. . . to be really shocked that some people don't know in which years both World Wars began and ended?

[squoosh]

Was saying to a friend at the weekend that I was really shocked when someone I knew admitted that they didn't know in which year WWII began.

The person I said this too then said 'hmmm, was it 1935 that WWII began? I think WWI was 1910'. And this from a really intelligent person too. I thought those were the sorts of dates that everyone just knew. Even if you've never studied history in any capacity surely those dates just seep into your mind via films and tv programmes etc.

AIBU?

Because it is such a huge part of 20th century British culture?

Yes, the American dates irritate me greatly.

That's interesting, about the origin of kharzi.
I was told it came from the Swahili for bog. Which is also a slang term for toilet.

Poor primary school

I don't think so, pendeen - has it always been on the national curriculum? Both wars?

I doubt all of us who didn't do it at primary school were especially scarred for life by awful teaching, TBH.

Pendeen no one is excusing not knowing the war dates on not being british what we are saying is we were never taught about it at school because we schooled in a different country.

I dont know what you mean by "having a reasonable education" in this country, I did a degree and masters here, should i have covered the wars in my classes ?

I agree that if you have lived nd worked in this country then you at least try to find out more about the war and read up about it.

penis - in that case, is it ok for the UK to 'end' WWI in 1918? Shouldn't it be 1919?

I enjoy history but I'd struggle to give the exact dates, I'm awful at remembering dates and sequences of numbers. I know how long they lasted, the politics behind, tactics, legacy, all sorts. There's a chance I know more about the wars than you?

Some of the girls I went to school with could list dates of kings and queens, I couldn't, still I managed to get an A at history O Level. I dont think I'm too ignorant. I have to think when someone asks what year my children were born. There was the time I put down the wrong birth dates on a hospital form. That was

My US dates were actually meant to be humorous!

My history education also never covered the monarchy, so nothing to do with the Tudors etc but we studied the reformation and slavery in depth. All the subjects were done in a non linear way so one term would be womens rights followed by the Romans.

They merged History/Geog/RE and called it humanities. So the 3 hour lessons would cover 1 subject from each of these point of views - ie a term on Slavery would cover the historical concepts, the geography of Africa and the journey to America/Jamaica, and the religion of the slaves before and after.

Britain since the 1930s was one of the history topics introduced into primary schools by the National Curriculum. You could choose either that or the Victorians or do both.
WW1 tends to be covered in KS3 and WW2 again at GCSE for most examination boards.
I did Medieval History at O level. (helpful)
I know a lot of dates prior to 1603.

There have only been two world wars. So far. I don't think it's expecting too much for people to know the dates. How anyone could be interested in social history and not know the dates of the wars is given the impact they had on the lives of ordinary people.

I really don't get why people are so fixated on judging whether someone is ignorant or not based on their knowledge of a couple of dates.

I know plenty about the wars. Probably more than most given that they have been my aspie daughter's special interest since forever. We've been to Poland, we've been to Germany, we've been to Flanders, we've been to Anne Frank's hiding place, and we've spent half our lives in the Imperial War Museum.

Knowing or not knowing a specific date tells you nothing about the knowledge that person has.

YABU - some of us just have dreadful memories. OK I'm going to have a guess without reading whole thread. And I don't know - this is a guess, though I loved history at school and I am educated to post Grad level ....

WWI 1914 - 1919?
WWII 1939 - 1945?

I should really know the WWII with confidence but I simply can't remember.

Then again I'm not exactly sure what year 9/11 was either. Thank goodness we have the www & smart phones!

Ah, I see pendeen. Sorry, was just wondering.

I think the way history is taught has changed quite a lot over the last few decades. My parents neither of them studied history even as far as O Level (I think), but they both know loads of dates of all sorts of very 'Kings and Queens', England-centric history (and I do mean England). But they don't have much sense of what was actually happening to people - social history - because it used to be looked down on. You can't teach everything.

I would find it much easier to accept someone not knowing the dates of the wars if they had a sense of why they mattered ... I would be a bit 'hmm' if someone just dismissed them completely as not worth thinking about.

But surely it's not just about school?

Every year in Britain there is Remembrance Sunday. Poppies are bought and worn.

There are many references to anniversaries of D-day, the Blitz etc on the news. There are documentaries and films.

There are war memorials in most towns with dates on them.

Surely this would fall under general knowledge rather than specialist!

fallen - that's interesting - so WWI was basically a secondary school topic, is that right? (Bit lost on Key Stages here).

I wish I'd done medieval for GCSE. We did WWII and I'm sure it was very important, but bloody depressing.

Gunznroses

My point exactly - a reasonable primary education in the UK should have included some knowledge of two of the most important events in the history of the UK

My point exactly - a reasonable primary education in the UK should have included some knowledge of two of the most important events in the history of the UK

Mine did. 1066 and 1966.

Stealth -

The semantic explanation, in brief, is this:

if you stand in front of a mirror and raise your right hand, your reflection raises its left hand. This is the reversal I was talking about.

However, if you imagine a line that bisects you from head to foot, dividing your right side from your left side, you would call everything to the left of that line 'the left', and everything to the right of that line, 'the right'.

If you then imagined that line not just bisecting you but bisecting everything around you, it would also bisect the person in the mirror - you have divided everything you see in half. Therefore everything in front of you would be either left or right - including the hands belonging to the person in the mirror.

So objects are not, in fact, reversed at all. If you raise your right hand, it goes up on the right-hand-side of that invisible line. And the person in the mirror also raises the hand on the right-hand-side of the line.

The reason it appears a reversal is simply that we are used to thinking of the question of 'right side' and 'left side' as being viewed from the inside, so that you imagine the person in the mirror is carrying around with them the same conception of right versus left as you - and that therefore their left hand was raised - when actually, it was the hand on the right.

I can't remember where I read that, but it would've been explained a lot better. It's not just about semantics but about a really internal way we model the world by sort of viewing everything as being centred on ourselves. It was very interesting. If I can find it I'll post it because I suspect all the above has just confused things still further

Oh, ouch, are they two of the most important events? Or do we just think so because they are recent?

What about 1066? The Magna Carta? The Reformation? The Enlightenment? The Industrial Revolution? Empire gains and losses? Woman's Suffrage?

We don't - most of us - know about any of these in anything like so much detail as most of us know about the world wars, I would guess.

I consider it general knowledge along with

Which 'unsinkable' ship hit an iceberg in 1912 and sank?
Is New York on the east or west coast of America?
Who wrote Oliver Twist?

kladd made the same point much more pithily.

What about the Balkan Wars - a huge conflict, in Europe in our lifetime or at least recent memory. I don't know the dates beyond it being early 90's ......

And I did learn about WW's in school (though not in UK) - I simply don't remember dates very well.

There was significant participation by African nations in both world wars by soldiers of all colours, almost entirely volunteers iiuc.

There was significant participation by African nations in both world wars by soldiers of all ethnicities, almost entirely volunteers iiuc.

For regiments like the Transvaal Scottish, swelled by volunteers on the outbreak of war, it was seen as a straightforward a duty to their country of origin.

But there were also many, many black African volunteers. Botswana, for example, raised 10,000 men for WWII - which given the population size at the time was huge for them.

There were also permanent professional regiments of the British Army, like the King's African Rifles from across East Africa, which started WWI with 70 British officers, three British NCOs, and 2,325 Africans.

North Africa was of course the scene of many bitter, now famous, battles (Alamein, Tobruk, etc). But there was also a WWI campaign in East Africa. Lots and lots to read about, GunznRoses! And I should be doing the same!