What historical events should a UK adult know about?

[julieca]

So what do you think an adult brought up and living in the UK should know about history? I don't mean in-depth knowledge, but just very basic knowledge.
I think adults should all know about -

• Both world wars and a bit of understanding about how many countries were involved
• Transatlantic slave trade
• Reformation
• Existence of cold war
• Holocaust, Hitler and Nazi party
• Partition in India
• English Civil War
• Roman Empire and that it included England and parts of Wales
• Act of Union
• Troubles in Northern Ireland
• Suffragettes
• Feudalism
• Black Death

[inferiorCatSlave]

I am just saying that there are literally millions of books on what a wonderful chap Churchill was. Surely there is room for a few books showing his part in the Bengal Famine.

I knew about Great Bengal famine of 1770 but not the Bengal famine of 1943 though did know about WW1 and Gallipoli.

[CaptainCallisto]

@MareofBeasttown I absolutely agree with your second point. That's what I meant by needing a balanced approach. We need to learn about the bad with the good. We absolutely should learn about Churchill's policies in India, just like we should learn about the fact that the Industrial Revolution was mostly financed by the Transatlantic slave trade, or the displacement of native peoples in the US and Australia alongside learning about Columbus or Cook.

We just need to be wary of that crossing into the English bashing experienced by PPs (and myself) in which we have absolutely been made to feel guilty, or expected to bear the blame, for things done hundreds of years before we were born. Discuss the things that were done, talk about why they were wrong and the impact they still have, but don't use it as a platform to say "and this is why all English people are x,y, or z"

[queenofarles]

-Opium wars, it was all for tea
-First fleet

• Troubles
  
• Atlantic slave trade.
  
• trading companies and how they paved the way for imperialism ,

[longwayoff]

sirens, the ignorance of history you're proud of leads to people like Donald Trump bullying their way into positions of power because the results of this cannot be foreseen by an under-educated electorate. It's not healthy for anyone.

[Yourstupidityexhaustsme]

The Irish Famine and Indentured Servitude.
The Civil War and the absolute hypocrisy of the execution of Charles 1.
Religious influence of female rights.
Everyone should read the bible/parts of it and have an understanding of it. Same with other religious texts, leads to a greater understanding of the influence religion has on society and the subsequent hypocrisy of it.
British classism.
British Civil Right.
British Colonialism and its impacts.
The History of the Crown Jewels and where they -were stolen from- came from

[roundtable]

Agree with the posters about feeling guilty
No one needs to feel guilty about atrocities that happened in the past. They weren't part of it.

However, we do need to be understanding of how these things happen and the ongoing consequences that have occurred from them. Countries have been invading other countries since the dawn of time. Nothing can undo that but we should all be aware of how that changes the futures of the people that live there.

I need to do more reading on Ireland's history. I thought I knew a fair amount but it's clear I only know the surface. I think I am probably the same about most of commonwealth countries I'd imagine.

[Ratched]

I love history, all history, but the older I get, the more I have come to realise that what I think of as historical fact is more more history from the perspective of the British/American/Russian/any country or people you can think of!

I would love to see some 'British' history from the perspective of a foreign country.

We all tend to be very insular and I am in no doubt that our view and 'knowledge' of WW2, for example, differs quite significantly from other nations historical texts.

[MamsellMarie]

British colonial power can be seen in so many modern conflicts: Pakistan, India , Bangladesh, Jordan, Palestine,
As I understand it and happy to be corrected - the Jews from the concentration camps had nowhere to go. Europe had always had issues with antisemitism, plus there were 250,000 possibly more, where should they go, back to Russia? Poland? where they'd been pogroms? Some went to the US and settled there, some in the UK or other parts of Europe.
They wanted to go to Israel, form their own homeland which Britain assisted in.
It's easy to say Britian is teh cause of the Palestinian problem but no one esle stepped forward with a solution.
Where do you suggest the Jews surviving the camps should have gone?

[dreamingbohemian]

[quote TheWatersofMarch]@SirensofTitan we live in a democracy, that's the reason why people should know this stuff. People have actual power to dictate the policies of government and a knowledge of history, statistics and basic science and skills in critically evaluating information is a fundamental part of being a citizen. That's why we bother to provide an academic education to young people until they are 16. [/quote]
This exactly!

I'm thinking of all the Brexit threads with people saying, Britain was a world power before when we were all on our own, i.e. clearly not understanding that it was the empire that made Britain a great power, and that empire no longer exists.

Those people voted for Brexit, based on an ignorance of history. It has real world impact today.

[PickUpAPepper]

Learning about the past offers the same benefits as travel, and then some. It gives us access to real life examples of how societies work and how they fail. It gives us access to alternative ways of living, past toolkits to deal with problems, and allows us to study cause and effects that may no longer be easily visible in modern city-based societies with extended supply chains and huge demographics.

