11 times Trump embarrassed himself by revealing his ignorance of basic history

Trump refuses to release his college transcripts, meaning no one knows how well — or poorly — Trump performed during his college years. But if his public comments about basic history are any indication of his level of knowledge, it is hard to imagine him passing classes without a tremendously generous professor.

Here are 11 times Trump showed an astounding level of ignorance and/or callous indifference about basic history.

1) The slave trade

Upon learning about Netherlands’ role in the American slave trade, Trump’s reaction surprised Lonnie Bunch, the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“You know, they love me in the Netherlands,” Trump said, according to an upcoming memoir from Bunch, as reported in the Washington Post on Saturday. The incident occurred during a private tour for Trump a few days before his inauguration in 2017.

“I was so disappointed in his response to one of the greatest crimes against humanity in history,” Bunch wrote, describing the incident.

2) Frederick Douglass

In February 2017, Trump praised American hero and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. But Trump made it sound like Douglass, who died in 1895, is still alive today.

“Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice,” Trump said at a breakfast kicking off Black History Month.

Those living in or visiting upstate New York are free to recognize and pay their respects to Douglass, who is buried in Rochester’s Mount Hope Cemetery.

3) George Washington

Trump is worried no one will remember America’s first president, George Washington, because the general who led America’s war for independence refused to name his properties after himself.

“If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” Trump said about Mount Vernon, Washington’s Virginia estate. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you,” Trump added.

Trump made the comment during a tour of Mount Vernon with French President Emmanuel Macron. The tour guide for the visit described Trump’s ignorance as “truly bizarre” and noted that the French president seemed to know more American history than Trump, according to Politico.

4) Airports during the American Revolutionary War

According to Trump, Paul Revere might have needed at least three lanterns to warn about how the British would have invaded Concord on the eve of the American Revolutionary War: One if by land; two if by sea; three if by … airplane?

During his 2019 Fourth of July speech, Trump bragged about how American forces “manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports,” during the war for independence.

The Revolutionary War took place in the late 1700s, while the airplane was not invented until 1903. Without airplanes, there was no need for airports.

5) The Civil War

Even before moving into the White House, Trump proudly displayed his historical ignorance.

In 2009, Trump bought a golf course in Virginia and set about remodeling it. He went so far as to install a plaque between two holes in remembrance of a fictional Civil War battle that was so deadly it turned the Potomac River red with blood.

“Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot,” the inscription reads, according to the New York Times. “The casualties were so great that the water would turn red and thus became known as ‘The River of Blood.'”

There was no such battle, according to historians.

“No. Uh-uh. No way. Nothing like that ever happened there,” Richard Gillespie, executive director of the Mosby Heritage Area Association, told the Times.

6) Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War began, was somehow very unhappy about the Civil War, according to Trump.

“I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War,” Trump said in 2017. “He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, ‘There’s no reason for this.'”

Andrew Jackson was a slave owner from Tennessee, one of the states that joined the Confederacy. His allegiance during the Civil War, had he been alive, is up for speculation, but he certainly never said there was no reason for a war he wasn’t alive to see.

7) Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee led an army trying to secede from the U.S. so that the institution of slavery could continue. But in 2019, Trump not only claimed Lee was a “great general” but that many of the generals Trump spoke with at the White House “think that maybe he was their favorite general.”

Trump’s praise of Lee came as Trump once again defended neo-Nazis and white supremacists who rioted in Charlottesville, murdering one woman, as “very fine people.”

8) Canada and the burning of the White House

“Blame Canada” was a silly song in the 1999 animated “South Park” movie, but Trump seems to have taken the sentiment seriously during a 2018 conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“Didn’t you guys burn down the White House?” Trump asked Trudeau in the midst of tariff negotiations.

First off, the British burned down the White House in 1814, during the War of 1812. Second, Canada was not even a country at the time. Canada did not gain independence until more than 50 years after the White House burned down.

9) Congrats to Poland for being invaded

On the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland, Trump had a special message for Poland: Congrats!

It is unclear why Trump decided to congratulate Poland for such a dark period of their history, but Trump did it anyway.

On Sunday, Trump canceled his trip to Poland so he could play golf and occasionally receive updates about Hurricane Dorian. When asked by a reporter if he had “a message for Poland on the 80th anniversary of the Second World War,” Trump said he did.

“I do have a great message for Poland. And we have Mike Pence, our Vice President, is just about landing right now. And he is representing me. I look forward to being there soon. But I just want to congratulate Poland,” Trump said, according to the Washington Post.

During World War II, Poland lost roughly 20% of its population.

10) Russia and Ukraine

Two years after Russian dictator Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, Trump vowed that Putin would not invade Ukraine.

“He’s not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you understand. He’s not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down. You can take it anywhere you want,” Trump said in August 2016.

However, Putin had already invaded Ukraine in 2014 and annexed Crimea.

11) Wheels and walls

In defending his racist plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump claimed that wheels and walls date from the medieval period, which is off by thousands of years.

“They say a wall is medieval — well, so is a wheel,” Trump said in January. “A wheel is older than a wall,” he added, incorrectly.

If wheels and walls seem like they have been around for thousands of years, not hundreds as Trump claims, it is because they have. Walls date back at least 10,000 years, while wheels appear in the historical record just over 5,000 years ago, according to archaeologists.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.