> From across The Pond there's a wonderful book
that came out in the
> mid-1990s about how dreadful the teaching of history is at the
> secondary school level. The gap between high school and
> undergraduate instruction is greater for history than for any other
> subject.
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_My_Teacher_Told_Me
>
> Wikipedia opens new possibilities for correcting that problem.
>
> Over here it went something like this:
>
> *When we had our revolution we got help from France.
>
> *Then we bought the Louisiana Purchase from France, which doubled
> the size of our country. Gee, thanks.
>
> *Then we had the War of 1812, which didn't really happen in 1812,
> and we teamed up with France again.
>
> Somewhere in there was 'Let them eat cake', a guillotine, Napoleon,
> and Waterloo. But that was all on another continent and
> unimportant. As long as we could be buddies with France whenever
> necessary, everything went fine.
>
> -Durova