6gun you got that right. The absence of historical figures says nothing about how relatively great anyone is, but it says a LOT about how crummy our basic education system is when it comes to US history. If I ever have kids, they're going to get a little home-schooling in history to round out the education they get at school, because I do not buy into the multiculturalism that assumes all cultures are equal, have equal value, and need to be taught in equal measure. I'm sorry, but a pre-industrial civilization that lives in mud huts and has a 70% infant mortality rate and sub-1% literacy rate is not of equal value to modern western civilization, and learning about such a culture does not deserve the same amount of time and attention as learning about (for example) how historical factors, the crusades, and trade with the western world led to the modern islamic states in the middle-east.
Fair and balanced is not how you teach a child. You have to pick and choose what you stuff into their brains because time is limited and some information is more valuable than others. I happen to believe that US history and a firm understanding of the constitution is more important than at least 80% of the other junk that passes for "history" and "government" in schools nowadays.
