# To what extent do Americans consider British history part of theirs? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 31, 2022, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430 "2022-05-31T11:45:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/21 "2022-05-31T14:54:16Z")
Yes I was in high school in the 90s in Southern California and we had an entire month in general history class dedicated to the Spanish missions that populated the entire California coast ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/22 "2022-05-31T15:26:31Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > So is there, still in the 21st century, an underlying feeling in the American collective awareness that, because of the country being a former British colony that gained independence, pre-1776 British history is part of American history and to be studied as such? In my experience, absolutely not. A class or textbook on American history wouldn’t have anything about Britain except as it directly affected America (and certainly nothing as far back as the Magna Carta or the Battle of Hastings). I haven’t checked, but I think one thing that might have changed by now in the way American history is a shift from the idea that American history started with Christopher Columbus to paying more attention to the people who were living here before then. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/23 "2022-05-31T16:03:51Z")
I think a lot depends on the specific era and subject being studied. I mean, a lot of British history _is_ in some sense American history, if it impacts the Colonies, sets up the Revolutionary War, or otherwise has some notable impact on American history or culture. The Magna Carta is something that could well be studied as part of American history, in the sense that it was one of the things that eventually set the stage for the US to come about. But like say… Alfred the Great’s fights vs. the Danes and the emplacement of burhs around England to fortify his realm? That wouldn’t be something anyone really considers anything other than ancient _English_ history. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/24 "2022-05-31T16:31:29Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > We get PBS weepies about Anne Boleyn and Marie Antoinette getting their heads cut off, so that covers the Tudors, Bourbons and Hapsburgs for the average American. Yeah, there is definitely a sense in which history as entertainment for most Americans means British history far more than other types of history. Downton Abbey, “Golden Age” English murder mysteries, The Tudors, etc. etc. etc.: I think it’s fair to say that entertainment presentations of British history are consumed by Americans even more than similar presentations of American history, much less of the history of any other part of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/25 "2022-05-31T17:14:53Z")
Outside of education, there is certainly a cultural bias in the US that favors the British in any almost any popular history or historical fiction. The British are almost always depicted as the “good guys” unless it is a story about the two specific conflicts between the nations. Most of this is because English writers are more accessible to American readers than, say, French or Spanish writers. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/26 "2022-05-31T17:35:35Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Like most geezers, I have to assume history as taught nowadays includes more stuff from more recently and therefore even less stuff from the far past. Actually, my American History class in the mid 1990s included a tiny about the Native Americans before the arrival of the Europeans. And I think there was a little bit about the Spanish conquistadors like @puzzlegal mentioned. So there was actually a bit more from the far past, but it also did include more recent stuff. IIRC our textbook ended around the Regan administration. Maybe it included the first Gulf War, I can’t remember. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/27 "2022-05-31T17:56:27Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > American history from 1865 to Present (this functionally often covers only up through the 1980s or so) This is a rolling number. For boomers, history functionally ended about with World War II. (Worse, in my high school literature ended about with World War I.) Kids born today will have an additional 25% of American history to learn by the time they graduate in 2040. That guarantees the texts will spend less time on any part, leave out more, and produce poorer understanding of context. That’s another looming crisis for everyone to worry about. You’re welcome. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/28 "2022-05-31T18:07:17Z")
