High School History Errors 1

Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong

Beginning in the West: Columbus "Discovers" Sacramento...

Lies that Got Believed, part II

Trusted people can become decievers under great emotional stress.

Art Linkletter was someone I trusted, from his role in the delightful show "Kids Say the Darnedest Things," but it turns out he started a false urban legend. You may have heard of folks who took LSD and thought they could fly, and then jumped out of windows to their deaths.

It never happened.

According to Snopes, an urban legend investigation web page, Art Linkletter appears to have made up the story in order to sugar coat his daughter's suicide. The sugar coating might have been for his own benefit, or for the public's benefit.

Elsewhere, I have read that Linkletter had an embarassingly bad relationship with his daughter, to the point that it may have contributed to his daughter's suicide, but I couldn't find that. If anyone can confirm or deny that, I would be grateful.

This story bears some resemblance to an earlier post of mine, in which an embarassing "suicide" is blamed on some external thing which is believed by others to have power to change personality.

Incidentally, I found a web site that believed that the suicide was drug related, but which contains comments indicating that Art Linkletter does not deserve our trust.

David Oakey