actually had to break it to me like santa claus, except I knew about santa claus since I was 9.

  65. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I use to believe that Russia was founded by Swedes

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      it was tho

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      moron

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        he's right tho

        • 3 years ago
          Anonymous

          How? Rurik was a finn

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >who is rurik

  66. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    In the third grade I had an assignment to write to first responders thanking them for saving people on 9/11 and I thanked the cops for trying to stop the hijackers because I thought the terrorists announced their intentions in their airports and stole a plane that was parked.

  67. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    >thought that Argentina, Brazil and Chile were italian colonies
    >thought that the gulf wars were America vs Mexico because back then we learned about the gulf of mexico in school so naturally that had to be the only gulf on the planet
    >thought that people fled from west Berlin to east Berlin because the Soviets and the western allies flipped their sectors around so that the western part was east to make it fairer or something
    >thought that Russia was a successor state to Prussia

  68. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    That hitler killed his own parents

  69. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I got surprised when it turned out that Poland's 1939 and present day borders were way different

  70. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought that Judaism was older than Hinduism

  71. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    Kid me just had a very weird perception of time, pretty boring compared to the rest of this thread. I remember being eight years old and hearing that the bubonic plague happened in the 1300s and thinking that such a date was extremely ancient beyond comprehension.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      That was pretty much any year before the 1920s, that was anything outside what I had learned in school. I remember learning that Frankenstein was written in 1818 and it seemed so impossibly far away.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      I do agree it is far beyond normal comprehension. As much as we likely wouldn’t know how to interact with an ordinary gentleman from the 1700s, someone from further than that in my opinion would share such different values than us nowadays that they’re beyond all speculation. Sometimes they’re closer in sensibility, like the Roman republicans, and sometimes further like the Byzantines, but they’d all be exceedingly strange if not impossible to be able to sit down and converse with normally now even if we could speak their language

  72. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought that Cod 4 : Modern Warfare's plot was historical, meaning that a nuclear bomb was dropped on Afghanistan ... my brother made a fool of me

  73. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I don't remember having any of these types of misconceptions. Anything I didn't know I guess I just didn't think about, my mind didn't try to fill in the gaps of anything. I believed wholeheartedly in santa until I was 11, that's the type of person I am.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Yikes!

      • 3 years ago
        Anonymous

        i-it's not that bad i just accept whatever authority tells me. i wouldve been a good serf. im comfortable being exploited if it means i get some pats on the head and encouragement...
        the second i stopped believing in santa was exactly when i became an atheist too, black and white like that

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      My parents would get on the roof and stomp around to make think santa just landed, then they made it look like a reindeer had entered our home by putting muddy hoofprints on the carpet with half eaten carrots everywhere. Shit had me convinced for a long time lol.

  74. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    That Berlin was in the middle of Germany and the Berlin wall was a huge wall diving the country in half.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >That Berlin was in the middle of Germany
      It was more or less true back in the days of the empire. Berlin is slightly over 500km away from both Trier and Koenigsberg.

  75. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I was raised by extremely religious parents/grandparents and so I totally bought into the Biblical account of history. I believed that Judaism was the first and only true (before Christianity) religion and God created everyone, but some people hated God for trying to make them follow rules, and so they started practicing false religions. Also believed Noah's Ark, Garden of Eden etc. were real events and that creatures like angels, demons, nephilim etc. were real. But then when I was around 8 I watched a cartoon of Noah's Ark and realized it was kinda moronic and that eventually led to me realizing the whole thing was moronic by the time I was around 15, it took me so long because I was afraid my thoughts would send me to hell.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      I'm kinda similar to you only not as extreme. I was raised Christian and it baffled me when I found out there were people that weren't Christian. Naturally this made me start to question how I knew my God was the right one out of all of them, and I eventually came to terms that I didn't and it was all bullshit. I feel like I've lost something because of it though because religious communities are very wholesome and friendly unlike the group of unrepentant buttholes I find myself surrounded with these days

  76. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    i thought the british represented civilisation and common decency

  77. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Hungary and Turkey were related somehow because they were both named after food

  78. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    That was the first metaphor I ever learned. Growing up after the fall of communism was kinda weird too in the mid 90’sbecause I was 8 years old and had no idea why half the globes and textbooks had the USSR, and half had Russia/independent states.

  79. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I believed in the holohoax

  80. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought London and Paris were filled with natives based on old tourist advertisements.
    I thought Europe in general was some sort of safe haven in case things didn’t work out here.
    I thought British royalty still dressed in red coats and wore wigs like in the history books.
    I bought into the idea that we were the “good guys” in all the wars we participated in and the other side was the “bad guys”.
    I thought the Middle East was a giant desert filled with people who still dress the way they depict people two thousand years ago in Sunday school.
    I thought Israel was in the center of the Middle East.
    I thought America was founded by Christians and the God they spoke about was the Christian God.
    I thought Anastasia Romanov was still alive.

    t. American

  81. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought African never had an empire and everyone lived it huts prior to Western colonization in the 19th century

    I thought everyone practiced black magic before 19th century

    I thought Religion was an innate idea. You're either born a Christian or Muslim

  82. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    i thought that berlin was where the main west-east germany border was located, and that the berlin wall covered that whole area.

