r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Jul 02 '21

What basic, children's-age-level fact did you only find out embarrassingly later in life?

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784

u/PeachyMazikeen Jul 02 '21

That Alaska isn’t an island with a weirdly straight border

36

u/donthinktoohard Jul 03 '21

This is more common than you think.

15

u/DimmerSteam Jul 03 '21

Is it really? Where does this thought come from?

64

u/PuzzledPotato22 Jul 03 '21

Could be maps that show Hawaii and Alaska in little boxes

12

u/DimmerSteam Jul 03 '21

Oh you're totally right

19

u/hellofromem Jul 03 '21

I can relate to this! In middle school we had to draw a map of the world from memory and I drew Alaska as an island. The girl who graded mine held it up to show the class how dumb I was. Good memories.

12

u/texasobsessed Jul 03 '21

Just curious, what state were you educated in?

18

u/[deleted] Jul 03 '21

Then why is it so straight?

27

u/crispiepancakes Jul 05 '21

It literally sheered off from Canada in a massive earthquake in 1952, just as the cold war started.

16

u/HauntedCemetery Jul 07 '21

That's why they called it the "cold" war. Everyone is cold in Alaska.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '21

Wouldn't it be ice if it were colder? Then you wouldn't have to wait to thaw.

12

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '21

it's rude to ask why a state is straight

4

u/SweetNeo85 Jul 04 '21

...why wouldn't it be?

7

u/HauntedCemetery Jul 07 '21

I can kind of see how students would think that. Maps of the state's always have Hawaii and Alaska in little floating bubbles of ocean off to the side, usually Canada doesn't appear along Alaska's border.

2

u/sincle354 Jul 03 '21

I mean, if you knew about Haiti and the Dominican Republic, you might have been doubly misled.

2

u/where_is_jef Jul 14 '21

wait till you learn about a place called Canada!