29 Shockingly False Pieces Of Propaganda And “History” We’re Taught In The US That Define The Real “Fake News”

Here in the US, a “free” nation, I think we tend to forget just how much propaganda we’re being fed. We have more access to news and history than ever, and yet so many Americans are uninformed or misinformed on the reality of our country and its past. This isn’t helped by our current President and Conservative lawmakers, who constantly lie and attempt to erase the truth.

Last month, Trump called for the removal of anything in our National Parks that paints America in a negative light, including, for instance, references to slavery at the site of George Washington’s old house. Just this week, Trump called for the reinstatement of Columbus Day “to reclaim his extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue from the left-wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name and dishonor his memory.” And don’t get me started on this administration’s comments on what’s taught in US schools.

All in all, it seems like a good time to parse through some of the propaganda and false or whitewashed history we’re taught here in America. So recently, when Reddit user amc_visions asked, “What’s something you once believed only to later realize it was propaganda?” I kept an eye on the specific claims from or about the US. Here are the lies, propaganda, and warped historical teachings that people identified.

I also used suggestions from this Reddit thread.

1. The Gulf War is often remembered as a swift and justified effort to liberate Kuwait from Iraq’s invasion in 1990. But one of the most powerful emotional appeals used to rally support for that intervention turned out to be a calculated lie. In the fall of 1990, the US deployed hundreds of thousands of troops to the area. But the UN had not yet decided to sanction the use of force, and neither had Congress. Then, in October, a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl named Nayirah testified to Congress about how the Iraqi military had treated the people of Kuwait. Detailing her experience volunteering at a hospital, she said, “I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns. They took the babies out of incubators, took the incubators and left the children to die on the cold floor. It was horrifying.”

This was instrumental in drumming up support for US intervention, publicly and in Congress, which narrowly passed the vote to get involved. Then–President George H. W. Bush himself often cited the claim to justify the US’s involvement. Except…it was all a lie. Nayirah was the daughter of Kuwait’s ambassador to the US and had been coached by a PR firm hired by Kuwait’s government. Amnesty International retracted its report supporting the claim of babies being taken from incubators and left to die after it found no evidence of any such thing, and the organization accused Bush of “opportunistic manipulation of the international human rights movement.”

Suggested by u/A_Nonny_Muse

2. Speaking of less-than-accurate testimony being used as war propaganda…in 2003, then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented a PowerPoint to the UN to justify the US invasion of Iraq. Primarily, his presentation served to suggest that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and no plans to disarm — in fact, he stated they meant to make more. This turned out to be false, and several of his points were misleading, despite him stating that “every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”

Suggested by u/PlanktonHaunting2025

Powell later expressed regret for his remarks, which he had been misled about himself.

While the UN did not act on Powell’s presentation, it still served as a justification in the international community for the US invasion of Iraq a month later. This was already planned and approved by then-President W. Bush. A UN commission soon found no evidence that Iraq had continued a WMD program or had large quantities of biological weapons like anthrax, damaging US credibility with the UN forever.

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3. It wasn’t just this presentation, though, and it wasn’t just the UN or the international community that was deceived. President Bush’s administration controlled the views of the American public through propaganda. It started with the exaggeration and deception around being sure Iraq had WMDs and the overall threat of Saddam Hussein, along with suggesting ties to al-Qaeda. The US framed the war as not only to curb the WMD danger, but also to liberate Iraq from a dictator. The initial invasion was even called Operation Iraqi Freedom. While it’s true some civilians may have been happy at the removal of Hussein, the US Army remained long after that.

Suggested by u/TheRobn8

The UN “gave” sovereignty back to Iraq in name only in 2004, as US troops remained, and a poll soon after found that 71% of Iraqis saw the US army as occupiers and opposed their presence. It’s no surprise; over 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the invasion and ensuing years. Yet for the American people, much of the focus was on the experience of soldiers, along with their deaths (there were 4,700 deaths from the US and its allies). This served to redirect Americans from the reasons the US entered the war, and from Iraqi civilian casualties and opinions about the US’s involvement. Language and media were carefully used to frame the conflict to legitimize the continued deployment of American troops, who did not leave until the end of 2011.

