. . . 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?

I also know people who can reel of dates but have no social knowledge of impact or human cost. They are only interested in dates. To me that isn't history, that is reciting, as one would their times tables (which i also don't know!).

My dd didn't study history and has no interest in the subject, but she knows when ww1 and ww2 began and ended.

Yes, I agree spuddy.

In fact that would be a good exam question, wouldn't it? Were WWI and WWII two wars or one?

I'm always shocked at how many people still think the plague of London was bubonic plague and was caused by fleas on rats, despite that only ever being a theory. A theory which was disproved around 30 years ago.

Serialkipper - I might pay more attention to you if you werent so condescending!

Reading about the wars is something i do because i enjoy it and interested in my adopted country not becuase my life depends on it, so get off your high horse.

Nothing is in a vacuum. I wonder why (some) women and all men over 21 were given the right to vote in elections in 1918?

The plague of London was 1666 though wasn't it? Was this the same strain of plague that occurred in 1348 or do they know?

I didn't know it had been definitively disproved, klad.

Btw, when I did a my teacher training course for teaching at university, I got into a row with a woman who told me everyone who goes to university will know what the black death was. I pointed out there were several people in the room not educated in countries where it had happened, including several students whose English was quite basic (doing degrees where it didn't matter). She was still positive that this was history 'everyone' knew. She was wrong - the first question we got was, from one of the non-English-speaking students, 'why didn't they write to the newspapers?' And this was an intelligent person who was doing a good postgrad degree and knew her stuff.

I think it's an ignorance of a different kind not to be able to think about why people might not know the same things we do.

(Btw, I now realize that looks as if I'm saying I don't believe it had been disproved - I do! Just passed me by.)

I read a really good 1348 plague set book called Company of Liars. That's where I get most of my historical information, reading fiction and then wikipedia-ing things that catch my interest.

Has not really changed anything by quoting other dates.

And more recent catastophic events are likely to be more widely known.

But not by some, obviously

Also i think history, like art, is one of those subjects where the more you learn the less you know. It becomes more blurred and subjective. So thos who have studied up to GSCE will be much more definitive about facts. Whereas the more you learn the less dates seem to matter and concepts and contradictions arise.

What hasn't changed, pendeen? Sorry, being slow.

squoosh - yeah, me too! In fact, I was proper gutted recently. Do you know Anya Seton's book 'Katharine'? It's a medieval rom-com, very good. She wrote it yonks ago. Years later, someone published a proper academic biography on Katharine Swynford, and I thought, great, that'd be interesting. And it was the same facts as the novel! And the biography kept going on about how 'new' this info was ... obviously wasn't that new!

Shocked, I tells you, shocked.

spuddy - true, but only up to a point. I say speaking as one who has to restrain herself from writing THIS IS JUST WRONG, YOU MAY NOT KNOW IT BUT I DO! on essays.

I didn't know it had been definitively disproved, klad.

I may have over egged the custard a bit. It was my aspie special interest for a while some years back and I read an article in an academic journal which went through all the research which had been done that showed it could not have been bubonic plague. More likely was an ebola type hemorrhagic fever.

What was the plague caused by then, do we know?

Rats.

Fleas on rats.

Sorry NArked was that voate fact aimed at at me? Are you saying that fact was in fact in a vaccuum, and only relevant to that date? Or that altho the date was in one year, the campaigns and issues had evolved over many years. In a kind of standing on the shoulders of giants kind of way.

I just believe very few things happen on the date it 'happens' and therefore everything preceding is a factor, so much so that we cannot have definitives just circas, iyswim.

LRD I am very disappointed that that book is not available on Kindle. I'd like a medieval rom-com.

Didn't there used to be another A in medieval?

*Rats.

Fleas on rats.*

Nope, hemorrhagic fever spread like flu.

i didn't know this about the plague, what was it then?

I have that book at home LRD, it's been in my pile of books to read for aeons. Will have to promote it to top of the pile as I'm always hearing people rave about it.

Will have to wait a little while though as I'm currently stuck in an Italian monastery in the 14th century. They're getting up to all sorts!

x post so a viral thing rather than bacterial?

That's fascinating klad.

I would be reassured, too. They say bubonic plague lasts hundreds of years and you have to be very careful if you dig up plague pits, don't they? If the medieval one wasn't bubonic plague I would be pleased.

Or, how long does ebola last?

Fleas on rats is what I was taught at school, and that was all under 30 years ago.