Embarrassing things you didn't know (or forgot) about history

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"Rome" on HBO actually taught me some history!
I'm not so good with the ancients.
Tell me about yours.

― aimurchie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 02:08 (nineteen years ago)

Oh man, the holes in my history knowledge are huge - I don't even know where to start.

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 02:10 (nineteen years ago)

I'm generally terrible at naming decisive/important battles in any war.

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 02:20 (nineteen years ago)

Pretty much anything to do with Roman history and most things to do with Greek history. Also, current Russian politics. I only know the languages, but people keep asking me all these questions about the actual countries, and it's embarrassing!

― Maria, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 03:42 (nineteen years ago)

I can't ever remember if it was the Trojans that were accepting the horse or hiding in the horse.

And for the longest time, I also thought that "Vehicle" by Ides of March was a Blood Sweat & Tears song.

― Pleasant Plains, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 04:33 (nineteen years ago)

(The movie was called "Troy" because the fighting was happening outside that city. The Trojan horse was to get inside a city. Therefore it was the Greeks hiding in the horse to get inside Troy in order to destroy it.)

I feel like, by now, I ought to have the names of Charlemagne's relatives down. But I utterly don't, even though there are only like six or so important ones.

― Casuistry, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 04:40 (nineteen years ago)

I thought the Trojan's were inside the horse!
Tell us more about Charelemagne - or at least me! How does he fit into the whole thing?
I am an idiot - I studied history in separate parcels of time.

― aimurchie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 04:51 (nineteen years ago)

I got the year of the Battle of Hastings wrong. :(

― kenan, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 05:25 (nineteen years ago)

The way to remember that the Trojans accepted the horse and the Greeks were inside is that wily Odysseus (definitely Greek!) thought up the horse. Also, the best part of the story is how this priest (Laocoon or something) warns the Trojans that it is probably a deadly Greek trick, and the gods (Athena maybe?) send these huge serpents from the sea that tear hm AND his two children to pieces.

That's the kind of thing I remember. The stuff that didn't actually happen.

― Maria, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 05:28 (nineteen years ago)

If I hadn't chosen to try to find out a little bit more, the gaps in my knowledge would be *HUGE*. I did history for five years at secondary school, but if you wanted to you could drop it after three years.
First Year: random stuff (Great Fire of London, Romans, imagine living off rations in an Anderson shelter during the Blitz...)
Second Year: Battle of Hastings, Domesday, Motte & Bailey Castles, strip system, imagine living as a peasant....
Third Year: First World War, imagine being in the trenches, League of Nations, Wall Street Crash & Great Depression, Rise of Fascism in Germany
Fourth & Fifth Years: The Industrial Revolution in Britain (Jethro Tull, Spinning Jenny, Brunel, imagine dying of cholera....)

When I left school anything outside of that was a massive blank. No real concept of Anglo-Saxons or Celts. No idea whatsoever about Scotland or Wales, never mind Ireland (apparently it was controlled by the British once - who knew?). No idea of any kings or queens or battles between William The Conqueror and Victoria. Nothing about the switch from Catholic to Protestant (well, actually, a little idea because we did 'A Man For All Seasons' in English, but nothing in our history lessons). Nothing whatsoever about The Empire, which meant all kinds of problems in the world, from the Middle East to South Africa to India seemed totally unconnected to Britain.

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 08:49 (nineteen years ago)

knew it was Greeks inside horse (coz of 'beware of Greeks bearing gifts' maybe).

However I can never remember the roles played by the following: Agememnon, Paris, Helen, Menelaus.

My knowledge of European history before 1800 is lousy.

My knowledge of American history is poor too - can never remember which battles were Civil War ones and which were the War of Independence.

there is a lot of 'imagine life as a peasant' isn't there? It doesn't serve any useful purpose.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 09:00 (nineteen years ago)

everything i know about seventeenth century europe is from neal stephenson's baroque style. which also has an immortality potion.

― Maria, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:07 (nineteen years ago)

I didn't do any history at school after age of 13 so pretty much everything I do know is from children's encyclopaedias and TV documentaries :(

― Colonel Poo, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:11 (nineteen years ago)

How can you not study history past 13 yrs old? I mean, how is that possible? Here it's mandatory until the age of 18 years old (in the system I was in anyway). That said, I have forgotten so many things, so many... so many...