4. As Columbus Day was this week, we need to discuss Columbus. He was not the first person to “discover” the Americas (I use quotes around “discover” because, of course, Indigenous people were already there). Leif Erikson had been to Canada hundreds of years prior. In fact, Columbus also never even set foot on North America. He traveled to Central and South America, where he enslaved the natives, forcing them to work on plantations or in dangerous conditions in mines, and even sent some to Spain to be enslaved there.

Also, his ships, the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria, were probably not named that at all.

Suggested by [deleted] and u/ODB247

In his position as viceroy of Santo Domingo, he ruled with a so-called “iron fist,” enacting violence, torture, and terrible punishments against he natives. When some of the native people rebelled against him, he had them killed and paraded their bodies down the streets. He was thought to be too brutal even at the time, and was actually arrested and brought to trial in Spain. After his conduct in Santo Domingo was revealed, he was removed as viceroy of Santo Domingo and governor of the Indies.

And, while he may not have been aware of this, he also brought diseases to the Americas that the native people lacked immunity to, with the Taino people of Hispaniola dwindling down to 14,000 from 250,000 over the course of 25 years. Even outside of Columbus’s exploits, he is often credited with heralding in a new age of “exploration,” which led to up to 90% of natives in the Americas dying from disease.

5. Speaking of Columbus, he did not prove the Earth was round. No one thought it was flat at the time, and Columbus thought he’d hit Asia because he didn’t know the Americas were there, and he thought the globe was smaller than it was. The entire story about his voyage having anything to do with proving the Earth was round originated from American author Washington Irving, who wrote so in The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. This story only serves to make Columbus feel more impressive or ahead of his time.

Suggested by u/MadScientist1023

6. The War on Drugs was a massive piece of propaganda. Nixon declared the so-called war in a press conference in 1971, calling drug use “public enemy number one” and pledging to fight it. This took the form of directing more funding towards strengthening anti-drug agencies, creating the DEA, and enacting new laws for those found in possession of drugs. One of these was mandatory sentencing, which imposed a minimum sentence for certain drug crimes. Another was no-knock warrants, where police (sometimes accompanied by SWAT teams) were allowed to enter a home without warning or announcement. He also refused to decriminalize weed despite a commission he created recommending it.

Suggested by u/Upstairs_Cow

Not only were many of these measures, like mandatory sentencing, ineffective and contributed to mass incarceration, but the War on Drugs was largely used as a cover-up to excuse targeting anti-war demonstrators and Black people. One of Nixon’s advisors, John Ehrlichman, even said, “[w]e couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black”…but they could use this “war” to link drugs to those groups and then go after them that way.

Suggested by [deleted]

Let’s look at mandatory sentencing specifically and how it was used to disproportionally incarcerate Black people: possessing even five grams of crack cocaine was a mandatory five-year sentence, but it would take 500 grams of powder cocaine to trigger the same sentence. Crack cocaine was more common in Black communities, while powder cocaine was more common amongst wealthier white communities. This was a 100-to-one ratio.

Many states have since moved to roll back mandatory sentencing or lessen the ratio.

As far as no-knock warrants…well, we only have to look at police brutality and violence to get an idea as to how that could excuse violence against Black communities. Many of Nixon’s measures were further expanded upon in later presidencies, leading to a massive increase in arrests for non-violent drug offenses and massively increased incarceration country-wide, especially among BIPOC. And none of this actually achieved what Nixon claimed it was all for — to reduce drug use or end the drug trade.

7. Relatedly, you may have experienced DARE’s anti-drugs program in your schools. D.A.R.E. was started by the LAPD, in particular, its then-chief, Daryl Gates, who would later become best known for his controversial handling of the deadly LA riots, which forced him to resign. Gates was also accused of racist comments and problematic views on drug users (he once said they should be shot). Anyways, despite the program being implemented in up to 3/4 of America’s schools, Gates’ brainchild was a complete failure and wasn’t even based on evidence.

