No, I didn't. Interesting. Thanks. Carson's book spurred the environmentalist movement, I'll give her that. I used to think poorly of DDT and GMOs, but then I did some research and changed my opinions. Should we be cautious about spraying chemicals like DDT? Absolutely. But the chemical has saved millions from dying. We don't have anything better yet. Are you from Canada? Because my experience here in the U.S. has been wildly different for the most part. Our textbooks originate from Texas mostly which is very conservative and evangelical. There's an interesting documentary called The Revisionaries which outlines essentially the battle behind textbooks. [1] [2] The chair of the Texas Board of Education believes that dinosaurs and humans coexisted and doesn't believe in evolution. Hell, I don't even remember learning about the Pentagon Papers in high school.
The Pentagon Papers? My history classes barely got into the 20th century, let alone the 1970s (I graduated in the late '90s). History was not a well-taught subject, and my impression is that recent developments in standardized testing and whatnot has made it even worse.
Also, unless you're concentrating on journalism, the Pentagon Papers incident is a rather obscure and unimportant event. I wouldn't be surprised if even a well-taught and comprehensive US history class didn't touch on it.
[1] http://www.npr.org/2012/06/20/155440679/revisionaries-tells-...
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAeKXdLZhOg