Johnny’s Hist’ry Lesson by Nixon Waterman
I think, of all the things at school
A boy has got to do,
That studyin’ hist’ry, as a rule,
Is worst of all, don’t you?
Of dates there are an awful sight,
An’ though I study day an’ night,
There’s only one I’ve got just right –
That’s fourteen ninety-two.
Columbus crossed the Delaware
In fourteen ninety-two;
We whipped the British, fair an’ square,
In fourteen ninety-two.
At Concord an’ at Lexington.
We kept the redcoats on the run,
While the band played “Johnny Get Your Gun,”
In fourteen ninety-two.
Pat Henry, with his dyin’ breath –
In fourteen ninety-two –
Said, “Gimme liberty or death!”
In fourteen ninety-two.
An’ Barbara Frietchie, so ’tis said,
Cried, “Shoot if you must this old, gray head,
But I’d rather ‘twould be your own instead!”
In fourteen ninety-two.
The Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock
In fourteen ninety-two,
An’ the Indians standin’ on the dock
Asked, “What are you goin’ to do?”
An’ they said, “We seek your harbor drear
That our children’s children’s children dear
May boast that their forefathers landed here
In fourteen ninety-two.”
Miss Pocahontas saved the life –
In fourteen ninety-two –
Of John Smith, an’ became his wife
In fourteen ninety-two.
An’ the Smith tribe started then an’ there,
An’ now there are John Smiths ev’rywhere,
But they didn’t have any Smiths to spare
In fourteen ninety-two.
Kentucky was settled by Daniel Boone
In fourteen ninety-two,
An’ I think the cow jumped over the moon
In fourteen ninety-two.
Ben Franklin flew his kite so high
He drew the lightnin’ from the sky,
An’ Washington couldn’t tell a lie,
In fourteen ninety-two.
How many historical errors, aside from the obvious dating errors, can your children find in Johnny’s poem? I find at least six, maybe ten, depending on what you count as mistakes. It’s a good exercise in spotting historical inaccuracies. I’ll start you out:
1. Columbus never even saw the Delaware River.
