rossatdi:

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.

Maybe it is just the people I have happened to talk to but there are some very crazy views of America's History. :P

rossatdi:

until the British Americans bought out the French

I thought the French were more than willing to help anyone get one over on the British for free...revenge for us kicking them out of their colonies and just general European (proxy) warfare.

fix-the-spade:

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.

Yeah, it's hilarious actually...

He is currently getting praise for his work on solving the problem.

As said on "Mock the Week","He's the ideal person to fix the problems with the financial system. Given that he knows exactly what they are, since he caused them"

American who was schooled in Europe, don't judge me!

scumofsociety:

rossatdi:

until the British Americans bought out the French

I thought the French were more than willing to help anyone get one over on the British for free...revenge for us kicking them out of their colonies and just general European (proxy) warfare.

Well kind of.

Rajin Cajun:

Maybe it is just the people I have happened to talk to but there are some very crazy views of America's History. :P

Most Americans I've met have a pretty crazy view of their own history! (Lived in Ohio for a year).

rossatdi:

Rajin Cajun:

Maybe it is just the people I have happened to talk to but there are some very crazy views of America's History. :P

Most Americans I've met have a pretty crazy view of their own history! (Lived in Ohio for a year).

Oh there is no doubt about it hence why I was all inclusive with my "crazy views of history" I have heard some rather bizarre tales from people who spout their nonsense as fact.

scumofsociety:

rossatdi:

until the British Americans bought out the French

I thought the French were more than willing to help anyone get one over on the British for free...revenge for us kicking them out of their colonies and just general European (proxy) warfare.

That would be later on

rossatdi:

Well kind of.

Interesting stuff. If only us Europeans weren't so set on slaughtering each other every 50 years or so we'd have pretty much the entire globe sewn up. *cries*

scumofsociety:

rossatdi:

Well kind of.

Interesting stuff. If only us Europeans weren't so set on slaughtering each other every 50 years or so we'd have pretty much the entire globe sewn up. *cries*

One might argue that the combination of endemic warfare, high precipitation & resource levels as well as a Judeo-Christian social dynamic lead to them essentially controlling all of it!

rossatdi:

One might argue that the combination of endemic warfare, high precipitation & resource levels as well as a Judeo-Christian social dynamic lead to them essentially controlling all of it!

I would definitely argue that. It's just a shame that we didn't quit while we were very much ahead.

Or just stick to fighting poorly armed tribesmen and nicking their land so we could say 'nyah nyah, we own more than you', instead of fighting our equally heavily armed neighbours on our own ground. 100 years of pwning tribesmen tends to make you forget how bad a war against an equal enemy can be.

scumofsociety:

rossatdi:

One might argue that the combination of endemic warfare, high precipitation & resource levels as well as a Judeo-Christian social dynamic lead to them essentially controlling all of it!

I would definitely argue that. It's just a shame that we didn't quit while we were very much ahead.

Go white European ethno-centricity! Hell, I've been to all those dirty countries, Europe much nicer. Now to work out how sarcastic I'm being. Hmm.

rossatdi:

Go white European ethno-centricity! Hell, I've been to all those dirty countries, Europe much nicer. Now to work out how sarcastic I'm being. Hmm.

Naughty as it is, it would be freakin cool to RULE THE WORLD!!! Mwuhahahaa etc...

scumofsociety:

rossatdi:

Go white European ethno-centricity! Hell, I've been to all those dirty countries, Europe much nicer. Now to work out how sarcastic I'm being. Hmm.

Naughty as it is, it would be freakin cool to RULE THE WORLD!!! Mwuhahahaa etc...

No doubt. I read a sweet Stephen Baxter short story where Britain discovered a super-source of energy during the main Empire period and promptly took over everything.

I'm pretty confident I can hold my own when talking about the United States' history. I'm a History major.

rossatdi:

No doubt. I read a sweet Stephen Baxter short story where Britain discovered a super-source of energy during the main Empire period and promptly took over everything.

A super source of money would have been pretty useful too, maintaining an empire just got too expensive with the pace of technological change. I blame aeroplanes, protecting the land and the sea lanes is expensive enough, but once you have to protect the skies as well...

I know some amount of Spanish history (¡VIVA ESPAÑA!) although it differs a lot from most european countries and we've always been a bit behind you Europeans until really recently...fucking fascist dictatorship...

yay for being dutch and knowing more about holland then any american XP

Australian history is boring... And all the teachers smell funny.

I really enjoy history myself so I know a lot about the history of the British Isles, which is very interesting, not just the military part either.

