# Question for UK Dopers: What famous Americans did you learn about in your history classes? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 23, 2013, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602 "2013-11-23T05:50:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2013, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/41 "2013-11-25T10:00:45Z")
> [@glee](#): > > It’s over 40 years since I left school. :eek: > > From vague memory, we covered: > > - the Romans invading us > - the Normans invading us (1066) > - Magna Carta (1215) > - the Tudors (especially Henry VIII and Elizabeth I) > - Nelson and Wellington fighting Bonaparte > - the Empire under Victoria > - World War 1 > - World War 2 > > I don’t remember being taught anything about the American Revolution, nor any US Presidents. > We were taught about Isaac Newton, not Edison. > I was alive when both JFK and Martin Luther King were assassinated, so it wouldn’t have been taught as History. > > I expect the courses are more rounded now, but remember we have 2000 years of English / British history to cover and you American chaps only came in near the end of that. 😉 New Zealand, studied history in the early 70s and my experience was much the same. Plus Greek and Roman history which is rich in philosophy and politics. I don’t recall any American history being taught and just picked it up from Time magazine and general reading. Being realistic, the United States in terms of population and significance is a small country. No disrespect: I spent a year in the States and have a great affection for the country. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2013, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/42 "2013-11-25T10:03:19Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Most importantly what history we do have before the Norman Conquest is the history of things like the Kingdom of Wessex, or East Anglia, or further north in modern day Scotland the different Kingdoms present at that time. Associating them with yourself in the modern days and looking down your nose at American history for “only dating back” 300 years (it’s actually unambiguously 400 years) is strange. It’s no more logical to claim a relationship between the modern day country called the United Kingdom and those early Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms than it would be for the Italians to say their country is a continuation of the Roman Empire. At most I would say you can go back to the unification of England in the 10th century as a starting off point where you can clearly associate the modern United Kingdom (in part) with that middle age Kingdom, but before that it isn’t your history anymore than the Turks can define the Byzantine Empire or the Persian Empire as part of “their” history. Nonsense. History isn’t just about where the borders are drawn or which specific date this specific battle took place. It’s the language we speak and the colour of my hair, it’s my surname and why London is our capital city. It’s the 3000 year old hill fort I literally stumbled across on a country walk yesterday, or it’s why there’s a road going through a forest just ‘there’ and why a town was built over ‘there’. It’s why a form of Christianity is our state religion, it’s the common laws which inform our system of government. It’s the visible evidence of ancient strip farming I can see from a train window, it’s the festivals we still celebrate even if we don’t know why. To say we have no relationship with the history of these isles stretching back millennia is just nonsense. And it’s far more important to us and our sense of being and the origins of our culture than learning about famous Americans. Which we didn’t, by the way, in my school back in the 80s. We did learn about the lives of non-famous medieval peasants though. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2013, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/43 "2013-11-25T10:08:56Z")
My Kiwi teenage children have little knowledge of US history, it isn’t studied. But they do have Social Studies so if I ask them about American History they immediately say Rosa Parkes. And they associate America with apartheid South Africa. But lets be honest, my kids overwhelming image of America is the Kardashians, Jersey Shore (where’s Tony Soprano when you need him!!), and the Disney channel. Oh how I have failed them. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2013, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/44 "2013-11-25T10:19:20Z")
> [@For You](#): > > This is rather striking to an American, all Americans should read this sentence so that we can put today’s “Tea Party” into perspective. Dang. I feel a fool. I am educated, widely read, and have a lifetime interest in politics and economics. I keep an overview of American politics albeit from NZ. I thought the Tea Party (do not start laughing) was a Republican group who stopped for a “cup of tea/coffee”. In other words, Republicans who said hold on a minute, lets go back to first principles and examine our core values. Lets stop and have a cup of tea (or coffee). ---
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2013, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/45 "2013-11-25T15:11:57Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > It is far too long since I was in school for me to be able to remember what I learned there and what I learned somewhere else. Ditto. I do remember in secondary school (high school) we were taught about JFK and the Cold War, specifically the Arms Race and the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I suspect that was during the odd Scottish subject known as “Modern Studies”[1] rather than in an actual History Class[2]. [1] Tip of the hat to **Baron Greenback** [2] We learnt about Bannockburn and Culloden during that. Damn you Sassenachs! ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2013, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/46 "2013-11-25T15:18:12Z")