And some of that is just because of shared language too; like the Netflix series _The Last Kingdom_ is loosely (very loosely) based on the history of the “Danish” invasion of England and conquest of the extant Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, with the exception of Wessex (where much of the series is set–following the trials of a Saxon boy who is adopted by one of the Vikings and raised as a pagan, but who converts to the cause of the Saxons while maintaining his Norse religion.) This series was produced by Carnival Films for BBC Two and BBC America, and was filmed in England with basically an almost entirely English cast. I.e. this is a British production. However it was picked up by Netflix and has a sizable American audience, which probably isn’t necessarily due to a great interest in America about pre-Norman England, but more so that “hey, it’s a cool hack n’slash with Vikings and battles” and since it was an English production…Americans can easily watch/understand it. A German production about a similar era of German history, would struggle because Americans can’t speak or understand German. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/29 "2022-05-31T18:14:56Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > For boomers, history functionally ended about with World War II. (Worse, in my high school literature ended about with World War I.) Heck, I’m nearly in Gen X, and my school had old history texts. We didn’t have much after the civil war. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/30 "2022-05-31T18:16:41Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Another interesting example is found in architecture. If you look at the architecture in Canada of, say, the Parliament buildings, they very much follow British historical traditions. The US of course rejected that tradition, and, searching for an alternative, often settled on the architecture of ancient Greece as the inspiration, It’s even more interesting than that, as the Canadian Parliament was built quite some time after the US established its “We’re Not British” esthetic. We went with the British-inspired look so as to make it clear that We’re Not The US. So our style was a rejection of the US rejection, as it were. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/31 "2022-05-31T18:56:26Z")
If you asked a random American on the street\* what Paul Revere shouted during his famous midnight ride, he would probably say “The British are coming!” I was an adult before someone pointed out that made no sense, because the colonists themselves were British. Anyway, I think that says a lot about how Americans today regard their shared history with the Brits. \*Unless that random American is Sarah Palin, in which case Paul Revere was actually talking to the British, warning them that they weren’t going to take away our guns, or something. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/32 "2022-05-31T19:18:41Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > A German production about a similar era of German history, would struggle because Americans can’t speak or understand German. Counterpoint: AFAICT the series “Barbarians” and “Babylon Berlin”, dramas about historical Germany in very different time periods but both with original dialogue (mostly) in German, have both done quite well on Netflix. Subtitles and dubbing have made foreign productions a lot more accessible to American audiences. (And frankly, while I love the heck out of The Last Kingdom and am looking forward to the capstone feature film, I don’t find Alexander Dreymon’s English on Last Kingdom that much easier to understand than Laurence Rupp’s German on Barbarians lol) ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/33 "2022-05-31T19:24:02Z")
Dreymon has an…unusual accent, probably a reflection of being German but raised basically all over the world (including in the United States and Switzerland.) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/34 "2022-05-31T19:34:28Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > If you asked a random American on the street\* what Paul Revere shouted during his famous midnight ride, he would probably say “The British are coming!” I was an adult before someone pointed out that made no sense, because the colonists themselves were British. Most of the people in Massachusetts that would fight in the war thought of themselves more as Americans than British by that time. And no matter how they thought of themselves, the sense of the phrase is that the British **troops** are coming, with troops being elided as unnecessary. Did Revere shout that? No. Did he say that? Maybe. This [Boston 1775](https://boston1775.blogspot.com/) blog has what they say is the earliest use. > In April 1775, Dorothy Scott was still Dolly Quincy, Hancock’s young fiancée. She was staying with him and a large party (also including his aunt and Samuel Adams) in the parsonage at Lexington (shown above, courtesy of [Battleroad.org](http://Battleroad.org)). Revere and William Dawes arrived with a warning that troops were marching from Boston. (Those troops weren’t coming for Hancock and Adams, but that’s a separate myth.) After a great deal of trouble, the Hancock-Adams party finally left for Woburn. > > According to Sumner, Scott recalled that on the afternoon of 19 April: > > [They] were just sitting down to it [dinner], when in came a man from Lexington, whose house was upon the main road, and who cleared out, leaving his wife and family at home, as soon as he saw the British bayonets glistening as they descended the hills on their return from Concord. Half frightened to death, he exclaimed, “The British are coming! the British are coming! my wife’s in etarnity now.” Mr. H. and Mr. Adams supposing the British troops were at hand, went into the swamp and staid till the alarm was over. That’s an 1854 report about a conversation supposedly had in 1822 and Revere’s name is not mentioned. So take it with salt. Nobody knows where the phrase comes from and all the early uses are well into the 19th century when British would have been an utterly distinct term. In fact, an 1825 report claims that Revere said “The Regulars are coming,” which would make far more sense in that age. Random fact. Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” doesn’t use the phrase or anything similar. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/35 "2022-05-31T19:38:29Z")
