What were some Veeky Forumstorical misconceptions you had when you were younger?

What were some Veeky Forumstorical misconceptions you had when you were younger?
In middle school I thought Cortes conquered the entirety of Latin America for Spain. I also had no idea other native groups who hated the Aztecs helped with his conquest.
So in my head I placed Cortes heads and shoulders above guys like Alexander, Genghis Khan, Caesar, and Napoleon because I thought he conquered the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas with like 100 guys at his disposal.

In early elementary school I also thought the Romans made it across the Atlantic Ocean. I went to a Catholic school and I always misheard "Calvary hill" as "Calgary Hill", based on my NHL knowledge, I thought Jesus was killed by Canadians.

I had a very poor grasp on time and thought that ww1 and 2 didn't happen very long ago at all, like soon enough for my 60 at the time granddad to have fought in them..

Thought Stalin only killed less than a million people. He was my role model as a child you see and I even drew a portrait of him for art class.

Can I see that portrait?

Sure.

Not bad, if high school drawing I assume.

wow...

If I recall correctly it was the 6th grade.

Is that a legit article?

>f*scists
>sl*vs
>people

Stalin's death figure is exaggerated by Veeky Forums to quite a degree. It's about 2 million killed directly (purges, shootings, gulags, etc) and 18 million indirectly (famine).

just type in breitbart and the quote in google and find out

Yeah I mean, by that logic, Churchill killed 2 million people in Bengal.

>indirectly
That's debatable but I was referring to thinking there were almost no political deaths.

"playdough was a Greek philosopher."

Also didn't know there was a difference between Romans and Greeks. Not really funny, just dumb.

I used to think that Siam unified all of south east asia, but that was just because of risk
Worst i can remember is that I thought that stalingrad was infront of moscow

I used to think Gaius Julius Caesar and Augustus were the same person...

I thought we wuz Romans.

I guess LotR got me thinking the medieval era was some unfathomably ancient period in history when I was in middle school for some reason. Like a weird pre-Mesopotamian era that we didn't actually even know a lot about.

I was a little disappointed learning it was only about 1000 years ago.

*visible disappointment

>I always wondered why the Bible has so many chapter names and thought that Exodus and Genesis were real people.Never got around asking my school priest about it.
>Thought that when history refer to Englishmen,they were referring to Americans
>I thought that the Soviet Union still existed in 2002 because I saw an almanac without the Russian Flag and it was replaced with the Soviet Flag
>I thought that Prussia was a Russian province that rebelled from the Tsar
>Thought that North Africa was some Christian country because of how close it is to the Vatican

>Thought that North Africa was some Christian country because of how close it is to the Vatican
Until about 800, it was, under Rome's direct jurisdiction, too.
But the North African priests were always a rebellious little bunch.

>Martyr us or we kill you!