Suggested by u/TheRealFaust

This op-ed calls DARE “police propaganda,” saying it has the “goal of legitimizing police authority through drug education and prevention,” and in my opinion, it’s fair. The abstinence taught in the program supports the same War on Drugs mentality that puts drug users in prison for nonviolent offenses and perpetuates mass incarceration in the US.

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The program utilized a “Just Say No” style teaching method rather than harm prevention and endorsed the idea of the “gateway drug” (aka, that smoking weed would lead to harder drugs). It was later shown to actually slightly increase drug use among teens, rather than decrease it.

DARE is still around, but has changed to a more evidence-based approach.

8. Speaking of drug use, Go Ask Alice was also basically anti-drug propaganda. The “diary” of a teenage girl detailing her rapid descent into drug use was written by a middle-aged woman from rural Utah named Beatrice Sparks. Sparks was a fifty-something member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who was trying to make it as a writer, and she likely saw an opportunity as panic around drug use in teenagers spiked. When her involvement in the book was revealed, she claimed to have come into possession of the dairies and edited them, but changed her story multiple times. Most seemed to reference her as some type of counselor or psychologist, but Sparks had no license and had dropped out of high school. The book is now listed as fiction.

It’s possible Sparks did know a troubled teen she renamed Alice, but it’s also pretty clear that there was a lot of fiction in the book, considering how wildly unrealistic a lot of it is, and how much she embellished the story of Alden Barrett in her next book, Jay’s Journal. Go Ask Alice and Jay’s Journal lent major credence to anti-drug propaganda and satanic panic, respectively, despite their lies and problematic messaging.

Alden Barrett, or “Jay,” dealt with depression and drug use and died by suicide in 1971. Sparks turned this into a story of Satanic panic, increasing his entries to 212 from 67 and telling of Satanic rituals, orgies, and animal mutilation, among other disturbing things.

9. Depending on where you’re from, you may have been taught that the Civil War was about states’ rights. In fact, a 2011 poll states that 48% of respondents believe the main issue of the Civil War was states’ rights, as opposed to 38% believing it was slavery (9% said both were equal causes). Let’s make no mistake — the Civil War was fought over slavery. Yes, it was also about states’ rights, but the states’ rights in question were specifically around slavery.

Suggested by u/Q_G_ and u/Sasha_NotSoApropos

10. You may have even been taught about the Civil War as “the war of northern aggression.” Well, it turns out that the term “the war of northern aggression” isn’t even from the Civil War era, or if it was, it was not a common phrase; it was popularized as a response to the Civil Rights Movement (though it never found wide usage). The War Between the States also became a more popular term during that time.

Suggested by u/WatchTheBoom

11. Also, I shouldn’t have to say this, but in case you were taught otherwise, the notion of “benevolent masters” (and that ensalved people were happy) promoted by some older fiction and history books was pure propaganda. This idea was often specifically promoted in response to the Civil Rights Movement.

Suggested by u/postapocalyptictribe

12. Speaking of things added in response to the Civil Rights Movement…You probably remember the Georgia state flag featuring a Confederate flag when you were growing up (it remained until 2001), right? Yeah, that wasn’t always there. It was actively added as a response to the Civil Rights Movement in 1956.

13. Additionally, the Confederate flag was not the original Confederate flag or the official one. Its first flag was too similar to the American flag, and they had to change it after confusion on the battlefield. The Confederacy then created the flag we now associate with the Confederacy, but it was not consistent in its design, and it was referred to as the Battle Flag, not the Confederate flag. They later created their first official national flag, which featured the Battle Flag in the corner, and ended the war with another variation.

