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How about a project on how, due to the absence of a better way to inform the public about current events, historical falsehoods in America were created by pop culture.
eg. Christopher Columbus sailed west to prove the world was round....WRONG. A round earth was common knowledge at that that time. But Washington Irving thought it made a compelling story, and he was the most popular writer in the world when he wrote The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus
or
April 18, 1775 - A man rides from Boston to NYC and down into Pennsylvania warning the people of the impending British Invasion "The British are coming" and his name was...
Israel Bissel
You were thinking Paul Revere? He rode from Cambridge to Boston - just a few miles. Why is he more famous? At the beginning of the US Civil War Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (a Unionist) wanted to write a poem that would stir the souls of Americans, something patriotic and thrilling. And Israel Bissel wasn't a good hero name...too Jewish sounding, we like our heroes goy in the US. So the poem goes...
"Listen my children and you shall hear of the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,
Twas the eighteenth of April in '75, hardly a man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year"
Last edited by Mictlantechutli; 05-03-2007 at 09:00 AM.
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