And the White House burned, burned, burned,
And we're the one's that did it!
It burned, burned, burned,
While the president ran and cried.
It burned, burned, burned,
And things were very historical.
And the Americans ran and cried like a bunch of little babies
Waa waa waah!
In the War of 1812!

- The War of 1812 by the Arrogant Worms

Be proud Canadians. We burned the White House! Why? Because the Americans thought that they could take Canada for themselves. And what did we do? Held up a lit match and said "FUCK YOU!"

Always makes me happy when I hear Americans who have no idea about the War of 1812. American politicians, so embarassed they refused to teach their children that the lost to the Brits and the Canadians. Heh heh.

I could probably write a novel on our history. I know a lot.

Basics?
In the Early 13th century Lithuania was united under one banner, becoming a medium-sized state in northern Europe. Soon after, it gained more lands and became the biggest country in Europe. Also, it was the last pagan nation in the world.

I know about the War of 1812. But you don't see me speaking French now, do ya? What's sad is that I know quite a bit of Californian history but don't really care about U.S. history as a whole. And I know almost all the Mormon history, for personal reasons.

Ultrajoe:
I live in Australia. While i love this country dearly, we have enough history that even the most absent-minded student learns all of it due to the fact that there is... very little.

So yes, i know a lot about this countries history. It's not hard.

Lets fix that.

You head over to WA and lead a western rebellion and I'll go to sydney and ruin any peace plans.

We'll have a interesting history in 10-20 years!

Three Questions (Aimed at Americans but try it if you want)

1. Who is currently the US Secretary of State?

2. Which political party currently controls a majority of the house of representatives?

3. (Really easy for you Brits, not so much for the Yanks) Who is the current prime minister of the United Kingdom?

Dancingman:
Three Questions (Aimed at Americans but try it if you want)

1. Who is currently the US Secretary of State?

2. Which political party currently controls a majority of the house of representatives?

3. (Really easy for you Brits, not so much for the Yanks) Who is the current prime minister of the United Kingdom?

Are you kidding me?
1. Condoleeza Rice (Hillary Clinton after 1/20/09)

2. Democrats. Maaaaaajor majority.

3. Gordon Brown.

Isaac Dodgson:
well... On July the 4th 1776, a group calling themselves the Second Judgemental Congress got together at For McHarry in Maryland. After a ceremony which ended with Paul Revere singing the famous battle hymn known as the National Anthem, the document was signed. From there, it was sent to England by plane presumably and presented to King George himself. Thus began the Evolutionary War.

waits for someone to get the reference

DAMN YOU, you beat me to it :P

It's from Fallout 3, *grumble grumble*...

I find that I know quite some bit of American history. For me it is saddening when I meet people that don't know anything about their own country. I think that besides history of a country it is also important to know geography, politics, and demographics as well. It pains me when I meet someone who doesn't know things as simple as all 50 states. Most of this I learned in High School, and in history classes in college. As I get older I feel it is even more important to learn about world history, politics etc. We're living in a time where information is so easy to obtain...why not go out and read about it. The last thing I would add is that much of history is written by the victors. It's good to read a bit from both sides of history.

ThaBenMan:

Isaac Dodgson:
well... On July the 4th 1776, a group calling themselves the Second Judgemental Congress got together at For McHarry in Maryland. After a ceremony which ended with Paul Revere singing the famous battle hymn known as the National Anthem, the document was signed. From there, it was sent to England by plane presumably and presented to King George himself. Thus began the Evolutionary War.

waits for someone to get the reference

DAMN YOU, you beat me to it :P

It's from Fallout 3, *grumble grumble*...

Damn, I thought it was Dr Who...

I know a fair bit about my history, both my family and my country. Britain is easy when you get the hang of it, various waves of people invade and kick in the faces of the current residents. They then wait for their turn. Really, its a history of queuing (to get kicked) and then grumbling (about getting kicked.) That's as British as you could possibly get!

I've even read about it all the way back to before the celts, (apparently the first major settlement was by proto-hispano-celts!)

Then onto the family, my family name apparently stretches back to the time of King Arthur and the Roman withdrawal from Britain. I'm (supposedly, my dad likes to lie, ALOT) descended from the union of two welsh royal houses and there is like a clan castle somewhere in north Wales. Not that we all have a castle that we share, (that would be sweet,) I presume it has been stolen given to the national trust. Also I'm apparently very distantly related to the woman that married Prince Edward, which is weird.

Mind you my family have a tradition involving my 13th birthday and Charles Darwin and a hereditary geometry set, so god only knows what else we've picked up.

A final question though to people on this thread, what have you uncovered about your nation's history that surprises you? This is especially focused towards the OP as I want to know what the common misconceptions are about American History.

