Well, in school, we are currently going through a period of learning nothing else than our country's history... I have a B from history, but all I've learned from it was that since Columbus found America 'till the first world war, our country's leaders spent more time in Russia, Chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all cool, while Ottoman empire was making trouble in our neighborho-- Err, I mean, country.

Well I know that at some point in history we had an empire that covered a quarter of the Earth's surface. But we were forced to give that back and return to our island. Good ol' Blighty. But knowing we have the world's best navy is a comfort :D

scumofsociety:

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]

You are completely right of course... but... um... *thinks of something to avoid any oppertunity for the French to be "not-wrong"*... um...

Well they're French for starters! [insert nationalist bigotry here]

Nexus Zef:
I know that my country owned 25% of the world at one point the lost the bloody lot for some reason and now everyone craves dissapointment, accepting how utterly useless we have become =) Plus at one point we were ruled by the French, that has to be a low point for any country.

Good old England.

Hey we've had are high points eg when we owned more of france than the french king. Until the next king lost all of it except for Calais... What a dick.

Depends really. Not to tot my own horn, but it depends how much you want me to tell you about my country's history.

Nexus Zef:
Plus at one point we were ruled by the French, that has to be a low point for any country.

For shame sir. For shame! It was the Normans (in a completely unfair fight) who controlled Britain for a time. Though in close proximity to France and being hard to tell apart from the French, they were descendants of Vikings. So that makes it a little better. That and the fact that our King at the time raced his army up North to fight off the Vikings, then charged way down South and decided to not wait for reinforcements. Instead he decided to meet the Normans before they reached London. And the English still almost won, even with a tired and battered army. But that was 1000 years ago. Who's successfully invaded our country since then?

Feel free to correct me on anything you believe I have got wrong. I'll gladly put my hands up and admit it.

Hello by the way.

I'm from Scotland. We spent a long time being invaded by England and William Wallace and co fighting them off, wars of independence and such. Then we had the jacobite wars, which are remembered as also being Scotland vs England, but was more like Scotland vs Scotland. Bonnie Prince Charlie was, incidentally, an Italian with a polish accent.

We also pretty much invented or discovered everything, what with the inventions of steam enines, tarmac, flushing toilet, animal cloning, the bicycle, television(sort of), penicillin, electromagnetism, radar, insulin, calculus, the gas mask, air-filled tire, speedometers, trucks, tubular steel, coal-gas lighting, paddle wheel steamships, screw propeller, cast steel, wire rope, cordite, the adhesive postage stamp, the post office, the mail van service, telephone(sort of), Universal Standard Time, Fax Machine, logarithms, The Gregorian Telescope, The Kelvin scale of temperature, The Noble Gases, The Ultrasound Scanner, The MRI scanner, The Seismometer, Quinine, Cure for Scurvy, The Hypodermic syringe, Waterproof jacket, The Life Ring, The modern economic system(sorry about that, guys), digestive biscuits, The Keyring and colour photography. That's about all we've invented.

(And yes, I did cull most of the inventions from wikipedia)

More than I'd care to.

I know that at one point in history we owned a vast majority of the planet but gave it back to everyone, why we did that i have no idea. Bring back the Bristish empire please.

Well... I am from Holland, and I do know a bit about the wars it has been involved in.
The parts about the colonial age I remember a bit about too...
But to be honest, I couldn't care less...

I'd like to think i know plenty about America. But sadly here we teach other countries history first and our own second

Rajin Cajun:

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.

i met some guy who claimed that the states never lost one single battle in the war of 1812 and that washington was not burned down. i pointed out a few battles that they did lose, including detroit being taken without a shot, he got really upset with me and denied most of it

Blandman:

For shame sir. For shame! It was the Normans (in a completely unfair fight) who controlled Britain for a time. Though in close proximity to France and being hard to tell apart from the French, they were descendants of Vikings. So that makes it a little better. That and the fact that our King at the time raced his army up North to fight off the Vikings, then charged way down South and decided to not wait for reinforcements. Instead he decided to meet the Normans before they reached London. And the English still almost won, even with a tired and battered army. But that was 1000 years ago. Who's successfully invaded our country since then?

Feel free to correct me on anything you believe I have got wrong.

Sure thing...they controlled England, not Britain and the Anglo Saxons almost won...but I get the feeling I've said this already.

My school killed history for me. They taught the same countries (China and India. 7th, 8th, AND 9th grade World Cultures/Modern World History all had a unit devoted to them) year after year... slavery and the civil rights movement starts as low as 3rd grade, learning about the underground railroad for Martin Luther King Day, and ends all the way in 10th grade with a huge term paper. I am starting to not give a flying shit about anything that happened before 1950.
That being said, I know enough about American history. The way I see it, I like knowing things that are helpful. History is not helpful to me, given my style of life and the careers I'm thinking of choosing, at all. It just isn't. Who really gives a fuck about dead people? Sure, they did cool stuff, but COOLER STUFF IS BEING DONE RIGHT NOW. That's not to say that I almost died when I heard the Chinese had a repeating crossbow 3000, give or take, years ago.
I just think that there's better things to do with one's time than obsess over the child armies of the Ottomans, or what the significance of Istanbul 500 years ago, whatever it was called back then.

Jeez, that post makes me sound really ignorant. I'm not that bad, it's just a rant.
>_>

EDIT: Came up with a statement that sums up history.
It's like taking apart the VCR. There's a lot of interesting stuff in there, and some of it explains other things, but it's really just a pointless thing to do on a Sunday afternoon.

