LONDOND - (AFP) - Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.
The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.
And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.
Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain’s most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.
Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.
Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns’ fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.
UKTV Gold television surveyed 3,000 people.
And here I thought that we were in bad shape with our educational system - would be fun to run the same poll in the USofA. Well, maybe not, it might make us all shake our heads and cry.
Wow, Brits are becoming as big of idiots as Americans.
This is really pathetic. This lack of any reckoning of history is why people tolerate the crap from government that they do. They have no understanding how dangerous this nonsense is because they haven’t studied how the same war mongering and trampling of civil liberties has meant tyranny throughout history.
Yobachi - What an honor to have you visit one of my other sites. Most people do not know their history and it is because the education system has gone quite awry. Thirty years ago I lived next to some college kids who were attending school in the Bay Area (California) and you’d be astonished at how unlearned they were and I ended up tutoring them for their entire freshman and sophomore years. If they had attended high school where I went, they wouldn’t have graduated. Sad, isn’t it. Thanks again for dropping by.