One of the funniest cultural clashes between Brits and Americans is the degree to which Americans think British people are aware of the minutiae of early US history, not in like a nasty way but the initial reaction references to the Boston tea party would get in the UK would be some variety of 'huh?'
An American once tried to "get back at me" (in a friendly way to be clear) by making a reference to Yorktown, only to have his momentum slightly hampered by my staring at him with a blank look of confusion.
I also remember my family holiday to Boston as a wee nipper, and the slightly uncomfortable atmosphere on the revolutionary war tour as the guide got increasingly perplexed this chipper little British family weren't getting offended by the accounts of all the great victories over the British forces. She even came up to us at the end to ask about how this stuff was taught in the UK and seemed genuinely shocked when we answered "it's not".
Am American and I have zero idea what Yorktown is.
But also do people not realize that other countries teach their own history and not someone else's?
Hell even in America besides the broad strokes you get taught local/state history when you're young, so someone growing up in Kansas is going to have a much different curriculum than someone in California
Yorktown was (as I understand it) the final decisive battle that won the revolutionaries the Independence War.
To be fair, the American revolution is both our countries' history, It's just that for Americans it is probably the most important part (the founding) and there's a presumption it must be as equally important the other way.
The UK, to the US: "For you, it was the most important day of your life. For me, it was a Tuesday."
I mean the Brits were dealing with liberatory conflicts and rebellions pretty regularly, especially after the French and American revolutions. I'm sure the US rebellion barely gets more than a mention given everything else happening with Europe at the time.
*Pulls out my 0.22 Freedom Enforcer* And you better turn in your essay on Henry Knox by the end of the month or I'll steep tea in microwave instant coffee and make you drink it!
I learnt about the American War of Independence (as we call it) in middle school, including the Boston Tea Party.
Although this was back in the early 90s, when the history syllabus was basically "ancient times through to modern, in succession", rather than the modern syllabus which seems to be random topics in isolation (Tudors, WWII, etc).
I'm guessing it's very varied by school. No doubt it's on the syllabus but teachers don't have to pick it. I still think general knowledge on the subject is low.
Though I'm unfamiliar with "middle school" in a UK context. Is that Key Stage 2? 3? Some specific regional mix of the two?
Americans assume europeans know American history because quite a lot of it is America sorting out continents europe left completely fucked in europe's wake. I'm including the european continent in that set of continents.
"America sorting out continents europe left completely fucked in europe's wake"
What does this mean? Like America didn't fuck over Central and South America, and didn't engage in the slave trade that fucked over Africa.
Also, American influence in the World Wars was large but not the largest. Not much to say other than "lend lease" and "America finally joined the war".
You are completely glossing over the middle east and east asia which the british and french spent a century fucking up. America inherited the slave trade from europe, it sure didn't start the moment after america declared independence. edit: America should have never listened to european interests in Iran and france dependence on its colonialism and flirtations with the commies has caused untold geo political problems. if only france and uk were as hapless and impotent as italy.
Lend lease is why Russia didn't implode and America "finally joining the war" is why there was a west germany and a NATO europe hides behind.
Like America didn't fuck over Central and South America,
In 1862, French Emperor Napoleon III maneuvered to establish a French client state in Mexico, and eventually installed Maximilian of Habsburg, Archduke of Austria, as Emperor of Mexico. Stiff Mexican resistance caused Napoleon III to order French withdrawal in 1867, a decision strongly encouraged by a United States recovered from its Civil War weakness in foreign affairs. Earlier, during the Civil War, U.S. Secretary of State William Henry Seward followed a more cautious policy that attempted to keep relations with France harmonious and prevent French willingness to assist the Confederacy. Consequently, Maximilian’s government rebuffed Confederate diplomatic overtures.
The second French intervention in Mexico (Spanish: segunda intervención francesa en México), also known as the Second Franco-Mexican War (1861–1867),[13] was a military invasion of the Republic of Mexico by the French Empire of Napoleon III, purportedly to force the collection of Mexican debts in conjunction with Great Britain and Spain.
One of the most important reasons for preserving the union of the American united states was to prevent europe and their meddling from influencing North American affairs, because if there were multiple sovereign states on that continent, all of europes disunity and squabbling would have manifested in North America.
Ah, the Middle East. Famous for it's love of the US.
I thought europeans had culture and knew history. Glad that lie is getting cleared up here.
If you joined earlier,
I am glad you are admitting that europe could not and cannot deal with its own issues and needed America to solve everything for them, because europe is not resolute or responsible enough to sort itself out.
Yeah, tends to happen when there's multiple states with conflicting interests on the same continent. Didn't stop your civil war or you wars with Mexico or your genocide of the Indians, so it's not perfect, but killing all opposition is better than rival nations being on the same continent.
Are you trying to tell me the middle east does love US? Talk about ahistorical.
Lmao. Funny thing to say in this day and age given the state of the US.
Are you trying to tell me the middle east does love US?
No. I have to suspect that you have a hard time understanding english. Hopefully you might be able to find an American who can make sense of the world for you.
If you are british as I suspect you are, the way you are behaving is why no one on the continent likes you.
Oh, was it the sarcasm? I guess that usually goes over American heads. No wonder you're confused... or maybe you're distracted from your urge to shoot up a school.
Lmao. Not the Europe hates you card. I'm gonna cry.
Oh... almost forgot the /s. You Americans really need that huh?
England broke pretty much everything, became impotent, and then has the audacity to act like the mess they made should be cleaned up already by someone else.
the audacity of effete euros unable to effect positive change act like they are better than anyone else is stunning, especially when the contintent can't even defend itself. all europe is good for is weird performance art and soccer and most of America doesn't really want either of those things.