Though I doubt most British people know a majority of it. Massive chunks of it are never taught in schools. Mainly I feel for political correctness reasons and because people don't like to be reminded of the dark parts of our history.

Including the aforementioned War of 1812, and the American Revolutionary War, much of Canada's role before its formal existance in 1867 was primarily a battleground between the two strongest powers in the area. First the French and British colonized parts of North America, then wrestled over who owned what and where, then, once France gave up on fighting his stubborn English brother, America was born and caused a whole new headache with their "manifest destiny" crap, essentially trying to accomplish what the British Empire tried and failed at: taking over the world (evil laughter).

The Canadians and the Native Canadians just happened to be stuck in the middle. Like the youngest-born, given hand-me-downs and never given a chance at anything.

I know quite a bit about my countries history, which is Canada. I was self taught in school, mainly because the class lagged quite a bit and I'd rather just read the text on my own time. The teacher was cool, so the idea flew.
And in the end, I found it quite interesting. Our country has alot to be proud of. And enough to be ashamed of as well.

implodingMan:

That said, I am minoring in history, with a focus on Canadian history, so I know a fair amount about it.

Why would you do such a thing? I only took my 2 credit Canadian History courses because they were required for a History degree.

I know a little of English history, not a great deal though.

It's a little harder to learn it all though compared to say, the 200 years Americans have to learn. I guess there's a bit of difference between an English History degree and a US history degree.

A general "Most of the important stuff, I guess" until John Cabot.
Canada doesn't have anything really important happen mostly in the 18th Century other than gaining autonomy.

We've been passed around between the romans, the dutch, the french, the spanish and finally we become a country of our own ruled by king leopold I who didn't want us. Then we whiped out alot of congo for rubber and got rich. Now we are on the brink of splitting up and either forming 2 new countries or half us joining the Netherlands. Talking about Belgium ofcourse.

Ow yeah, we have alot of racists.

I know quite a bit about Britain's (more specifically England's) history.

scumofsociety:

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.

Aha, my apologies then. Must have mistaken the "original" settlers for Saxons for those that came before them; silly me.

And dam those Normans... invading a country for no real reason and subjugating it's citizens!

Oh the sweet imported irony...

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")

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...

I like that, it's a good summary, if brief on British history. But why do we Brits always put such a downer on it all (it was so much better then, now it's all terrible). Yes our history was cool (ethically questionable at times, but cool), and that is the reason we are a rich influential nation now. I'm not directing all this at you but lots seem to think like this. You say yobs (idiots or other generic term of abuse, for non British people), are abundant now. Look back real hard at the industrial revolution. the only difference then was that people like you were working alongside them for horrendous wages in poor conditions, and remembering how much better it was when you'd lived on a farm.

And from that rambling, inconsistent and dubiously topical dialogue, I'll give you my conclusion. Britain (without sounding too arrogant) has massively influenced world history, and still is in many ways. We, or settlers originating from these isles, have had major effects on so many nations already mentioned here (good or bad), from America and Canada, to Australia, India and Hong Kong.

tomdavi:

I like that, it's a good summary, if brief on British history. But why do we Brits always put such a downer on it all (it was so much better then, now it's all terrible). Yes our history was cool (ethically questionable at times, but cool), and that is the reason we are a rich influential nation now. I'm not directing all this at you but lots seem to think like this. You say yobs (idiots or other generic term of abuse, for non British people), are abundant now. Look back real hard at the industrial revolution. the only difference then was that people like you were working alongside them for horrendous wages in poor conditions, and remembering how much better it was when you'd lived on a farm.

And from that rambling, inconsistent and dubiously topical dialogue, I'll give you my conclusion. Britain (without sounding too arrogant) has massively influenced world history, and still is in many ways. We, or settlers originating from these isles, have had major effects on so many nations already mentioned here (good or bad), from America and Canada, to Australia, India and Hong Kong.

Here here my good man! Although I have one or two reas to pick at which I shall do so in my usual pedantic fashion...

Firstly, we always put a downer on it because it's what we do best! No one can ridicule the British than ourselves, is a trade mark of our humour, even in the height of our power we used to make jokes about ourselves (admitedly from a position of smug superiority)

Yes our history was "cool" as you put it, like the Third Reich... only spread over several centuries... cool uniforms but terrible foregn relations when it came to dealing with our "subjects".

Most importantly, this made me laugh, I did not use "yobs" to describe the immigrants present here, I could certainy embark on that topic but i'd rather not. When I speak of yobs I speak of my own degenerate generation! Home grown! The chav for those of you who are British, those people will be the death of everyone including themselves given their affinity for sharp pointy objects...