At the end of the day I think those who have no interest in learning about history and how societies work have a simple alternative - shut up, sit down and bloody listen when those of us who do tell you the shit is hitting the fan - in terms of climate change, poor economic decisions, overpopulation and foreign relations with Brexit.

[PickUpAPepper]

We'll be seeing many re-runs of that issue of a people unwilling to let go of their cultural history and integrate with a host population but having no land resources of their own, with climate change. You could say we're seeing it already with islamic customs, and law in Britain. We've been at peace for so long I think we've become a bit simplistic at dealing with real conflict. Or perhaps we always were.

[julieca]

Yes, when concentration camps were liberated people were offered help to return home. Remember many people had been transported hundreds of miles. Unsurprisingly people from countries like Germany said no way. So they were then offered help to get to Israel.
Other countries did not want to take in a load of refugees. So many people went to Israel, as where else could they go.

[julieca]

I think the Israel Palestine issue is far more complex than is usually acknowledged,

[DampSquidGames]

I just watched a film called Partition about the Partition of India, I’m going to read up on it now.

[julieca]

Joanne Lumley narrated a series about the Indian Partition.

[DampSquidGames]

julieca thank you, I’ll check it out.

[ClafoutisSurprise]

American War of Independence and relations with the US since - I don’t think you can understand modern Britain without this context.

Completely agree with all comments saying we need to teach the British Empire and colonialism more. It’s not about blame. I find it amazing I learnt nothing about the 18th century at school and that we focused in on styles of architecture when studying the Victorians! I spent inordinate amounts of time learning about the Holocaust at school - nothing about atrocities carried out under British colonial rule. This is not right.

On a related subject, why aren’t the cultures of Africa ever studied in history? I came away from school with an understanding of sub-Saharan Africa that was all safaris and slavery. Not a lot about the different ways people had lived historically or today.

[julieca]

Egyptians are routinely covered. Not other bits of Africa though.

[Coyoacan]

If there is one thing the Industrial Revolution teaches us it is that the English working class suffered every bit as much as the Irish and the slaves in the colonies

[ClafoutisSurprise]

Oh yes, of course, the Egyptians. Nobody else though! It’s like Africa doesn’t exist other than as the departure point in the slavery story (itself very briefly covered). When learning about religion, oral history, art, music and the many varied cultures of Africa has much to offer children.

[PickUpAPepper]

It’s a huge continent with huge content though! How on earth would you select, so as not to overwhelm?? Egypt comes in as part of our historical threads, connecting narratives of civilization and its spread. (Thinking of, and agreeing with, an earlier pp about how much there is to learn!)

[ClafoutisSurprise]

That is an interesting question, PickUpAPepper! Ethiopia springs to mind immediately - an ancient home of Christianity, a long tradition of learning, emperor haile selassie. Or what about West Africa - diversity of religions and cultural practices and, yes, the significance of this part of the world in the international slave trade. How there are people in Brazil and other countries across the Atlantic who still keep traditions from west Africa alive.

I remember we did the Aztecs for a full term at junior school and that was fairly standalone (and was fascinating), so I would think it possible to select a discrete topic from the African continent to teach.

[SarahAndQuack]

@julieca

So what do you think an adult brought up and living in the UK should know about history? I don't mean in-depth knowledge, but just very basic knowledge.
I think adults should all know about -

• Both world wars and a bit of understanding about how many countries were involved
• Transatlantic slave trade
• Reformation
• Existence of cold war
• Holocaust, Hitler and Nazi party
• Partition in India
• English Civil War
• Roman Empire and that it included England and parts of Wales
• Act of Union
• Troubles in Northern Ireland
• Suffragettes
• Feudalism
• Black Death

Feudalism is an odd one - there's a case to be made it never really happened in England, and it certainly didn't happen anywhere in the way Victorian historians imagined, which is what most people think of when they think about feudalism. So I think it'd be more about exploding myths.

I think adults should know more gender history. So:

• when did women get the right to own property?
• when could women have the right to their own earnings?
• when could women get secure access to their children after a marriage breakdown?
• when was rape in marriage criminalised?

Etc.

[SickAndTiredAgain]

@ClafoutisSurprise

Oh yes, of course, the Egyptians. Nobody else though! It’s like Africa doesn’t exist other than as the departure point in the slavery story (itself very briefly covered). When learning about religion, oral history, art, music and the many varied cultures of Africa has much to offer children.

That’s true. But it’s also true about the Middle East, Asia, South America, North America, Australia, New Zealand, the islands of the South Pacific. Basically, the entire world. I think learning about other cultures is important, and incredibly interesting. I just don’t know how you’d pick!

I’d include the ancient Middle Eastern civilisations, Sumeria for example.

[PickUpAPepper]

think adults should know more gender history. So:

- when did women get the right to own property?

And when it got taken away - Henry VIII time in England (it was England then). Whose laws are being widely quoted and brought back into use of late? And why? Women are right to be worried.