I thought it was Washington who didn't cut down the cherry tree, but I must have missed my indoctrination that day when they 'taught' that story.

It is a trip that many old maps show Tartary as the largest country on the planet, yet as you said, history books prefer to ignore that huge civilization for some reason.

It's becoming increasingly easier to dismiss the 'Dark Ages' as a made-up period of history that possibly never happened-- a lot of our chronology makes more sense when that 1000 years is removed from the story.