  83. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I saw illustration about early development of robotics and actually thought that first robots looked like this. People had giant robots walking around and fighting in WW1.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      I got memed into believing the boilerplate was real, so it could be worse

  84. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I used to think that all the millions of deaths attributed to Hitler were caused by him directly: as in he had an AK-47 and he ran around everywhere murdering people and nobody was able to stop him.

  85. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    Washington D.C. was in the state of Washington.

  86. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought WW2 wasn't a battle between three israeli ideologies

  87. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I didn't understand the relative power of countries. I am British and was under the impression a country like Italy could attack us at any time. I think this wasn't helped by South Park (Canada successfully invading the US in scenes).

    I also thought most of the world was just huge islands like the UK was. I saw that map of the US without Alaska so assumed the US was a big island. I drew war maps as a kid and everything was just islands apart from germany and russia, which were connected by land.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Well, Italy COULD attack you guys at any time, assuming they ever made it through Gibraltar or marched their army across the Alps to take France first in a reverse-Napoleonic maneuvre, but it would be highly highly inadvisable

  88. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Serbia and Siberia was the same thing
    I thought Turkey was not in Europe
    I thought that USA was the greatest country in the world
    I thought that history did not matter that much

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I thought Turkey was not in Europe

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I thought that USA was the greatest country in the world
      Which one is the greatest?

  89. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    Went to mosque after school every weekday to learn about Islam as a kid. Used to think that your life ended after you stopped going to mosque (to learn). You would just die. Weird that I use to think this despite the fact that there were plenty of people around who were alive and did not in fact go to the mosque.

  90. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Herodotus was born in like the 20th century because for him to be called the father of history, he must have written the history of most of the world.
    I also found it weird that a 20th century guy would have a name like Herodotus and no last name.

  91. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought New Zealand was in the north of Russia (Novaya Zemlya)
    I thought Siberia was a tiny island (Novaya Zemlya)
    I thought the Berlin Wall was all around the border of East Germany
    I thought Rock Balboa was real
    I thought Ireland was in the Balkans
    I thought one state in my country (Sonora) was the house of tropical music because a lot of groups used the name "Sonora"
    Thought California had jungle because it was so green in the map and because of a group translated as "The Toucans of Tijuana"
    I thought the climate phenomenons of "the boy" and "the girl" were in honor of some unknown kid that died in a storm or something
    I though Prussia was an extension of Russia
    I thought everybody was in war with Germany in ww2 because they saw the labour camps and the starving people and they just wanted to be humanitarians and kill Hitler

  92. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    >I thought the iron curtain was a giant metal wall across Europe
    I pictured a giant iron curtain in the literal sense.

  93. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought that Greenland was green and Iceland was actually a shithole

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      Literally falling for medieval Norse propaganda.

  94. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought Prussia was a Russian colony or something

  95. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    i thought new york was in hawaii because it sounds asian

  96. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    Like others in this thread, I didnt know what Prussia was. I thought it was a region between Poland and Russia that they called Prussia, you know like a portmanteau of "Poland" and "Russia"

    I was really confused when I later learned that Prussians were Germans.

  97. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    Columbus discovered that the Earth was round.

  98. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I was positive that we had already had ww3, and when my brother told me otherwise I thought he was fricking with me

  99. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I believed the current world order to be a fixed state of affairs forever

  100. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I believed the moon was made of cheese

  101. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I believed that the ‘holocaust’ happened.

    Not my fault as it’s the most propagandised fiction in history.

    The amount of human effort that has gone into maintaining this lie basically proves that satan is real.

  102. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I was utterly convinced Nintendo was an Italian company as a kid because Mario was Italian and Super Mario Sunshine always resembled coastal Italy to me.

  103. 3 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought a nuclear bomb would destroy half the planet and thought that dropping one out of a Concorde to outrun the explosion to wipe out the terrorists in the middle east was a good idea.
    I know it's not history but that's probably the stupidest thing I ever came up with as a kid.

    • 3 years ago
      Anonymous

      I remember my mum telling me that there was a button called the doomsday button was linked to a nuke in the core of the earth, and that if the world got too shitty they'd press it and blow the planet up.
      She also told me the doomsday clock was a clock was a clock that would count down to tell people when the government was going to just randomly nuke cities at various times.
      I don't know whether she actually believed this or was just making it up to frick with me.

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