26% of U.S. don't know who we declared independence from

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/07/03/2010-07-03_26_of_us_dont_know_who_we_declared_indepence_from_marist_poll.html

26% of U.S. don't know who we declared independence from: Marist poll

BY Aliyah Shahid
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, July 3rd 2010, 1:02 PM

JOEL PAGE/AP

Roughly one-fourth of people in this country don’t know that the U.S. declared its independence from Great Britain, according to a recent poll.

  How dumb are we?

Apparently, pretty dumb.

At least according to a new Marist poll, which says 26% of people in this country don’t know that the U.S. declared its independence from Great Britain.

That includes 20% who were unsure and 6% who thought the U.S. separated from another nation.

So what country do people think the U.S. achieved its independence from?

Among the countries mentioned were France, China, Japan, Mexico and Spain.

The poll surveyed 1,004 Americans in June and had 3% margin of error.

But hey, even our founding fathers made mistakes.

Preservation scientists recently discovered Thomas Jefferson had originally referred to the American public as “subjects,” then changed it to read “citizens” before the ink dried.

Oops.