I wonder if I could expand the question. In the US, we admittedly don’t learn a lot about British history. But most college-bound high school kids take a year of British literature. Do UK schools teach any American literature? ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2013, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/47 "2013-11-25T15:36:37Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I wonder if I could expand the question. In the US, we admittedly don’t learn a lot about British history. But most college-bound high school kids take a year of British literature. Do UK schools teach any American literature? I remember doing Huckleberry Finn when I was about 14-15, so from that the answer is ‘yes’, although British literature dominates. We don’t split English literature by country, so we wouldn’t do a dedicated ‘American Literature’ class. All writing in the English language is rolled into a general ‘English Literature’ class. Or it was in my day, anyway. These things tend to change at the whim of the standing government, and it wouldn’t surprise me if our current Education Minister ‘bring-back-the-birch’ Gove prefers to focus on British Lit. This is an extract from the National Curriculum for secondary education (ie high school)([PDF link](http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/p/english%202007%20programme%20of%20study%20for%20key%20stage%204.pdf)): > [@](#): > > The range of literature studied should include: > • stories, poetry and drama drawn from different historical times, including > contemporary writers > • texts that enable students to understand the nature, significance and > influence over time of texts from the English literary heritage. This should > include work selected from the following pre-twentieth-century writers: > Matthew Arnold, Jane Austen, William Blake, Charlotte Brontë, Emily > Brontë, Robert Browning, John Bunyan, Lord Byron, Geoffrey Chaucer, > William Congreve, John Clare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Wilkie Collins, > Joseph Conrad, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, John Donne, John > Dryden, George Eliot, Henry Fielding, Elizabeth Gaskell, Oliver Goldsmith, > Thomas Hardy, George Herbert, Robert Herrick, Gerard Manley Hopkins, > Henry James, John Keats, Christopher Marlowe, Andrew Marvell, John > Milton, Alexander Pope, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, RB Sheridan, > Edmund Spenser, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jonathan Swift, Alfred Lord > Tennyson, Anthony Trollope, Henry Vaughan, HG Wells, Oscar Wilde, > William Wordsworth and Sir Thomas Wyatt > • texts that enable students to make connections between experiences > across time and literary traditions > • texts that enable students to analyse the values and assumptions of > writing from different cultures and traditions, relating and connecting > them to their own experience > • at least one play by Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2013, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/48 "2013-11-25T16:01:31Z")
Thanks, SanVito. US schools typically offer one year of American lit (junior year) and one year of British lit (senior year). I don’t think any other English language literature is ever mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/49 "2013-11-26T00:51:54Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > I took History of Revolutions because it sounded cooler, and it turned out to be one of the best classes I’ve ever taken. We studied the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Chinese Revolution. We also looked at the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, and watched a movie about the October Crisis (I believe it was the NFB production, [Action](http://www.nfb.ca/film/action_the_october_crisis_of_1970), by Robin Spry). In the US, there is regretfully little taught about Canadian history in our schools. The early exploration and colonization by the English and the French was covered as was the French and Indian War but once we got past the American Revolution that was about it. Granted, there was mention of America’s overreaching into Canada during the War of 1812 and [the Oregon Boundary Dispute](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_boundary_dispute) (“Fifty-four Forty or Fight!”) but Britain was still the main adversary in both cases. After that, about the only things we learned about Canada was about their becoming a country in 1867 and a little bit about Quebec. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/50 "2013-11-26T01:59:48Z")
FWIW, Irish schools don’t distinguish between literature in English from different countries; it’s all just English literature. Irish writers are, as you’d expect, well represented. American writers do feature; I recall short stories (O. Henry and others) and poetry (Emily Dickinson and others). I don’t recall studying any American novels or plays, though. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/51 "2013-11-26T14:22:50Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I wonder if I could expand the question. In the US, we admittedly don’t learn a lot about British history. But most college-bound high school kids take a year of British literature. Do UK schools teach any American literature? As **SanVito** said, in Britain we don’t really split English literature by country. “English”, in this context means the language; it does not matter whether the author is from Britain, America, Ireland, Australia, or wherever. I studied Robert Frost’s poetry at high school, and had _The Catcher in the Rye_ to read. At college I studied Henry James and T.S. Eliot, and Irish writers like Joyce and Yates. (Well, actually I kind of skipped the Henry James stuff, but it was on the syllabus… And Eliot is a weird sort of case, being American born and educated, but then turning himself into an English high Tory later in life.) ---
**Author:** ![alexandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@alexandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alexandra)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/52 "2013-11-26T16:39:52Z")
I studied history longer than most British kids do. Civil Rights - I learnt about Rosa Parks as early as the age of eight. Later (aged 14-18) I learnt more about King, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, etc. Other stuff I remember hearing about: [ul] [li]The Vietnam War[/li][li]Some Native American history although I don’t remember any prominent figures[/li][li]Watergate[/li][/ul] I loved Civil Rights history and wrote a really bad, but extensively researched, essay on the Black Panthers when at university. I studied Early Medieval History at University, btw, and I’m confident that my professors were _not_ teaching us a bunch of myths. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/53 "2013-11-26T23:47:45Z")
