not as false as you think

Recently I had an encounter here on LJ with one of those nimnuls who like to profess "little-known facts" that are not, in fact, actually true - this one supposedly that George Washington was not the first President of the United States. Now I find a whole book of them. Contrary To Popular Belief: More Than 250 False Facts Revealed by Joey Green (Broadway Books, 2005) is full of revelations that are actually false, revelations that are only technically true, and so on. Buried in among the dross are a few good ones. Here's a sampling. The boldface statements are what Green is claiming.

( This is long, but it's not a meme )