Aside from that I agree with you certainly, Not-So-Great Britain with it's glourious past and not so glourious future generation once ruled the waves and a quarter of the globe!

Now our empire consists of B.T, the manufacture of life boats and a small carpark.

I know very little of Chinese or English history. But it really scares me when most of the people I talk to knows much less than I do.

Also I think of history not as "history" but more as propaganda. I often read about the same event in history in a English book and a Chinese book, and get a completely different idea of what happened.

The opium wars (1840) for example, a popular subject in Chinese textbooks to stir up nationalist sentiments; but hardly mentioned in English histories, at most as a minor event in the history of the British Empire, an event no one has ever heard of.

The Korean war (1950) is another example, American books say it's a UN peace keeping mission, Chinese books say it's a war of western powers interferring in other nations' internal affairs, preventing the uniting of Korea, and threatening the security of China.

And these are just the non-controversial stuff, for the real hot stuff like Sino-Japanese wars (1931, '37 - '45), or Iraq war (2003), or the history of the British in the middle East, are just full of lies from whichever side you read it.

Don't take history books too seriously, it's good entertainment, but don't take it as something that really happened in the past.

I know quite a lot about the history of Belgium.
It's strange actually. The more I learn about it, the more I feel like it shouldn't exist.

[quote="goodman528" post="18.82883.1144795"]I know very little of Chinese or English history. But it really scares me when most of the people I talk to knows much less than I do.

Also I think of history not as "history" but more as propaganda...quote]

I agree with what you mean, but on the other hand China activly engages in the manipulation of education and propeaganda to support their ideaology and i'm not saying that just because i'm British, i'm an ex-communist socialist with communist ideals and an appreciation for capitalism and an adoring unreasonable love for sickles and anvils. But let's face it, never trust anything a one party state churns out of it's govrnment bodies.

And as a minor note I know of the Opium wars and would happily admit that it's our, and by that I mean my Britains, fault, or at least the East Indian Trading Company.

Steven Kyzburg:

And dam those Normans... invading a country for no real reason and subjugating it's citizens!

Well, there was the small matter of William having a legitimate claim to throne and being promised it by the previous saxon king. Most medieval wars were more about royal succession rather than 1 country invading another [/sweeping generalisation]. Since European royal lines were so inbred everyone had some sort of claim to everyone elses throne [/hyperbole]

Steven Kyzburg:

tomdavi:

I like that, it's a good summary, if brief on British history. But why do we Brits always put such a downer on it all (it was so much better then, now it's all terrible). Yes our history was cool (ethically questionable at times, but cool), and that is the reason we are a rich influential nation now. I'm not directing all this at you but lots seem to think like this. You say yobs (idiots or other generic term of abuse, for non British people), are abundant now. Look back real hard at the industrial revolution. the only difference then was that people like you were working alongside them for horrendous wages in poor conditions, and remembering how much better it was when you'd lived on a farm.

And from that rambling, inconsistent and dubiously topical dialogue, I'll give you my conclusion. Britain (without sounding too arrogant) has massively influenced world history, and still is in many ways. We, or settlers originating from these isles, have had major effects on so many nations already mentioned here (good or bad), from America and Canada, to Australia, India and Hong Kong.

Here here my good man! Although I have one or two reas to pick at which I shall do so in my usual pedantic fashion...

Firstly, we always put a downer on it because it's what we do best! No one can ridicule the British than ourselves, is a trade mark of our humour, even in the height of our power we used to make jokes about ourselves (admitedly from a position of smug superiority)

Yes our history was "cool" as you put it, like the Third Reich... only spread over several centuries... cool uniforms but terrible foregn relations when it came to dealing with our "subjects".

Most importantly, this made me laugh, I did not use "yobs" to describe the immigrants present here, I could certainy embark on that topic but i'd rather not. When I speak of yobs I speak of my own degenerate generation! Home grown! The chav for those of you who are British, those people will be the death of everyone including themselves given their affinity for sharp pointy objects...

Aside from that I agree with you certainly, Not-So-Great Britain with it's glourious past and not so glourious future generation once ruled the waves and a quarter of the globe!

Now our empire consists of B.T, the manufacture of life boats and a small carpark.

Yes I completely agree with you for most of that. but in my own pedantic fashion, I should point out that I did not think at all you were talking about immigrants, I was more thinking along the lines that non British people might or might not use the slang term yob and thought I'd try and suggest an alternative in the word "idiot".