I used to know a lot more than I do now. I have vague knowledge of New Zealand's discovery, colonization by the Maori and then by the English. After that it's pretty much just petty land squabbles until World War I, when we finally get our shit into gear. Then it's just boring politics, World War II, boring politics, boring politics, boring politics, Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, this place isn't very interesting.

The History Of Britain:

Age Of Saxons
Age Of Vikings
Age Of Sock Wearing Wall Building Romans (Or is it Woe-mans?)
Dark Ages
Middle Ages
Rennasiance
Colonial Era
Emergence Of Great Britain
Industrial Revolution
American Revolution (To be continued...)
The Great War
World War Two
Granting Independance To Colonies (We didn't loose them, we just gave them away!)
Cold War
Modern Era-Emergence Of Not-So-Great Britain (Arising in delusioned British fellows like myself and the foreve abundant degenerate "yob")

You get the jist of it... we conquered it all then handed it back. Although why we didn't hand away Britain and all emmigrate to Australia is something of an oddity...

Steven Kyzburg:
The History Of Britain:

Age Of Saxons
Age Of Vikings
Age Of Sock Wearing Wall Building Romans (Or is it Woe-mans?)
Dark Ages
Middle Ages
Rennasiance
Colonial Era
Emergence Of Great Britain
Industrial Revolution
American Revolution (To be continued...)
The Great War
World War Two
Granting Independance To Colonies (We didn't loose them, we just gave them away!)
Cold War
Modern Era-Emergence Of Not-So-Great Britain (Arising in delusioned British fellows like myself and the foreve abundant degenerate "yob")

Is that 'in order', because if it is the romans should really not come after the vikings and saxons and neither should the dark ages.

The great thing about being 2376 years old is you get to view most of history first-hand...

My original country, South Africa, has waay too much history to detail here, so I'll just say it was once owned by Netherlands and England, wars happened, apartheid happened, shit happened, now we're kind of OK, compared to the rest of Africa.

The English used to fight lots of Romans, but kept taking hot water breaks and refused to fight on Sundays. Eventually the Romans won by attacking when they were all drinking hot water. Asterix attempted to smuggle magic potion into England, but the barrel was destroyed. He gave them tea instead, which helped them defeat the Romans, so thats why the English drink so much tea. As far as I know, this story is 100% accurate.

That our recorded history is almost two millenia longer than the United States, which we formed by semi-accident.

[quote="scumofsociety" post="18.82883.1143657
Is that 'in order', because if it is the romans should really not come after the vikings and saxons and neither should the dark ages.[/quote]

I was under the impression that the Romans came after the Vikings, the Saxons i'm certain were there before, the Vikings were all over the place for a long time... hmmm

Steven Kyzburg:

scumofsociety:

Is that 'in order', because if it is the romans should really not come after the vikings and saxons and neither should the dark ages.

I was under the impression that the Romans came after the Vikings, the Saxons i'm certain were there before, the Vikings were all over the place for a long time... hmmm

No. No, no, no, no ,no. No.

Romans first. Vikings and Saxons next, as well as Angles (hence Anglo-Saxon)and Jutes, but there was a significant cross over period of Northern England under the Vikings and the south under the Saxons. Saxons eventually kicked them out though. Then got done over by the Normans.

scumofsociety:

Rajin Cajun:
Tell that to the Britons who got a full taste of Norman Steel under William the Conqueror.

Ahem...Anglo Saxons thank you...

Nicely caught. The Saxons having done a remarkable job of putting the Celts and Picts (Britons) to the sword. Isn't it something like:

Celts & Picts
Romans
Celts & Picts
Saxons
Vikings almost
Normans from 1066

I'd say I'm a little better than most but much worse than some. I've probably got a better understanding of US history than most yanks.

Yeah, I know a fair deal about Norway, I suppose.

Only thing we can brag about is the Vikings, though.

rossatdi:

Nicely caught. The Saxons having done a remarkable job of putting the Celts and Picts (Britons) to the sword. Isn't it something like:

Celts & Picts
Romans
Romano british
Saxons Angles (possibly before saxons, I'm not quite sure on this) & vikings
Saxons
Normans from 1066

Bold bits edited by me, apologies, doesn't look as clear as I though it would

Hell, I can't even remember half of my country's anthem (O Canada). And you're asking me about the history?

Dancingman:
Three Questions (Aimed at Americans but try it if you want)

1. Who is currently the US Secretary of State?

2. Which political party currently controls a majority of the house of representatives?

3. (Really easy for you Brits, not so much for the Yanks) Who is the current prime minister of the United Kingdom?

1. Condy Rice
2. The Democrats.
3. That Scottish git, financial prudence my arse.

Too much, Canadian history is burned into the mind of every Canadian student with a bloody laser in school.

That's because our history is FUCKING BORING and every Canadian knows it, if we weren't forced to learn it we never would.

People from England however have no excuse, your little island is so interesting it's almost crippling.

I know pretty much about Romanian history, although years and stuff never really stuck with me.