14. The Texas Revolution is often sanitized in history books, particularly in Texas. One of the main causes of the revolution was not a patriotic desire for freedom from Mexico, but instead to preserve slavery. Mexico had outlawed the practice, which upset Texans, whose main industry was cotton. The Battle of the Alamo wasn’t really the brave stand for freedom and independence it’s sometimes portrayed or taught as.

Suggested by u/rossaraptor

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15. The story of how Hawaii was added as the 50th state is probably a lot darker than you thought. Basically, in the 1800s, white people realized they could grow sugar cane in Hawaii and began buying land. The sugar trade became connected to the American economy, and American and European settlers decided in 1887 to further bring it under their control. They forced the Native king of Hawaii to sign a Constitution that limited voting to English-speaking white landowners and gave him very little power. Six years later, they overthrew Hawaii’s Queen Liliʻuokalani with the aid of America’s envoy to Hawaii, John L. Stevens, threatening her with a warship and invasion.

Suggested by u/AccessibleBeige

While then-President Grover Cleveland did not approve, the next administration and Congress were more opportunistic about Hawaii’s benefits and annexed Hawaii. It was allowed to self-govern…meaning by white people like Sanford B. Dole, cousin of the Dole company founder. After annexation, residents did not vote for their leaders and had little support from the US government. Later, after Pearl Harbor, it was put under martial law. Finally, it was made a state in 1959. While many Hawaiians supported statehood, others were understandably unhappy at having their land and sovereignty taken, and this sentiment is still around today.

The US government apologized in the ’90s without offering any money or anything tangible to the people of Hawaii.

16. The rhetoric that the atomic bombs 100% had to be used in order to end WWII (and prevent further death) is not entirely true. There is plenty of evidence to suggest the US dropped the bombs to A) prevent the Soviet Union from getting too involved in the offense against Japan, which could lead to them seizing territory, and B) intimidate and impress the Soviet Union with the US’s power. There were other options to using the bombs, and there was plenty more time to consider them before the planned invasion of Japan.

The United States’ use of atomic bombs in Japan killed over 100,000 people there (and likely far over 200,000; it’s hard to measure because so many deaths occurred after the fact) — almost all of whom were civilians. At least another 100,000 were injured. Survivors described witnessing burned, torn-apart people carrying their eyeballs in their hands, with their flesh hanging off their bodies, before they finally collapsed and died. The bomb was specifically dropped by workers’ housing to “achieve maximum psychological effect.”

17. The US did not enter World War II to beat the Germans or rescue the Jewish people. The war began in 1939, but the U.S. didn’t even enter the war until late 1941, after they were attacked by the Japanese, and then spent most of their time fighting in the Pacific Theater. It wasn’t until 1944 (a year before the war’s end, and two years after credible reports that millions of Jews were being killed) that the US actively began trying to rescue Jews. World War II was not America’s great moral battle like the media makes it seem, nor were they as involved as the media suggests.

In fact, the US actively turned away thousands of Jewish refugees during the war (returning them to places under Nazi control), despite not having filled its quota for German immigrants. Countries that did accept Jewish refugees included China and the Philippines.

18. In the US, it’s often made to seem like the US won WWII for the Allies, but this isn’t really accurate. The USSR killed more Nazi soldiers than any other nation — their numbers were 3/4 of the total German forces killed. Many historians credit them with having the most decisive role, while others emphasize Britain’s ability to weather the Blitz before the US entered, and not be captured. The US’s impact was considerable, perhaps equal to the other Allied powers, but the picture painted of them stepping in and decisively winning the war is not accurate. This idea appears to have spread post-war; French citizens initially claimed the USSR was the most decisive, with 57% nominating the Soviets, and in 2018, it was found that 56% of French people polled believed the US was the most significant nation when it came to defeating Germany.

Suggested by u/coloradoconvict

19. Manifest Destiny — the 19th-century belief that the United States was divinely destined to expand westward — is often taught in ways that conceal many factors. Even at the time, the idea that white settlers should spread and expand west was a contested notion. Settlers and politicians alike had serious concerns about armed Native Americans. While some thinkers of the day espoused the idea, it was more in retrospect, after the expansion of the US was complete, that it was more widely seen as inevitable or right.

