After last night’s GOP debate at Dartmouth College, Texas Gov. Rick Perry showed up at a fraternity event and demonstrated his mastery of American history by noting that the American Revolution took place in the 16th century. You know, I bet that if Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and all those guys in 1776 knew that the colonies had already won their independence from Britain during a previous revolution 200 years earlier, they probably wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to start another one.
Twitter responses to Perry’s gaffe have been plentiful and hilarious, with tweets adding new items to Perry’s list of “historical” knowledge. Here are some samples from #PerryHistory:
• Why else did Paul Revere carry a flashlight through the Alamo if not to fight off the tyranny of air pollution rules?
• Ronald Reagan traveled back in time 6,000 yrs and slayed the dinosaurs in order to make America safe for Jesus.
• In the summer of 1969, Alexander Hamilton got high on drugs and murdered Archduke Ferdinand, setting off the Cold War.
• Wilbur and Orville Redenbacher, besides making great popcorn, were skilled model airplane builders.
• Robert E. Lee defeated the Nazis at Plymouth Rock.
• Charles Ponzi invented the welfare state after FDR went off the gold standard in 1776.
• Why else did Thomas Jefferson invent the lightbulb if not to shed light on how Mormons lost the Vietnam War?
And here are few of my own:
• Roanoke “Lost Colony” settlers marched on Washington to protest excessive publicity being given the Pilgrims in Massachusetts, so Samuel Adams drowned them in vats of ale.
• The first American Indians invented guns because they had to fight dinosaurs all the way across the continent.
• The Battle of Kings Mountain was won by the king of England when he stampeded some cows he had released from a big pen in South Carolina.
• The Underground Railroad, the first tunnel linking South Carolina and Ohio, was built by slaves led by Ozzie and Harriet Tubman.
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