history and Americans

[watervole]

I've had a fair number of replies to my question about what periods of history people were taught about at school, but only one from an American. As her reply covered a surprisingly wide-ranging number of countries and periods, I'd like
to know if this was typical or unusual.

Could any other Americans reading this please give me a feel for the history they were taught at school. I'd hate to approximate a country from a single example.

Interestingly enough, I'm also finding age banding on the replies. The history we learnt partly depends on how old we are as well as where we come from. I think I may be able to work that rather neatly into my theory.

Comments

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

I didn't answer you, by the way, because I honestly can't remember what history I learned when and how. Between compulsory school, my own reading back then and later on half a year of full-time history at University I know far more of it than most people here, at least…

What might be interesting, though, is that I actually talked about history education with my Scottish GF not long ago, since I found she knew surprisingly little of it. As far as we could figure out, I got about four times as many hours of history back in compulsory school as she did. This kind of surprised me.