# "I dunno, that happened before I was born" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 6, 2015, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790 "2015-11-06T10:58:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Celidin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Celidin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celidin)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/41 "2015-11-06T21:39:53Z")
Graduated late 90’s. My high school US history was split between junior and senior years. Junior year = “pre 1900” (e.g. Jamestown through Reconstruction of the South) Senior year = “post 1900” And yet, somehow we still only barely got past WWII. (I vaguely remember a little about Korea, and maybe watching Platoon, but that’s about it). ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/42 "2015-11-06T22:23:01Z")
To clarify my OP a bit, I’m not down on her for not knowing about Watergate. What pinches my plums is her stance that she feels she gets a pass for being ignorant about a historical event because it did not happen while she was breathing air and she therefore is under no obligation to be aware of said event (and can’t be bothered to learn). mmm ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/43 "2015-11-06T22:55:52Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > To clarify my OP a bit, I’m not down on her for not knowing about Watergate. > > What pinches my plums is her stance that she feels she gets a pass for being ignorant about a historical event because it did not happen while she was breathing air and she therefore is under no obligation to be aware of said event (and can’t be bothered to learn) I think it may have been referenced, but it may have depended on your reaction. You may have thought that you were just surprised, but she may have thought that you were being judgmental that she never heard of Watergate. Anyways, I do think Watergate should be something that people know about these days because it was so important in US history, but I can see it as being something that is in the middle era between current events and school history (I say that as someone who was born in 1980 and know about Watergate). ---
**Author:** ![CT\_Damsel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CT\_Damsel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CT_Damsel)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/44 "2015-11-06T23:17:49Z")
I used to work with a [del]bitch[/del] woman who would say coyly “Oh that was before MY time.” My reply was always, “Yes, it was before my time too; but I feel an obligation to know some of what happened on the planet before I arrived.” ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/45 "2015-11-06T23:24:38Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I do. It’s ridiculously easy to get the comic version of historical events online. I understand someone perhaps not having an interest in studying about how we got to where we are, but not bothering to find out because it was “before I was born” is just willful ignorance, not to mention appallingly lazy. The story in the OP doesn’t use “not before I was born” as the excuse for not knowing bothering to find out, just for not knowing. And it’s nothing awful for a person not to care much about history. I can’t exactly understand why people wouldn’t be curious enough to have a better idea, but it hardly seems like a moral failing. ---
**Author:** ![HowSoonIsThen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@HowSoonIsThen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HowSoonIsThen)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/46 "2015-11-07T00:31:23Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > I think it may have been referenced, but it may have depended on your reaction. You may have thought that you were just surprised, but she may have thought that you were being judgmental that she never heard of Watergate. This is what I was thinking. I think the OP interpreted what she said to mean “it happened before I was born and hence there is no reason for me to know anything about it”. She may have simply meant “no need to get upset that I have gaps in my knowledge. It happened before I was born so it’s perfectly understandable why I might not have heard of it”. Of course, I don’t know what she was thinking. It’s just possible it was a defensive response to what she perceived as judgement rather than an all round defence of her ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/47 "2015-11-07T00:33:40Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Well, sure, but I remain unconvinced that Watergate is one of these. It led to the only resignation of a U.S. President in the history of the country. I think that’s important history. Not much, IMHO. BFD. Watergate, at this point, shouldn’t really be for someone who isn’t a PoliSci major. No lives were lost, the crimes were light weight burglary, and the cover ups were equal to most Presidential dirty deeds. Most people who even know about it don’t know the facts. They think something like Nixon ordered the break-in, etc… Even if this is covered in something other than College/Uni it should be something like “In 74, Nixon, under threat of impeachment for crimes and trumped up shit, resigned.” That about covers it. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/48 "2015-11-07T00:36:20Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > To clarify my OP a bit, I’m not down on her for not knowing about Watergate. > > What pinches my plums is her stance that she feels she gets a pass for being ignorant about a historical event because it did not happen while she was breathing air and she therefore is under no obligation to be aware of said event (and can’t be bothered to learn). > mmm She IS under no obligation to be aware of said event. :eek::eek: ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/49 "2015-11-07T00:48:19Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > To clarify my OP a bit, I’m not down on her for not knowing about Watergate. > > What pinches my plums is her stance that she feels she gets a pass for being ignorant about a historical event because it did not happen while she was breathing air and she therefore is under no obligation to be aware of said event (and can’t be bothered to learn). > mmm If you came across to her in the way that you are coming across in this thread, I can hardly blame her for going on the defensive. Not knowing anything about Watergate - at best a tiny footnote in the grand sweep of history - doesn’t deserve smug condescension. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/50 "2015-11-07T00:51:14Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Even if this is covered in something other than College/Uni it should be something like “In 74, Nixon, under threat of impeachment for crimes and trumped up shit, resigned.” That about covers it. Well, this demonstrates that you don’t know history. