North Koreans are fed a steady diet of propaganda and mythologized versions of their history, placing the Korean Peninsula at the center of world events and elevating Kim Il Sung as the greatest leader of the 21st century.

For outsiders, it is natural to think these fantasies glorifying a non-existent past or lionizing the Kim family will vanish once the Koreas reunify or the regime collapses. Once correct historical information is readily available, the falsehoods will disintegrate from exposure to direct sunlight — or so such thinking goes.