Suggested by u/ke_co

And Natives were not “uncivilized” or not using the land. It was actually the opposite — the settlers could not see what their work with the land was because it was too sophisticated for them to recognize. The land also had other spiritual and cultural uses for the Native Americans, who treated it with care in their subsistence economy, which was far better for the land and the wildlife. Manifest Destiny was used to justify taking this land through violence and the forced removal of Native peoples to remote reservations that lacked resources and were incompatible with their way of life — ultimately eroding their culture and deep connection to the land.

20. Relatedly, the idea of the adventure-seeking pioneers glosses over a lot of the actual history. Remember, settlers were not going into empty, unused land. Native Americans lived there, and they were mercilessly killed through violence and disease as the settlers came through.

21. Overall, our treatment of the Natives was likely incompletely taught in your school. We’ve talked about Columbus and the disease brought by European settlers, along with some of the violence, but we haven’t really gone into it. You may have learned about the Trail of Tears or the smallpox blanket, but you likely never heard what the settlers did to the Native Americans referred to as a genocide.

Suggested by u/hawkeyepitts

This included not just killing Native Americans in conflicts caused by settlers taking their land, but making numerous bad faith treaties, forcing children into boarding schools where they were stripped of their culture and Americanized, decimating the buffalo population (they went from 30-60 million to less than 1,000) that was integral to the Native Americans’ survival, forcing them to settle in inhospitable areas, capturing some and selling them into slavery, and damaging relationships between tribes. And that’s just touching the surface. They literally killed so many Natives that it affected the global climate.

22. To demonstrate just one instance of violence against Natives, let’s talk about the Wounded Knee Massacre. In the late 1890s, the Lakota people had been robbed of much of their land (and the buffalo that used to roam there), forced onto reservations they needed permission to leave, and hit with droughts and epidemics. A movement/religion called the Ghost Dance began, in which the Lakota believed the United States and its white colonists would one day disappear.

Suggested by christinebailey

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Fearing an uprising, the US Government sent troops (the largest military deployment since the Civil War) to arrest the movement’s leaders. One Sioux chief fled with a group of Lakota, heading for another reservation in the state. Troops found them, arrested the chief, and began to confiscate weapons. Fighting broke out, and the soldiers shot at the camp, killing at least 150 (and possibly up to 300) — including the chief, who was already arrested and was so sick he could barely move. Only 25 American soldiers were killed, mostly from friendly fire.

I bring this up not only because it was horrific but because you may have heard of the massacre as a “disaster” (the Library of Congress refers to it as such) or even a battle.* This was not the case. Two-thirds were women and children, and many of the rest were older adults.

The short description from the Library of Congress makes no mention of the makeup of the Lakota travelers until their deaths, and its language stops short of condemning the actions of the soldiers: “A gun was discharged and soldiers opened fire. When the shooting stopped, hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children were dead.”

23. Thanksgiving does not have the history you likely grew up learning it did. First of all, the Wampanoag Native Americans had already had plenty of contact with Europeans when the settlers arrived in Plymouth (Europeans had already sold some into slavery), and multiple members of the tribe knew English and had been to Europe. While the leader of the Wampanoag tribe, Ousamequin, did offer an alliance to the English people in Plymouth, it was really so they would be protected against the Narragansetts, a rival tribe.

Suggested by u/zugabdu and u/PoetThese

Also, Thanksgiving used to be celebrated with fasting and prayer, and it only became what it’s known as today because descendants of the Pilgrims in Plymouth wanted to make it more of a festival to ensure New England’s place in American history and increase tourism. It wasn’t declared a national holiday until the Civil War, by President Abraham Lincoln, because he wanted to unify the states.

