Lies My Sunday School Teacher Taught Me

If we don’t know much about geography, or history, or philosophy, we’re likely to blame our teachers. It’s even worse when we have to unlearn what we’ve been taught. The apostle James must have some good reasons for saying that not everyone should teach

Columbus sailed the ocean blue, in fourteen hundred ninety-two.

The second verse, according to some revisionist versions, puts his "discovery" in a different light: In fourteen hundred ninety-three, he stole all that he could see.

We're only a few weeks away from what used to be Columbus Day. Today, while Italian-Americans still observe the day with a strong sense of understandable pride, others view this holiday as a fundamental historical lie. There were people living here when Columbus arrived, after all, not to mention the Vikings who beat Columbus to the New World by about 500 years.

Now it's Native American Day, or Indigenous People's Day. Or something.

Columbus, the pride of Genoa - no more "discovered" America than he invented the Internet, according to James Louwen, author of the prize-winning Lies My Teacher Told Me - a blistering critique of the high-school history textbooks our children are poring over and maybe even digesting this new school year.

After...