The world is about to grow much, much darker.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Totally, just like nobody knows who Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez and Ghandi are.

You might be fucking surprised.

Well, not MLK, because every city has a street named after him somwhere, but definitely Gandhi. People wear Che Guevara shit all the time and don't know who he is and what he is known for. His image is just a part of pop culture anymore, fuck, who CARES about the Cuban Revolution!

You have to understand, I'm finishing my undergrad in history at age 31. I'm going to be walking with 21 year olds that just last semester were wondering who Lenin was. I actually had someone go, "Wait a minute, who was Winston Churchill again?" IN CLASS. I'm not in any way shape or form saying that the entire country is doomed because of a couple of idiots in 300 level undergrad courses, but that's a notable problem. That tells me that students in high school aren't being taught JACK SHIT. If they don't know who Churchill is, they certainly aren't going to know who Mandela is. It's not sad, or facepalmy, it's heartbreaking.

There is an absolutely incredible amount of knowledge in the human lexicon. There is only so much knowledge that people can learn between birth and age 20. I think you may be falling victim to the tendency that everyone knows, or should know, information that you know, due to the presumption that what you know is foundational.

What may be foundational for one person is tertiary for another, and vise versa. That person who at 20 doesn't know who Winston Churchill is, beyond name familiarity, most likely has other knowledge that you didn't have at 20, and would be horrified and saddened to learn that you didn't know it. You enjoy and have an aptitude for history. They may have skimmed through history because they found it inutterably tiresome (as I did) and enjoyed and had an aptitude for math, biology, chemistry, computer science, modern literature... you get the drift.

Just for some perspective.

[Count Chocula]

Isn't he the African soccer coach? Sorry, I don't really follow sports, especially soccer.

[Doktor Howl]

Isn't he the African soccer coach? Sorry, I don't really follow sports, especially soccer.

Hey, that was pretty funny.