I bet you can guess what happened next. The Wampanoags-Pilgrim alliance fractured slowly over the years and eventually came to an end with the bloody King Philip’s War, which included colonists burning women and children alive in their homes and selling many Native people into slavery. Both the Wampanoag and Narragansett tribes were all but annihilated by the settlers.

24. Let’s talk about the Puritans for a moment…because, at least growing up in Massachusetts, I was taught that they came to America in pursuit of religious freedom. Turns out that while it’s true they came to the Americans to practice their own religion, they certainly did not practice religious freedom. They banished and even killed those who didn’t agree with their religion.

25. President Lincoln was not quite the bastion of equality history makes him out to be. In 1858, he stated, “There is a physical difference between the white and the Black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together… While they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any man am in favor having the superior position assigned to the white race.” He also said, “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races.”

Lincoln also made a number of other problematic remarks, including blaming enslaved people for starting the Civil War and telling racist jokes. I mean, obviously, let’s give him a huge amount of credit for all he did do, but…yeah.

26. And George Washington wasn’t perfect, either. You may have learned he had wooden teeth — that’s a myth. He did have dentures made, but they were made of lead, brass, gold, and steel…and possibly the teeth of enslaved people. Yep, Washington “owned” enslaved people — 123, to be exact, and his wife, Martha, also had enslaved people through her deceased first husband. On at least one occasion, Washington approved of a whipping one enslaved woman received for arguing with the farm manager and saying she would not work. However, Washington did free the Mount Vernon ensalved people he “owned” in his will.*

Suggested by u/MaylynnHughes, [deleted], and u/DesperateAd8982

The story about Washington and the cherry tree is also just a myth. The story — about a 6-year-old Washington cutting down his father’s cherry tree, then admitting to it, proving the virtue of honesty — was invented by one of Washington’s biographers.

*The 153 enslaved people that Martha’s husband had “owned” were divided amongst Martha’s grandchildren through her first marriage after she died, as neither she nor Washington could legally free them.

27. I don’t remember learning much about Labor Day growing up, other than that it was for workers. I have a feeling this was for a reason, because the government was pretty shady about it. Basically, back in the 1800s, Labor unions were also considering making May 1 the holiday honoring workers — it’s a worker’s holiday internationally, and they had set a strike for an eight-hour workday on that day. However, the US government chose to support a September version of the holiday instead, specifically so that May 1 would not be a US labor holiday. Why did they want to avoid this? First of all, they wanted to keep their workers from even more solidarity with international workers fighting for the same rights. Also…remember that strike I mentioned on May 1? It didn’t end well.

The Haymarket rally (which itself was in part to protest police violence that had killed two workers the night prior) became a riot when someone threw a bomb at police — eight labor activists were blamed (even though they all had alibis), and four of them were hanged (with a fifth dying by suicide the night before he was meant to be hanged). The trial and subsequent hangings were controversial due to the lack of evidence and even prompted the men to be viewed as martyrs, inspiring other labor workers to rise up. The US wanted to avoid commemorating this event and emboldening workers to fight even harder for their rights.

28. The Pledge of Allegiance in itself is propaganda. Other nations don’t do that. And the part “under god” wasn’t added until 1954. Similarly, “In God We Trust” became the country’s motto in 1956. Both laws were signed by President Eisenhower, in part as a response to the Cold War ideas of Communists being “godless” and Americans being morally superior.

Suggested by u/NATTY-LIFTER_420

29. And finally, along those lines, the United States government was not founded as a Christian nation — many of the ideas about America being a Christian nation are from the 19th century, and the founding fathers were very clear about dividing church and state. And they themselves, while Christian, were mostly rationalists or Unitarians, not evangelicals or orthodox. George Washington himself refused communion as an adult. In fact, there was a whole movement at the time called Deism that questioned the reality of religious texts and prioritized human experience and reason, and it appears many of the founding fathers were influenced by this, and may have attended church as more of a social and political obligation.

What propaganda or piece of history were you taught that you later discovered was far from the truth? Let us know in the comments below or via this anonymous form.

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