"After surveying eighteen leading high school American history texts, he [Loewen] has concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting or memorable. Marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies, these books omit almost all the ambiguity, passion, conflict, and drama from our past."
"Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" - James W. Loewen
https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything-dp-16...
I learned a lot of wrong things in school. One could say I have spent most of my adult life unlearning them. Welcome to the club.
Consider also James Loewen's classic book, too: https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything-dp-16...
I recently read "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by J. Loewen [1], and it hits on just this, being the "heroification" of American leaders. I wouldn't doubt that this is what was the popular teaching in K-12 US.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/074...
To be honest, most schools that do cover those do an even worse job than not teaching anything at all.
If you're interested in filling in the gaps on your own:
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Know-About-History-Anniversary/dp... http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/074...
http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/074...
2. Clojure Programming, by Chas Emerick
http://www.amazon.com/Clojure-Programming-Chas-Emerick/dp/14...
3. Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis
http://www.amazon.com/Zorba-Greek-Nikos-Kazantzakis/dp/06848...