Keanu Reeves Went Down in History by Appearing in the Ukrainian History Textbook

A student unexpectedly found a photo of the actor Keanu Reeves in the Ukrainian world history textbook for the tenth grade. The famous 1932 photograph called Lunch atop a Skyscraper now has the new worker who “built” the skyscraper in New York – Keanu Reeves.

The author of the textbook is Igor Shchupak, a candidate of historical sciences. This textbook’s 2018 edition is recommended by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

You can find the photo on page 58 of the textbook in the chapter dedicated to the history of the United States between World Wars I and II. The original image shows 11 workers, but in the Ukrainian history textbook, another figure was added to them – Keanu Reeves from the famous Sad Keanu meme. It first appeared in 2010 after Reeves was photographed eating a sandwich by himself on a park bench.

When this photo got into the media, the textbook' author explained how that even happened on his Facebook page. It took almost three pages, but the main point is that the goal was to find out how carefully the students read the textbooks.

According to the author, this attentiveness test should draw attention to the subject. That's why the original picture wasn't posted.

Shchupak regrets that attention is being paid only now. He suggested finding other memes and conflicting details among the illustrations for the 10th-grade world history textbook.

Earlier, students found a map from the Skyrim videogame in the Ukrainian geography textbook for the 6th grade. The map depicted a mythological territory.