. . . 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'm not saying it's true, just that it's what was (and quite possibly still is) taught.

trills - yep, but it's just pretentious. IMHO.

squoosh - oh, go for it, it's a classic. What's your monastery? Sounds fab. (Though I did take you literally for a moment, because I am thick, and got very excited).

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

It now thought to have been a hemorrhagic fever which eventually burnt itself out as the numbers susceptable to it grew fewer and fewer with each outbreak. The London outbreak was a relatively small outbreak.

Oh ... and if you want medieval rom-coms there must be loads. Sarah Durrant writes various medieval/renaissance stuff that's half decent. None of it is a patch on Katharine, though.

Also, while I am going utterly off-topic, has anyone read S J Parris's books about Bruno Giordano? They are the business.

Aaahh yes LRD there is a difference between being hazy because so much was happening, ie did the 1st ww start at the shooting of the arch duke, or at a point before or after etc, And completely not knowing it!

Aren't a lot of the conflicts still happening today a result of the 1stww? so did it end or are flare ups to be considered a continuation?

The best display of historical ignorance I have come across was from quite a well-known politician appearing on Celebrity Who wants to be a Millionaire.

When asked who came to the throne on the death of Henry 8th he replied "Henry 7th".

Gunznroses, that wasn't intended to be even a tiny bit condescending. Sorry, I obviously wrote it very craply and with repeating paragraphs.

And I'm enthused now to go off and read more - it's on my permanent list of Things To Do but rarely gets to the top!

Oh, bless! I love that somebloke.

spuddy ... yeah, I know what you mean. My history teacher was livid with me when I suggested the war in Iraq might be in the result of British involvement earlier on ... I still don't know why, probably she was more upset about it than I understood at the time (it was about 2001).

It's actually much more sombering, IMO, when it's thought of as chains of conflicts that never really burn out, than as discrete events that have a nice reassuring start-and-stop date.

Trills it can take decades for school text books and the national curriculum to catch up with academic papers. My AS daughter got really upset because she was taught about fleas and rats but she knew it was wrong and her teacher knew it too.

It's the Name of the Rose LRD, finally made its way up the pile. Lots of wikipedia-ing needed with that one. I do love a bit of skullduggery in a monastery and can only wish I had the mad skillz that would allow me to time slip back there!

I have heard of that SJ Parris person and had dismissed her as I thought she was a kind of pale imitation of CJ Sansom who I bloody love. I've read Sarah Durrant I think. She wrote a novel about a convent in 15th century Italy, young aristo girl forced to enter against her will etc.

Yes LRD people much rather having beginnings and ends, then they can be compartmentalised as isolated incidents rather than a depressing never ending reality off humanity!

Just like the recent conflicts in sarajevo.

Also - if we in Britain were to accept that then it would mean we were responsible in many factors.

Oh, I love Name of the Rose. I like the film with Sean Connery too, though it's much less packed with stuff.

I've not read CJ Sansom ... I will try it! Parris probably isn't the world's best writer, but I really love her books because she's got a great sense of place.

spuddy - this is true.

If it can take decades for what is taught to catch up then why are you always shocked that people believe what they were taught? Most people don't spend much time thinking about the plague once they have finished studying it in school.

Sansom is great. The same as you say about Parris, you feel as if you are there in stinking Tudor London with Matthew Shardlake.

I shall look, thanks squoosh. A bit of London stinking, just what I need!

I am pants at dates, birthdays, anniversaries, historical dates. I can generally get a date right within a year or two either way, but it's by a process of thinking of a (hopefully) fixed point and working backwards or forwards from there.
My overall sense of history is pretty good and I always get it all in the right order - but I wouldn't be confident of quoting dates correctly.
It doesn't make me stupid or uninterested - just that I have a very visual memory (so fashion, photos, film footage, paintings etc) and numbers are slippery buggers.

If it can take decades for what is taught to catch up then why are you always shocked that people believe what they were taught? Most people don't spend much time thinking about the plague once they have finished studying it in school.

I didn't mean that seriously. I was highlighting the pointlessness of hoiking judgy pants because someone doesn't know one particular historical fact which someone else deems they should know.

I thought the dates of the World Wars had transcended Historical Facts and were now in a category called Facts Most People in the UK Know.

Is it possible they did once, and now they're slipping back into less well-known stuff?

Someone mentioned remembrance day - well, I don't live there any more, but in the village where I grew up, it has been really sad to see the old men who used to do the speeches getting to the point where they couldn't cope, and dying one by one. The last year one of them wasn't able to remember the words and it was awful. So now someone younger does it, and it isn't the same. They're going through the motions, whereas the older men had lost real friends, and you could hear the emotion. Obviously, that village is lucky, because we've not lost anyone in subsequent wars (not that I know of).

But this sort of thing will eventually be happening all over the country - the focus on the world wars will be less.

YABU
Different people absorb different things. I have a vast body of random trivia floating around in my head - I am very popular for quiz teams! I have also done a lot of family history and know a lot about what went on in the two world wars, but I had to check the exact dates of the two WWs recently when writing something up. It's just not a bit of information I have retained for some reason. But I know the dates of the Napoleonic wars off pat because I did a lot of research on a particular relative who was a napoleonic prisoner of war, and the civil war because some other ancestors were heavily involved in the final days of that war.

OK Kladakka, that makes a bit of sense.

I wouldn't call it equivalent though, since the agreed dates of WWII haven't changed since anyone was at school.

If I said WWII was 1939 to 1945, and the plague was caused by fleas on rats, I'd be remembering equally well, but I'd only be right about one of the two.

YABU, some history teaching in schools these days is shocking. At senior school we only did history for 3 years and then dropped it after year 9 ( ad the 3 years worth was dreadful, I remember nothing at all). I am a well educated woman with a first and an MA and I am embarassed to admit that my general history knowledge is dreadful. The only bit of history is WW2 and even that's sketchy.

I went to see round paisley police station with my brownie pack a few years back.. they have a plaque to commemorate those who died in wwII.. which was from 1939-1946

the officers showing us around were distinctly tongue in cheek when they told us aye it took a whole year for word to reach us here in paisley that it was all over ..

Blimey, I'm loving the plague digression here. Some of the historical epidemiology behind the haemorrhagic fever theory is divine but it's not really in the same league as not knowing the dates of the world wars - and yes, op, I'd have been shocked by that too! Total ignorance is not the same as disagreeing with the year on account of not being British etc.

I managed to shock myself recently by remembering the dates of the Boer wars in a conversation with someone who didn't know despite the fact he was meant to be informing me about that period (in the context of Scouting)