https://www.reddit.com/r/MandelaEffect/ ... his_month/
"For those whose cable/satellite package includes Showtime, the Movie / Biography / Historical drama Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom will be airing several times during the remainder of this month. "The remarkable life of South African revolutionary, president and world icon Nelson Mandela (Idris Elba) takes center stage. Though he had humble beginnings as a herd boy in a rural village, Mandela became involved in the anti-apartheid movement and co-founded the African National Congress Youth League. His activities eventually led to his imprisonment on Robben Island from 1964 to 1990. In 1994, Mandela became the first president of democratic South Africa." I plan to watch it just to see how wrong I am. Then maybe a second time just to see if anything changes from the first time.
My personal Mandela story (feel free to skip if you've read my messages before): Back in high school (1980-1985) the entire faculty pretty much lost their minds for a couple of days when news of Nelson Mandela dying in prison reached the States. For half of one day and all of the next, normal classes were pretty much suspended while the teachers talked about Mandela, South Africa, apartheid, etc. We were encouraged to watch the TV coverage, read the newspapers, and the like but I pretty much ignored all that. People say that Americans are self-centered and ignorant of the world in general and that's why these so-called Mandela Effects happen. Well, I can't argue about that, because pretty much the only reason I know who Mandela is or where South Africa is or anything else about that part of the world was because of those two days in high school. I was ignorant enough of world affairs that I would later miss news of his release from prison, being elected president, and eventual real death. I only learned of these things when I came here to make fun of people who didn't know where New Zealand was. Again, the only reason I know anything at all about Mandela was the fuss made when he died in the 1980s.
In one of the classes, we had to write a paper/essay/propaganda piece explaining how lucky we were to live in the United States where one didn't get tossed into prison and killed for speaking out against the government. I wrote one and received high marks. A month or two later, there was an writing contest about How Lucky We Were To Be American or something. I submitted my paper. I won a week-long trip to a citizenship seminar at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. During that trip, I met a lovely young lady named Connie with whom I corresponded for a few years. We always intended to meet again, but she had a motorcycle accident which injured her face and refused to let me visit until she'd had corrective surgery. We eventually lost contact with each other.
As I had no suitcases for the trip, my grandfather loaned me one of his. The handle was damaged on the bus. I was afraid my grandfather would be mad, but he just laughed and showed me how to bolt a new leather handle onto it. I still have the suitcase and am looking at it as I type this.
So, Mandela never died in the 1980s, meaning my school didn't make a big deal about it, meaning I never learned about Mandela, meaning I never wrote an essay about freedom in America, meaning I never won a citizenship contest, meaning I never went to Arkansas, meaning I never broke my grandfather's suitcase, meaning I'm just imagining sitting here looking at that leather handle now.
The irony is that while I have very clear memories of all this happening, it doesn't really bother me to know that I must be wrong. On the other hand, seeing Berenstein Bears spelled differently makes me sick to my stomach and seeing a map of Australia and New Zealand makes my brain itch."
