The truth and nothing but the truth--Richard Shenkman sheds light on America's most believed legends: <P><UL><LI> The story of Columbus discovered that the world was round was invented by Washington Irving. <P><LI> The pilgrims never lived in log cabins. <P><LI> In Concord, Massachusetts, a third of all babies born in the twenty years before the Revolution were conceived out of wedlock. <P><LI> Washington may have never told a lie, but he loved to drink and dance, and he fell in love with his best friend's wife. <P><LI> Independence wasn't declared on July 4 (and the Liberty Bell was so little regarded that Philadelphia tried to sell it for scrap metal but nobody wanted it). <P><LI> After World War II, the U.S. Government concluded that Japan would have surrendered within months, even if we had not bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.</UL>