I am somewhat of a WWII buff...don't claim to know everything but it interest me alot...

cleverlymadeup:

Rajin Cajun:

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.

i met some guy who claimed that the states never lost one single battle in the war of 1812 and that washington was not burned down. i pointed out a few battles that they did lose, including detroit being taken without a shot, he got really upset with me and denied most of it

Don't worry I know people who think WWI started in 1917. :P

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

So, are you Serbian or Austrian?

As for me, you generally get taught quite a bit of Australian history in school, and like Ultra Joe said, there's not a lot, so I know a bit. In regards to Indian history... I know bits and pieces, but mostly about modern aspects ('bout the end of the British Raj onwards).

Edit:

samsprinkle:
I am somewhat of a WWII buff...don't claim to know everything but it interest me alot...

I've wondered, what does the school system in the US say in regards to the starting date of WW2?

Yarrr! New Zealand! It's history was forced down me throat at high school! Fuck you, Mr Stewart! Yarr! Lorazapam and loss of blood! Yarr!

stompy:

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

So, are you Serbian or Austrian?

As for me, you generally get taught quite a bit of Australian history in school, and like Ultra Joe said, there's not a lot, so I know a bit. In regards to Indian history... I know bits and pieces, but mostly about modern aspects ('bout the end of the British Raj onwards).

Edit:

samsprinkle:
I am somewhat of a WWII buff...don't claim to know everything but it interest me alot...

I've wondered, what does the school system in the US say in regards to the starting date of WW2?

I am from austria.

I'm pretty proud of my county's history... others seem to have covered many salient points, but it mostly boils down to the fact that being British is to be a mongrel. Our language shamelessly borrows and steal from whatever it can get its hands on. Our genetic stock is especially broad with our continued absorption and general tolerance for immigrants (sure, we bitch about them, but they generally don't get thrown out for it).

We're an adaptable lot- our Empire managed to evolve into a commonwealth instead of collapsing. We have some of the finest educational institutions in the world, we also essentially founded the basis of many modern constitutions and legal systems with the Magna Carta, Bill of Rights, and such concepts as independent judges and trial by jury. We've fought and both lost and won our fair share of wars, sometimes with ourselves. We sparked the industrial revolution and, to this day, continue to affect countries and cultures around the world.

Even the gaming industry owes a lot to us. DMA Design kicked off the GTA series and continue to make GTA games to this day as Rockstar North. Bullfrog gave us Populous, Syndicate and Dungeon Keeper, subsequently spinning off to form Lionhead who went on to make Black and White 1/2, Fable 1/2 and The Movies. Rare's given us GoldenEye, Perfect Dark and others, Psygnosis made a hell of a lot of Lemmings, Sensible Software gave us Cannon Fodder, Team17 infested us with Worms, The Creative Assembly are still making the Total War series, Criterion the Burnout series, and of course, there's Introversion with Uplink, Darwinia and Defcon. Eidos deserves a mention, for having published the Tomb Raider (also originally homegrown by Core Design), Commandos, Deus Ex, and Theif series.

Not bad for a country that only makes up ~1% of the world population.

I consider myself very educated on American history, seeing as I'm American. But I live in Brazil and I barely know anything about it.

I know a huge amount about my country's PRE-history. Somewhat less about it's history. Anything after the arrival of the Romans untill 1485 I can't really tell you anything about beyond the msot basic medieval social-history and the history that can be gleaned from Age of Empires and Medieval: Total War. After 1484 my knowledge extends up untill roughly (emphasis on roughly) 1600 and the end of the Tudor dynasty. From 1600-1830 I know very little. Some but not much, I know the vague sweeping events and trends.

My 19th century historical knowledge is fairly specialised, not actually history but the social history, and the history of Archaeology as a field. The 20th century I know more than most, I would say, but would not count myself as an expert.

Im Irish im extremly proud of our history and your taught it from a young age through songs and poems.

For such a small country we built new york/a good wack of america,australia(All criminals though) and fought have had honorary regiments in every major army.American.French and British along with Mexico.

And we gave the British hell too.

I know quite a bit a lot of Canada and it's history. Then again, its not hard as we have only 200+ years of it.

Enough to have a degree in it.

I know a bit about my country's history, but not a spectacular amount. I can tell you a few inventors and monarchs and such but I can't give you Churchill's birthday.

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.

That, and the fact that Australian history is very boring.
I'm a history nerd and I find Aussie history boring. It may have to do with growing up learning it, but the only interesting things I can remember learning about is our involvement in other peoples' wars (World Wars, Vietnam etc) and the Stolen Generation.

I know quite a bit about our history, but I know quite a bit more about that of a few other nations.

All I now about Northern Ireland/Irelands's history is that it revolves around the petty protestant/catholic divide or Unionists and Nationalists. It's all so pointless! All that rouble for silly religion! I know more about Germany's history. 1918 to 1945 are great to learn about.

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

WTF? I thought it was just me who thought that!

Vlane:
I am from Austria.

Ah, so... what do they say about Arch-Duke Ferdinand in Austria?

Fuddle Duddle

...that is all that I need to know

Well... I know we (Denmark) were wikings at some point... and I know what our flag looks like!

But seriously I don't really know that much, all the common stuff, but I find other countries' history way more fascinating.

As the french do say ......"I surrender"

Hurray for Canada! we were founded on the fashion industry.

I know a goodly amount about American history. I know a goodly amount about a lot of things.
Mostly because I studied them on my own.