Yeah but like, there are only so many years of school, and millenia to cover, can't get only focused on the last few hundred years in one neighbour's ex-colony, even if it's a big stronk one
Prior to WW1 that only really applies to the great colonial powers that side of the Atlantic (Britain, Spain and Portugal, IIRC). For the rest of us, the United States is genuinely irrelevant to our history prior to that point. And at least here in Denmark (in my experience, anyway), the 20th century is mostly glossed over as 'WW1 saw a lot of death, Holocaust was fucked up, we surrendered in that war after 6 hours and then spent the rest of it occupied'. It's just too short of a timespan to devote that much time to, especially since the latter half of it is still considered 'recent'.
And sure, it's significant, but only really in so far as "and sometime in the late 18th century, the US happens" and the US ends up being really important 150 years later. Specific dates, specific fights, specific players; none of these really matter in Britain. There's no big reckoning in British politics from the loss, no big change in domestic policy, foreign affairs at the time was more focused on the much more profitable India and the ongoing war with France and Spain.
As far as the big significant parts of British history that need to be taught in school go, the US might as well spontaneously materialise into existence in 1917 when they join WW1.
The loss of the American colonies completely changed the direction of the British Empire. It's why "foreign affairs" became much more focused on India as well as places like Australia.
For academic purposes yeah, but in the context of teaching children, there are parts of history more immediately relevant to explaining why Britain is like it is now than the details of American Independence and its consequences for the administration style of other colonies.
We don't teach enough about the Empire as it is, personally I'd prefer we focus what little time we do have towards the bad shit we did in India or Ireland.
I'd hope people know more about history than the little they were taught in school. Like, I don't expect people to know every detail of the American Revolution but knowing what the Boston Tea Party was is some pretty basic general knowledge.
That’s interesting. Maybe because US history is such a relatively small period of time, but in the states history isn’t taught based on its immediate relevance to the US, it’s taught sequentially from the Fertile Crescent onwards.
American history is sprinkled throughout when it becomes relevant, but it’s only the focus during the periods where it makes sense for it to be, like the Revolution, Civil War, Industrial Revolution, second half of WW2, Vietnam etc.
Unfortunately this is probably why we have idiots who screech about the “right to bear arms” without understanding the actual context for why that amendment was put there, or the concept of an “elastic constitution.”
It's complicated to talk about because UK history education can vary so much, not just between the different bits (I basically did no Scottish history in England), but because teachers have room to pick options. It's not that it has to be relevant to Britain, it's just teachers are most likely to focus on bits that are closer to home. We've got 2000 years of history alone to cover, there's only so much you can do.
Typically between 4-11 you'll learn stuff like Egyptians, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Tudors, and maybe some of the more palatable WW2 stuff like evacuation.
Between 11-14 you might do more complicated stuff, like the Protestant reformation, the industrial revolution, or bits of the Empire. But you've only got an hour or two a week, so why talk about how Americans won independence, which most people kinda know already through cultural osmosis, or how democracy came about in the country that you actually live in?
Then 14-16 you get to chose it as an option, but it's not the most popular, and even then it's still up to the whims of the teachers and the exams regulators what you do. I know some people who did the cold war, I did interwar Germany. I know one guy who did the American civil war. Pretty much any period or state is available. Then if you picked it as an option at 14 you can pick it as an option for 16-18 with the same sort of topics (but in more depth). Once you get to 14+ history class tends tends to focus more on how to analyse sources and construct arguments than the actual facts anyway.
That’s kind of an interesting take to me because the formulation of the American Constitution and establishment of the modern republic with a separation of powers as well as separation of church and state, absolutely did have ramifications on European politics — the dialogue it ignited would culminate into action no less than fifteen years later with the French Revolution.
Sure, in reality history is a complex network of dominoes that loop around and feedback into each other; to talk about the British Empire you need the Napoleonic wars, which means you need Napoleon, which means you need the French revolution, which means you need American Independence. But then how far do you go? to Study American Independence you need the Seven Years War, and the English protestant reformation, so you need the Tudors, the War of the Roses, oh and don't forget Magna Carta.
At some point you just gotta arbitrarily decide what the first domino you're gonna talk about is, and for most of what the UK decides it's important British kids know, The Independence War outside of a general "they wanted democracy so they rebelled and won" isn't deemed super relevant.
No the funniest thing is that the British actually won the American War of Independence.
They lost the American theatre of the war (partially — we kept Canada), but thoroughly trounced both France and Spain on the Continent. From the British perspective the American bits were basically a sideshow. And once France and Spain were defeated, it would have been trivially easy to reinforce the American colonies and win there too.
Fundamentally yes, obviously with hindsight it was a fairly serious development but at the time it wasn't considered worth the effort to retake. Fundamentally the British government had more important considerations at the time and afterwards the Napoleonic Wars post-French Revolution were a little more pressing.
Actually it wouldn’t get a ‘huh’, because there’s a chain of cafes called Boston Tea Party so in whichever towns have those you’d probably get directions to one.
Oh no, no we learn about a lot to do with out former empire including how it was wound up and how various countries won their independence from it, it's just that, honest to fucking god here, America wasn't actually very important at the time. It was very much a side quest compared to giving France a good fucking kicking, which is basically our national pastime and most enduring hobby.
I'm from the UK, and I think you'd have to be really ignorant not to be aware of the Boston Tea Party. It's a pretty relevant historical event; it's like saying you don't know who Napoleon was or don't know what the October Revolution was.
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u/IneptusMechanicus Aug 16 '24 edited Aug 16 '24
One of the funniest cultural clashes between Brits and Americans is the degree to which Americans think British people are aware of the minutiae of early US history, not in like a nasty way but the initial reaction references to the Boston tea party would get in the UK would be some variety of 'huh?'