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/51 "2015-11-07T00:54:18Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > If you came across to her in the way that you are coming across in this thread, I can hardly blame her for going on the defensive. Not knowing anything about Watergate - at best a tiny footnote in the grand sweep of history - doesn’t deserve smug condescension. I pretty much disagree with all of this. Nobody is being condescending. People who think they can excuse lack of knowledge with “I wasn’t born yet” are indeed being lazy. And if you think that girl has a grasp of the “grand sweep of history” you are kidding yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/52 "2015-11-07T01:34:13Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The story in the OP doesn’t use “not before I was born” as the excuse for not knowing bothering to find out, just for not knowing. And it’s nothing awful for a person not to care much about history. I can’t exactly understand why people wouldn’t be curious enough to have a better idea, but it hardly seems like a moral failing. Imagine that it’s 1975, when Watergate is still current events, and a bar is holding a trivia contest and 1920s songs comes up as a category. Do you think people under 30 would have any interest in that category? Or imagine that you started talking about the Teapot Dome Scandal, would you expect people to be conversant in it, after all it was regarded as the “greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics” before Watergate? But since 1960s music and Watergate are from Boomer times, lots of people think that they should remain in the top of people’s consciousness, even though they’re about as far in the items in my example were. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/53 "2015-11-07T02:15:02Z")
> [@Small\_Hen](#): > > It’s perfectly reasonable for someone to feel defensive when they don’t know something and someone else expresses surprise. Maybe, but it’s a terrible defensive argument to put forward. Tell me you don’t follow politics, that’s fine. Tell me that history bores you, it’s fine (I’ll probably mentally file you as a nekulturnyi wanker, but that’s besides the point :p). “happened before the Dawn of Me therefore irrelevant” however is just a terrible sentiment. And I mean, regarding Watergate specifically, even if the event itself doesn’t really matter all too much today (outside of the way it’s irretrievably changed politics and public trust in the American zeitgeist but that’s not exactly quantifiable), it’s become such an ubiquitous idiom that I’d probably look down on somebody who evidently never ever wondered why the news hacks append -gate whenever some two bit scandal rocks the news for 24 hours. I’ll forgive the rankest of ignorance all day long, as I’m well aware of being crassly ignorant about a great many things up to and including how fucking magnets work ; but lack of curiosity/intellectual laziness ? That’s the definition of stoopid. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/54 "2015-11-07T05:01:42Z")
Magnets make flux lines. (string theory) Take a flux line ( string ) and lay it on what you are welding & you will get a better weld. I knows lots of strange stuff. ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/55 "2015-11-07T07:42:48Z")
“History was a lot easier when there wasn’t so much of it.”–Sci-fi writer Jack McDevitt ---
**Author:** ![WildBlueYonder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ce7236/32.png) [@WildBlueYonder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildBlueYonder)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/56 "2015-11-07T14:32:09Z")
> [@GusNSpot](#): > > Old fart here: > > I was 53 before I got on the internet. at least you got here, its a good thing! Got my first PC in 2000 grajiated in 77. Honestly I do not remember where in history our classes ended but I do know that you could take as much as you wanted to learn and there was always a prerogative to learn more. If you wanted out asap you did as little as possible to pass tests/quizzes and you learned little I know now why I did not do too well in some subjects, especially English, therefore Spanish was not at all easy! I have a problem with comprehension. I remember now that my elementary report cards stated as such. Nothing was done about it and I knew nothing at that age to speak up. So back to topic, all that I learned about history is from tv! lol…not much better than our younger kids these days that sit in front of video games. I read/watch a lot of news and one of my favorite book genres is non fiction reference so I learned after being done with school. I love trivia and Jeopardy! ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/57 "2015-11-07T16:53:31Z")
Note: This relates to family history, rather than general history. But it illustrates the opposite effect that the OP experienced. I remember stuff from a really young age. (My first “successful” thread was about this.) So by late teenage years I had become the family historian on when things happened. As I got older, I started getting questions about stuff that happened _before_ I was born. The reason? Perhaps someone once said something about the event while I was around and I managed to note it. And sometimes that indeed had happened and I could provide some info. So, yeah. What if it was before/after I was born? No big deal. Remembering cool/useful/important stuff is a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Chihuahua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/58 "2015-11-07T17:22:00Z")
I am very torn on this issue. On one hand, I believe people should be well-educated and any meaningful education should include knowledge of history. (And the Watergate scandal was a very important moment in history for a variety of reasons.) I used to get quite angry at people I thought were “stupid” because they didn’t know X, Y, or Z. But at the same time, I can’t articulate an argument for _why_ a person should be expected to know a certain piece of information if it does not pertain to their life. If I had to write a list of things people _should_ be expected to know, I certainly wouldn’t be able to articulate why X piece of information was more/less worthy of inclusion than Y. I’m sure that each generation and each individual would come up with a radically different list of things _they_ think are important. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/59 "2015-11-08T02:33:41Z")
Well, when I was 25, I knew about the Teapot Dome scandal, which was much older to me than Watergate is to a modern 25 year old. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790/60 "2015-11-08T04:34:29Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Imagine that it’s 1975, when Watergate is still current events, and a bar is holding a trivia contest and 1920s songs comes up as a category. Do you think people under 30 would have any interest in that category? Or imagine that you started talking about the Teapot Dome Scandal, would you expect people to be conversant in it, after all it was regarded as the “greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics” before Watergate? But since 1960s music and Watergate are from Boomer times, lots of people think that they should remain in the top of people’s consciousness, even though they’re about as far in the items in my example were. Yeah, there was a recent thread in IMHO about things you can’t imagine people not knowing, and somebody was expressing incredulity about parents who hadn’t exposed their kids to Monty Python and Mel Brooks movies. Those were almost 50 years ago, though, and if my parents had done the equivalent in the 70s and 80s they would have had to force-feed me movies from the 1920s and 1930s. There’s this delusion among some people, and it seems to be most prominent on internet forums like this , that because something was popular or important when their tastes were being formed and their learning accrued, it must therefore be timelessly important, and anyone not instantly familiar with it is stupid and wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dunno-that-happened-before-i-was-born/736790.md?page=4)