Misconceptions about the United States - mental_floss on YouTube (Ep. 33)

Hi, I'm Elliot and this is Mental Floss on YouTube

Today I'm going to talk about some misconceptions of the good ol' United States of America

Just in time for 4th of July. Okay. Here. Misconception number one

The national anthem was written by an American. It's true that the poem which became the lyrics was written by an American, Francis Scott Key

but those lyrics were attached to an already established English tune called To Anacreon in Heaven

The music was written by British composer John Stafford Smith, and he actually wrote them to be the constitutional song of a gentleman's club in London known as the Anacryantic Society

Misconception number two, the US won World War II. A lot of people give the United States a lot of credit when it comes to the end of World War II, but the Soviet Union had done a lot of that work up until that point

By the time the US began military operations, the Soviet Union had already defeated Germany

in Moscow and was in the midst of the Siege of Leningrad. In fact, some scholars believe that the Soviet Union might have been able to defeat Hitler

without any help from the West at all. According to the British historian Professor Jeffrey Roberts, the Soviet Union could have

defeated Nazi Germany on its own, but it would have taken it a lot longer and at a much greater

price and of course it would have taken the country much longer to recover after World War II Misconception number three Minnesota has more lakes than any state It known as the land of 10 lakes but Minnesota has nothing on Alaska which has over 3 million lakes Minnesota does

have the second most lakes, though, so congratulations on that. Misconception number four. The phrase

separation of church and state is from the Constitution. Nope, actually, the Constitution

only promises no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or

public trust under the United States. Then, the First Amendment contains the phrase, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Over time

people have interpreted things like that to mean separation of church and state, which was a phrase originally used by Thomas Jefferson in a letter in 1802

Misconception number five, Uncle Sam is a fictional character. Uncle Sam's name was

actually borrowed from a real guy named Samuel Wilson. He lived in Troy, New York during the

War of 1812. He was a meat packer and ended up inspecting meat for the army. He gained popularity

for this in addition to his friendliness, so he got the nickname Uncle Sam. People started joking

that the U.S. on meat barrels stood for Uncle Sam rather than the United States, which is how his

association with the Army became a lasting phenomenon. And even though this all might

sound fictitious, in 1961, Congress declared the story to be legal truth. I didn't even know they

could do that. Misconception number six. Old people were in favor of the Vietnam War and young people

were not Actually Gallup conducted a poll about this in August of 1965 which was about a year after the Gulf of Tonkin incident They found that 76 of adults under 30 supported the Vietnam War On the other hand only 51 of adults over 49 supported it Even in 1970 41 of under 30 supported the war

Misconception at number seven, you can tell how a state will vote based on average IQ

So this story emerged in 2002 when someone posted a chart online proving that people from states who voted for Al Gore

in the 2000 election had a higher average IQ than those who voted for George W. Bush

It was widely believed and even The Economist published the results. The chart came back for the 2004 election, again claiming that states that voted Democrat had populations with higher IQs

But an accurate chart displaying this phenomenon has yet to be created. Misconception at number 8, Native Americans lived in a completely different manner than Europeans

There were so many Native American tribes living in America before Europeans came along, so it's impossible to generalize

But it's important to know that our stereotypes of the ancient Native Americans living in teepees aren't necessarily true

Like in modern-day Illinois, Native Americans had an urban city known as Cahokia, which was built between 1000 and 1300 CE

The city contained thousands of homes, which archaeologists say seemed to have gone up practically overnight

It also had buildings and a huge grand plaza, like 45 football fields big

Ancient Native Americans are also known for burning a lot of forests. In fact, Richard Neville, a famous geochemist from Stanford, has a theory that the Native

Americans and the Europeans who arrived in the New World are partially responsible for Europe Little Ice Age because burning forests released carbon dioxide in the air When the Europeans arrived a lot of that stopped causing a carbon sink and possibly a little ice age an ocean away

Misconception number nine, Florida is the sunniest state. Actually, the National Weather Service has cited Florida as sixth on the list of sunniest states

though it's possible that the sun's rays feel the strongest there. The top five are Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas

Fun fact, though, Florida is still the best state. Misconception number ten, Florida is the best state

No, I'm just kidding. The Statue of Liberty is a symbol for the US welcoming immigrants

A lot of what we think we know about the Statue of Liberty isn't exactly true

Most of us know the story that the statue was given to us in the late 19th century by the French as a symbol of immigration, but scholars now believe that it was intended

as an anti-monarchy and anti-slavery gesture. It was probably also more political

French politicians wanted to remind their own country about how great democracy was

Plus, they knew that a gift that might encourage trade with the US couldn't hurt. It was only in the 20th century that the statue began to be associated with immigration

also probably when it was connected with the Emma Lazarus poem, Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

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Enjoy your 4th of July. I'll see you next week. Bye