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What is the smallest hill you would die on?
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this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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Nobody thought Mandela died in prison. He was one of the most high-profile people in the world in the 1990s, constantly in the papers after his release from prison. How could you believe he died in prison?
I didn't forget that he was released, but enough people thought he died in prison, that we named the term after him.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory#Mandela_effect
But then how could he have been released to huge fanfare and shaken up politics?
Do these people believe Narendra Modi died in 2009? It just doesn't fit major world events.
Most people aren't really familiar with the history of the world, especially the period of time that would correspond to โ 30-50 years before they graduated secondary school. I assume this is because there seems to be a pattern where you just don't actually catch up to current events in many history classes.
Also expecting the average person in the US to be familiar enough with world events to even know who Nelson Mandala or Narendra Modi are, is a good way to have a bad time. I don't like it either, but as Carlin said, "think of the average person, now remember that 50% of people are stupider than that."
Maybe the real Mandela effect is we were all tricked into thinking there are people out there believing Nelson Mandela died before leading the ANC, being president, winning the Nobel, and ending apartheid.
Steve Biko died in prison in 1977. There were a bunch of movies about Biko that came out in the late '80s to early '90s, the most famous was Cry Freedom starring Denzel Washington. Nelson Mandela was famously imprisoned, and released around that same time. My guess is that since most Americans don't really pay deep attention to the news, especially world news, it just got all blended into a miasma of vague memories about some South African anti-apartheid activist.