History

[watervole]

I'm putting together thoughts for an article on history, but I might as well have a few extra facts to back up my thesis.

Data from people outside the UK would be particularly helpful (though UK is also good).

The history I remember from school is roughly: Norman conquest, Elizabethan era, the Victorians. We got some of the Greeks and Romans in classical studies. My boys certainly did WW2 in addition and one did Stalinist Russia.

So, what key historic events were you taught in school?

What peices of history have you read since for your own interest? And why? (I can count the Ottoman Empire and a moderate chunk of Islamic stuff, the war between Canada and the USA, medieval warfare, a bit of Egyptology and various other snippets. Each of those had a reason at the time for me to read about it, but I won't mention the reasons yet.)

I have predictions as to what Americans and Australians will have been taught, but I'd like to see how close I am.

Also, what languages did you have the options of learning and what options do the current generation of children have in your country (I'm assuming there may have been shifts recently) Which languages did you chose to learn and why?

Comments

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Hrm. They taught us the history of India, mainly Hinduism and from the Mughal invasion through British rule and independence; the history of China, rushing through the early dynasties and focussing on the spread/cultural rise of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and the opium war; a lot of Middle Eastern history via the history and spread of Islam; colonization and independence of sub-Saharan Africa and a bit on apartheid; American history from the 17th century through roughly the mid-20th century, and, quite early on, state history, from pre-colonial to colonial to statehood to the early industrial revolution. I think we had a little Greek and Roman, but mainly in the government unit, along with some Charlemagne and Magna Carta and French Revolution and the influences on the American Constitution. I think that's the minimum requirements for the state - you need those units to get your degree.

I had the option of learning French or Spanish, although the lower schools in the towns that fed into the high school chose only one to teach, because they didn't have enough kids to teach both, so we were started in one before we got a choice. (Small towns can't afford a lot of extra teachers.) They were phasing out German while I was in school, and I think they offered a limited amount of beginning Latin.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

I talked to my brother, and we both think we got some Central and South American history as well, because we seem to have covered some Toltec/Olmec/Aztec/Maya/Inca stuff. We definitely got some South American colonization and the European empire politics that affected it.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

And now that I think of it, our Middle Eastern history unit went at least through the founding of Israel, and I think up through the 6-day war.