I’d always heard “the regulars are coming”, which would make a lot more sense in context of the time, was the “real phrase.” But it looks like even that isn’t really certain and is probably conjecture made after the fact. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/36 "2022-05-31T19:48:51Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > If you asked a random American on the street\* what Paul Revere shouted during his famous midnight ride, he would probably say “The British are coming!” I was an adult before someone pointed out that made no sense, because the colonists themselves were British. While I’m in annoying nitpicker mode [heckler: “you mean like always???”], I’ll note that Washington in his own correspondence during the Revolutionary War [did sometimes refer to the enemy as “British” in contradistinction to the “colonial” or “American” troops:](https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/ford-the-writings-of-george-washington-vol-iv-1776) > [@](#): > > [25 April 1776:] > > […] For my own part, I wish they were all upon the same footing; for, if the British army will not face this way, it will be necessary to detach a great part of our troops. […] > > [30 June 1776:] > […] the evacuation of Boston by the British troops was a matter neither known or expected when he received his orders. […] > > [9 July 1776:] > […] It being evident, from a variety of concurring circumstances, that the British armies mean to direct their most vigorous operations this campaign against the State of New York, to penetrate into it by way of the lakes and the North River, and to unite their attacks […] ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/37 "2022-05-31T19:50:20Z")
I noticed a big shift towards covering the indigenous population. In the 70s, both 4th grade California history and 5th grade US history started with the Age of Exploration and Columbus. 4th grade covered the Spanish missions. The locals got about a week when we read _Island of the Blue Dolphins_. 6th grade Latin American Studies covered the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas, but that was about it for pre-Columbian history. In the 00s, when my kids were in school, 4th grade started with the Tongva and Chumash, the original inhabitants of the Los Angeles area. This was covered until Christmas vacation. Next came the missions and Mexican revolution. By the end of the school year, they had just gotten to the gold rush. 5th grade started with the Eastern Seaboard native tribes for a few months. Then they moved on to Roanoke and Jamestown. Revolutionary war was after Spring Break. 5th grade ended with the Constitutional Convention. As for British history - in the 70s and early 80s all I learned about the French & Indian War was George Washington was a hero. It wasn’t until college that I learned it was a side-skirmish in a European war between England and France. In my day, World History wasn’t even a thing. My kids got two years of it in middle school, which was European heavy, but fairly inclusive. The first year covered hominids (I’d hate to have to teach 6th graders about Homo Erectus) through the rise of the Roman Empire. Second year was Fall of Rome through the Enlightenment. But they did have substantial units on Africa, China, Japan, the rise of Islam, and India. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/38 "2022-05-31T19:51:58Z")
I was told that although that is still taught, the emphasis is now more on the Natives. > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I haven’t checked, but I think one thing that might have changed by now in the way American history is a shift from the idea that American history started with Christopher Columbus to paying more attention to the people who were living here before then. Yes, according to kids and parents I have talked to. Mind you, we have no written history in the USA prior to Colonization, but a lot can be gathered from archaeology and even oral tradition. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/39 "2022-05-31T19:56:42Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > In my experience, absolutely not. A class or textbook on American history wouldn’t have anything about Britain except as it directly affected America (and certainly nothing as far back as the Magna Carta or the Battle of Hastings). That was my experience, as well, from my grade school and high school history classes in the 1970s and early 1980s. We had a lot of focus on American history, and the Revolutionary War, in grade school, due to the Bicentennial in 1976; there was just a lot of interest in that period of history, in the U.S. in general, during the run-up to the Bicentennial. Though our classes certainly taught that the U.S. came about from colonists (most of them from England) declaring independence from England, U.S. history, in my experience, has always been seen a distinct thing from British history. As others have noted, when we studied “world history,” there was a lot of focus on English history, for the reasons already noted. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430/40 "2022-05-31T19:57:40Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I’d always heard “the regulars are coming”, which would make a lot more sense in context of the time, was the “real phrase.” I first heard that on the television series, “Sleepy Hollow”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-extent-do-americans-consider-british-history-part-of-theirs/965430.md?page=3)