PumpItUp:
And the White House burned, burned, burned,
And we're the one's that did it!
It burned, burned, burned,
While the president ran and cried.
It burned, burned, burned,
And things were very historical.
And the Americans ran and cried like a bunch of little babies
Waa waa waah!
In the War of 1812!

- The War of 1812 by the Arrogant Worms

Be proud Canadians. We burned the White House! Why? Because the Americans thought that they could take Canada for themselves. And what did we do? Held up a lit match and said "FUCK YOU!"

Always makes me happy when I hear Americans who have no idea about the War of 1812. American politicians, so embarassed they refused to teach their children that the lost to the Brits and the Canadians. Heh heh.

The song is wrong, all that Canada really did in 1812 was hold the line against the American invaders until the Brits finished up with Napoleon and came back to lay the smack down on those upity colonials.

If Britain didn't come and save out asses we would all be Americans right now, they would have kept coming and we would have eventually given up, we really had NOTHING to lose in that war and eventually we would have noticed that. The American's wanted to "liberate" us, not "conquer" us, despite the reality of the situation and probably would have treated us well upon victory.

I don't know enough about my country but I do know that the WWI started because of us.

scumofsociety:

rossatdi:

Nicely caught. The Saxons having done a remarkable job of putting the Celts and Picts (Britons) to the sword. Isn't it something like:

Celts & Picts
Romans
Romano british
Saxons Angles (possibly before saxons, I'm not quite sure on this) & vikings
Saxons
Normans from 1066

Bold bits edited by me, apologies, doesn't look as clear as I though it would

Well pretty close! Considering Angles, Saxons, Romans, Vikings, Picts and Celts were all killing each other at the same time during some periods! I was going by general rulership of the country.

PedroSteckecilo:

PumpItUp:
And the White House burned, burned, burned,
And we're the one's that did it!
It burned, burned, burned,
While the president ran and cried.
It burned, burned, burned,
And things were very historical.
And the Americans ran and cried like a bunch of little babies
Waa waa waah!
In the War of 1812!

- The War of 1812 by the Arrogant Worms

Be proud Canadians. We burned the White House! Why? Because the Americans thought that they could take Canada for themselves. And what did we do? Held up a lit match and said "FUCK YOU!"

Always makes me happy when I hear Americans who have no idea about the War of 1812. American politicians, so embarassed they refused to teach their children that the lost to the Brits and the Canadians. Heh heh.

The song is wrong, all that Canada really did in 1812 was hold the line against the American invaders until the Brits finished up with Napoleon and came back to lay the smack down on those upity colonials.

If Britain didn't come and save out asses we would all be Americans right now, they would have kept coming and we would have eventually given up, we really had NOTHING to lose in that war and eventually we would have noticed that. The American's wanted to "liberate" us, not "conquer" us, despite the reality of the situation and probably would have treated us well upon victory.

Well, technically in 1812 it would be British Empire. Canada was merely part of us.

England is made up of everyone, then owned nearly everyone.

Had to give it back.

That's about the short and skinny.

I find that most people especially Europeans who claim to know American history usually don't. In fact they have very skewed views which I can only take as their Public Education's form of Propaganda? I have heard from more then one person that America was made up almost entirely of English Puritans when the English were only a minority irregardless of how the Founding Fathers were a majority English they just happened to be more educated then the average Dutchman, Frenchman and German who were here in droves already. Also the Puritans were considered a rather bizarre fringe group religiously in America and didn't really leave the New England area until they pretty much died out.

rossatdi:

Well pretty close! Considering Angles, Saxons, Romans, Vikings, Picts and Celts were all killing each other at the same time during some periods! I was going by general rulership of the country.

Yeah, the late roman/dark ages were pretty much a free for all...

Rajin Cajun:
In fact they have very skewed views which I can only take as their Public Education's form of Propaganda?

No, we don't teach American history over here AFAIK (we have enough of our own without having to learn everyone elses), It's just what we pick up from...er...dunno, probably stuff like Sesame Street and bugs bunny cartoons. My knowledge of the revolution is entirely formed by a cartoon in which Bugs helps his nephew write a report on the revolution for school. He gets an F.

Rajin Cajun:
I find that most people especially Europeans who claim to know American history usually don't. In fact they have very skewed views which I can only take as their Public Education's form of Propaganda? I have heard from more then one person that America was made up almost entirely of English Puritans when the English were only a minority irregardless of how the Founding Fathers were a majority English they just happened to be more educated then the average Dutchman, Frenchman and German who were here in droves already. Also the Puritans were considered a rather bizarre fringe group religiously in America and didn't really leave the New England area until they pretty much died out.

Well I think most people who know a little more (bearing in mind American history is not taught to everyone in the public education system over here) know that the US was politically mostly a three way split between Britain, France and Spain until the British Americans bought out the French and scared off the Spanish.