[This](http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/its-thanksgiving-so-we-asked-some-brits-to-label-the-us-stat) seems vaguely appropriate here… ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/54 "2013-11-27T01:03:21Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > [This](http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/its-thanksgiving-so-we-asked-some-brits-to-label-the-us-stat) seems vaguely appropriate here… I wonder how much better American students would do trying to label all the counties that make up Great Britain? Getting back to my previous post on how much Canadian history was taught in American grade schools, I was wondering what American presidents Canadian Dopers were taught about? I would think they would teach you about the major ones (e.g., Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, etc.) but maybe they discuss the lesser-known ones too. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/55 "2013-11-27T10:01:42Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > [This](http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/its-thanksgiving-so-we-asked-some-brits-to-label-the-us-stat) seems vaguely appropriate here… LOL very amusing. If it’s any comfort my daughter (kiwi) at 14 could name all 50 states plus JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, Robert Kennedy, and Sirhan Sirhan. And I could place them. Guess my teaching history was a little warped. 😃 However she also was very aware of Elizabeth I because of Blackadder. And my youngest daughter who is a terrible overachiever (I used to hate kids like her when I was a kid) at the tender age of 11 chose Socrates as a famous person to study. Because of Monty Python. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/56 "2013-11-27T10:11:34Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > As **SanVito** said, in Britain we don’t really split English literature by country. “English”, in this context means the language; it does not matter whether the author is from Britain, America, Ireland, Australia, or wherever. I studied Robert Frost’s poetry at high school, and had _The Catcher in the Rye_ to read. At college I studied Henry James and T.S. Eliot, and Irish writers like Joyce and Yates. Me too. I never really thought about the nationality of the author. I must say its difficult to understand why the study of literature would be split between American and British. Both share the same language and the same culture, there isn’t much difference - Robert Frost and Dylan Thomas touch us all. Shakespeare survives into a myriad of languages and cultures. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/57 "2013-11-27T10:25:46Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > I wonder how much better American students would do trying to label all the counties that make up Great Britain? I (British) would feel inclined to be lenient toward American students, because we seem to be forever chopping-and-changing with the bloody counties and their names and boundaries. Your states appear to stay, blessedly, the same. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/58 "2013-11-27T11:38:03Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > I wonder how much better American students would do trying to label all the counties that make up Great Britain? > > Getting back to my previous post on how much Canadian history was taught in American grade schools, I was wondering what American presidents Canadian Dopers were taught about? I would think they would teach you about the major ones (e.g., Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, etc.) but maybe they discuss the lesser-known ones too. Well, FDR, as he and King (Prime Minister King, not George VI) talked during WWII. Besides, FDR spent a lot of time in Canada, at Campobello, NB, Canada. That kind of makes him unique among American presidents, so he is mentioned in our schools. Others? Kennedy, for sure, for civil rights. Johnson, to a lesser extent, for civil rights, and for escalating the war in Vietnam. Eisenhower, for being a general in WWII. Truman, for authorizing the atom bomb upon Japan. Before that, things get sketchy. Wilson had his 14 Points, and laid the groundwork for the UN. McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo. Grant was a general in the Civil War, and drank a lot. Lincoln, I know far too much about. I’ve studied Mr. Lincoln, mostly in the context of his law practice. But I’ve taken such studies at least once into a paper on Lincoln’s presidency. However, that’s just me–I doubt that many Canadians know Lincoln beyond “freeing the slaves” and the Gettysburg Address, and the five-dollar bill. Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, and served as an early president of the US (2nd president?). Washington was the first president; he was originally from Virginia. Teddy Roosevelt was responsible for the Teddy Bear. Also, he had a lot to do with the Panama Canal, and for charging up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-Amercan War. How’d I do? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/59 "2013-11-27T14:00:41Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, and served as an early president of the US (2nd president?). Washington was the first president; he was originally from Virginia. > How’d I do? 🙂 Not bad, although John Adams came between Washington and Jefferson. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602/60 "2013-11-27T15:25:44Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > North America has absolutely no history whatsoever (as opposed to archeology) before European colonists started to arrive in the 16th century. The [Aztecs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_writing) had written histories, although many of these were destroyed by the Spanish. I learned zilch about this in US History classes, which is not surprising as the Aztecs lived in what is now Mexico, but that is still North America. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-uk-dopers-what-famous-americans-did-you-learn-about-in-your-history-classes/674602.md?page=4)