― nathalie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:27 (nineteen years ago)

In a lot of British schools you choose one hummanities subject (usually history OR geography) to continue with.

― Anna, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:30 (nineteen years ago)

...it is possible not to do *any* humanities subjects at all. The options that I chose were Geography, German, Chemistry, Physics and Biology. My parents wanted me to do French rather than Geography, but I hated French and baulked at the suggestion of dropping my fave subject.

Ironically, I came top of the class in History in the end of the third year exams with 86%, in a subject I was dropping!

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

i studied History! i know allsorts, so feel free to ask questions. if i don't know the answer, i'll make it up with enough conviction that you'll be satisfied you know the truth.

― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:37 (nineteen years ago)

Obligatory subjects (in my system): biography, chemistry, history, geography, Dutch, French, English, maths,... Maybe a couple I forgot, but those you *had* to take and also do the exams as well.

― nathalie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:43 (nineteen years ago)

I chose geography, german and CDT (craft, design & technology) with the compulsory maths, french, english & combined science (you could do separate chemistry, physics & biology instead of this but you lost one of the options if you did).

― Colonel Poo, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:48 (nineteen years ago)

I was up a ladder painting in my living room once, and there was a biopic of Abraham Lincoln on the telly. I spent ages trying to remember what it was that Lincoln did after he stopped being president, and for the life of me couldn't think of it.

Then it happened in the film and I went 'oh yeah, I totally forgot'. I always paint with the windows open now.

― accentmonkey, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:48 (nineteen years ago)

We had a choice between history, geography and religious studies. Only about 9 of us did RS and everyone apart from me and one other lad only seemed to be there because they were too thick for the other two subjects.

Also, the best part of the story is how this priest (Laocoon or something) warns the Trojans that it is probably a deadly Greek trick, and the gods (Athena maybe?) send these huge serpents from the sea that tear hm AND his two children to pieces.

If Athena could do that, why not just kill all Trojans with serpents until they gave up instead of bothering with the horse thing? I thought the Greeks were supposed to have invented logic for crying out loud.

― V, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:50 (nineteen years ago)

compulsory subjects at my school: Maths, English and (as RE was called) Divinity.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:51 (nineteen years ago)

Did Religious Studies/Divinity help with history knowledge? Or was it treated as it's own subject, no relation to any other events or subjects?
I think that's my problem - that I have all of these isolated bits of information but I never put them in context.
I mean, I'm OLD and I'm not really a complete idiot, but I should have a better grasp of the "flow" of history, I think.

― aimurchie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:17 (nineteen years ago)

religious studies helping w/ history: Martin Luther

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:18 (nineteen years ago)

everything i know about seventeenth century europe is from neal stephenson's baroque style. which also has an immortality potion.

The really annoying thing about the baroque cycle is working out which bits are factual and which aren't.

ie, in both the baroque cycle and in real life Charles II had a government called The Cabal - but in the book, all of its members are completely fictional.

― Forest Pines, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:19 (nineteen years ago)

Divinity, ha ha, is that where you learn how to be DEEEEEEE-vine?

(Sorry, I teased my mum with this joke through all 4 years of Divinity School and it never stops being funny.)

― Masonic Boom, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:20 (nineteen years ago)

Charles II had a government called The Cabal

Well, not exactly.

From Wikipedia:

The term took on its present meaning from a group of ministers of King Charles II of England (Sir Thomas Clifford, Lord Arlington, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Ashley, and Lord Lauderdale), whose initial letters coincidentally spelled Cabal, and who were the signers of the public Treaty of Dover that allied England to France in a prospective war against the Dutch.[2] It must be said, however, that the so-called Cabal Ministry can hardly be seen as such -- the Scot Lauderdale was not much involved in English governance at all; while the Catholic ministers of the Cabal, Clifford and Arlington, were never much in sympathy with the Protestants, Buckingham and Ashley, nor did Buckingham and Ashley get on very well with each other. Thus, the "Cabal Ministry," never very unified in its members' aims and sympathies, fell apart by 1672; Lord Ashley, who became Earl of Shaftesbury, later became one of Charles II's fiercest opponents. The explanation that the word originated as an acronym from the names of the group of ministers is a folk etymology, although the coincidence was noted at the time. The group, who came to prominence after the fall of Charles's first prime minister, Lord Clarendon, in 1667, was rather called the Cabal because of its secretiveness and lack of responsibility to the "Country party" then out of power.

