November 27, 2007
What People Know or Don’t Posted by Julie M. Fenster at 02:45 PM EST For a long time, the most frightening comment I had ever heard was made by my cousin, who sidled up to me one day on a very important errand. She said that she and her husband—college graduates—had been talking a few days before, and her husband wanted to know when Winston Churchill was President. That, however, has now been bumped to second-place. Over Thanksgiving, a friend in New England told me about some friends, men in their eighties, who visited a local school on Veterans Day to describe their experiences to the students. They walked into the appointed classroom and then stood in a state of shock as the teacher introduced them as veterans of World War 11. Any self-respecting graduate student could probably prove that World War II was, as a matter of actual fact, the eleventh world war in the planet’s history—but no matter. With such a thorough respect for history abounding, the world will get to No. 11 soon enough.
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