For fun, you could take this quiz: http://quiz.history.com/generalinterest
My understanding is that the questions come from a larger pool, so it’s not really made for side-by-side comparisons, but that’s probably not going to stop anybody, so I’ll post my results:
Correct Answers/Questions: 9 out of 10
Final Game Score: 1,340
Time to Complete Game: 49.77 seconds
Thanks for the link! Here’s mine. However their definition of history is pretty wide, with questions about TV shows and sports
Correct Answers/Questions: 9 out of 10
Final Game Score: 1,466
Time to Complete Game: 39.14 seconds
dstarfire are you in the UK or Europe or Latin America, where 9/11 means Nov 9? In the USA it means Sept 11., and usually refers to the 2001 World Trade Center & Pentagon attacks
In the Oval Office.
<runs>
But most Americans would know what 711 is.
It’s been reported that Japan’s (in)famously? public school history lessons exclude or misreport some events of WWII. But so does every nation to some extent. Knowledge of historical events is like that famous Far Side cartoon where buildings are on fire, there are crashed cars, people are running everywhere and a dog in a car or bus is staring at another dog on the sidewalk. The scope of peoples knowledge is often limited to what holds interest for them, particularly national interests.
I’ve posted this story before, but I feel it’s worth repeating. I used to visit a Korean video store (oddly to rent Chinese movies) and got to know the owner quite well. After a while, she started recommending movies to me and one day she handed me movie and said it was about “maruta” and said you don’t know what “maruta” is? I took the movie home and realized it was about the infamous Japanese Unit 731 (which I’d read briefly about).
Don’t know what Unit 731 did? During the Second Sino-Japanese war through the end of WWII, when Japan occupied parts of China, Unit 731 performed horrendous human experiments on Chinese, Korean and Soviets and referred to the people as ‘maruta’ = logs. I still don’t why the store owner, who was in her late 30’s, recommended the movie, but I’m sure the travesties of Unit 731 were part of HER history lessons.
Moderator Note
This being GQ, let’s keep the political jabs out of this thread. No warning issued.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
In fairness (and this is not meant to excuse the American-centric ignorance of Yanks), 9/11 was a considerably larger event than the London bus bombings. It caused a lot more casualties and got a lot more coverage.
I agree and I would say that if you asked a random selection of my fellow countrymen/women the significance of 7/7 they would not have an answer. Bear in mind that bombings in London have not exactly been a rare event over the last 50 years or so.
:dubious:
Yeah, if you get out of the cities, there are a lot of people really cut off from the world there. Remember when the Taliban was in control and they wanted to require Non Muslims to wear patches on their clothes, they were surprised at the international outcry and were unaware that the Nazis did the same thing to Jews.
I’m surprised how many of my former classmates remember so little about what we were taught in school (I’m Class of 1993, by the way.). It’s like they only payed attention to what information they needed at the moment and then immediately forgot it.
Speaking of Nazis, and ignorance thereof, Wikipedia has a very well-sources article on how oddly common Nazi imagery is in Thailand:
… which rather implies it didn’t include such informaton in 2013 or prior.
Now is the time on SDMB when I quote examples!
[quote]
[ul][li]Hitler was the name of an Adolf Hitler-themed fried chicken restaurant in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand.[8][9] It changed its name to “H-ler” and then eventually closed down. While open, KFC considered taking legal action against them.[10][11] A statement by Yum! (parent company of KFC) is as follows: “We find it extremely distasteful and are considering legal action since it is an infringement of our brand trademark and has nothing to do with us.”[12][/li][li]There is a herbal laxative tea sold in Thailand. The package depicts Hitler’s head with fire coming from his mouth and light beams emitting from his eyes. The caption of the package reads “Release the Demon.”[13][/li][li]T-shirts are sold depicting Nazi images. One shows a Hitler Teletubby while another has an image of a Panda Hitler.[1][/li][li]The ruling military junta of the Thai government produced a 2014 propaganda video made to teach core values of society in Thailand.[2] In the video, a child paints a picture of Hitler with a swastika in the background. The child adjacent sees the work and applauds.[/li][li]A large mural was created by students at Chulalongkorn University. It depicted both superheroes and Hitler. The university apologized.[1][/li][li]In 2011, during a sports day parade, students of a Catholic school in Thailand dressed and marched in SS uniforms. The school later apologized after international outrage.[2][/ul][/li][/quote]
Thailand isn’t isolated. It isn’t some magical wonderland free of Western influence. So knowing or not knowing about some things isn’t so much a matter of access as it is a matter of caring about it.
I had classmates in pharmacy school who did this with information about drugs! :eek: That totally blew my mind.
This came to light when a professor asked a question in a test that had been covered in a unit earlier in the semester. My response: “Of course I remembered it! I’ll need to know that for boards, and later on in practice.” :smack:
I don’t recall ever hearing or reading about the Japanese internment camps until I was an adult.
How many United Statesians know about the Trail of Tears, or Jim Crow, or the internment of Japanese civilians during WWII, or the forced expulsion of US citizens of Mexican heritage during the Great depression, or…etc.
Americans may not be the stupidest people on earth, but if not, I like to think, we are back on the way to pre-eminence.
At this point, this is probably better suited to IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I know, right? That shit that went down in 365? Fuckin’ idiot next door act like he don’t even know!
There are numerous people throughout the world who are unaffected and unconcerned about “major events”. One group would be subsistence farmers in rural areas around the world whose only concern and general knowledge is how to best grow their crops and tend their livestock. They and their children may never had any type of formal schooling and therefore no idea of world events. What good is learning about ‘major events’ if it doesn’t help put food on the table.
How much do you know about Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism? The tenets of these these religions are are based on ‘major’ events and are hundreds or thousands of years old.
As the punchline of the Far Side cartoon I described above points out, knowledge and interest is based on your perspective.
Oh, BTW, off the top of my head I can’t tell you who the current Vice President of the United States is and there have been polls of Americans that show I’m far from alone!
NVM
I didn’t hear about the internment camps until the TV movie “Farewell to Manzanar” aired in 1976 and I was a teen. After we watched the movie, I asked my parents if they knew about it and they replied they did. If the movie hadn’t aired, it was never mentioned in any of the history books about WWI and I’m certain my parents would never have brought it up as a topic (I’m 3rd generation Japanese/Okinawan born in Hawaii).
It was only by chance I learned about the Honouliuli Internment Camp, in Honolulu, Hawaii several years ago. I was having my truck repaired and had to kill several hours at the movie theater. I was absolutely stunned that such an atrocity was carried out in Hawaii!
I met someone once who was unaware, or who had forgotten, that Germany was no longer split into East and West and that the Berlin Wall had come down. This was somewhere around 2010.