― Michael White, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:17 (nineteen years ago)

guys i highly recommend Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe series. they're great!

― gff, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:34 (nineteen years ago)

Important gaps: Charlemagne; end of Rome; Byzantium

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:38 (nineteen years ago)

... Goths, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, all those German tribes

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:41 (nineteen years ago)

Franks, Burgundians, Alemanni, Lombards...

― Michael White, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:42 (nineteen years ago)

Exactly!

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:43 (nineteen years ago)

Don't you have those in the wrong order there?

I know the life of Charlemagne was written by Notker the Stammerer, and that he tried to bring back the whole idea of an empire in Western Europe, but that's about it.

― Forest Pines, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:44 (nineteen years ago)

I mean, the Vikings and the Celts have been done to death, already

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:44 (nineteen years ago)

Then there's the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, all that early middle ages stuff is a bit of a mystery

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

European history between Columbus leaving and ww1 is pretty blurry for me

― gff, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:55 (nineteen years ago)

I thought Hitler was responsible for WWI as well as II. I know now...

― Slumpman, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 15:43 (nineteen years ago)

I had posted a response, asking more questions, but it is lost.(Because of rampant barring.)
I just want some continuity - Greeks, Romans, Jesus.
These are three separate things for me!

― aimurchie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

I just want some continuity - Greeks, Romans, Jesus.

Well they're all bundled up very nicely in, e.g., Mikhail Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita". Thought that book, somewhat unjustly, maybe, is considered 'fiction'. Go figure.
:)

― t**t, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 16:45 (nineteen years ago)

(But I've never heard about this "history" you' re talkin''bout :(

― t**t, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 16:46 (nineteen years ago)

my "expertise" as it were is in american history. there are many, many gaps outside of that, i'm ashamed to say... i didn't care very much about school back when they were trying to drill that stuff into my head, and now i regret not paying better attention. i know most of what i know through books, movies, and tv!

― get bent, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 16:58 (nineteen years ago)

Greeks beat the Persians, Greeks kick the shit out of each other for a while, Persians start to interfere again, Macedonians conquer the Greeks and the Persians, Greeks assimilate Macedonians, Carthage draws Rome into wider Mediterranean world and capitualtes to them leaving Rome effectively unchallenged as top dog, Roman Empire spreads like a stain, Rome conquers Macedonia, Rome conquers Greece, Rome eventually conquers modern-day Turkey after a prolonged ding-dong with Mithridates, Rome knocks over the Seleucids and takes Syria and Palestine, eventually installing Herod as client-king in Judea, Herod calls all of his people back to their place of birth for census purposes, Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem, out pops Jesus, Judaea becomes full Roman province, Jesus get himself killed.

― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 17:04 (nineteen years ago)

a prolonged ding-dong?

― get bent, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 17:07 (nineteen years ago)

yeah "Turkey" didn't have any Turks in until like right before the Crusades!

― gff, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 17:10 (nineteen years ago)

I have read "Master and Margarita". it still exists in threads - history - for me!
Bind it all together, and give me something else.
How do these things connect? Influence?
Herod was a character in "Rome". I didn't know it all happened at the same time! I am too old to not know this!

― aimurchie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 17:12 (nineteen years ago)

Didn't the Turks move into Anatolia after the battle of Manzikert?

― Michael White, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 17:36 (nineteen years ago)

Didn't the Turks move into Anatolia after the battle of Manzikert?

...and before the first Eurovision Song Contest, yeah. Sometime betwixt thereabouts.

― t**t, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 17:58 (nineteen years ago)

I thought this was the American Idol thread. I was like: "WTF? Why are they talking about Bulgakov and Turkey?"

― molly mummenschanz, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 18:01 (nineteen years ago)

I got City and Guilds in desktop publishing

― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 18:03 (nineteen years ago)

I thought the Greeks were supposed to have invented logic for crying out loud.

Homer is about three centuries before this, give or take.

I know the life of Charlemagne was written by Notker the Stammerer

There's also one by Einhard which is more reliable, but Notker's is far funnier and involves many more "Charlemagne runs into a wacky bishop" stories.

― Casuistry, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 18:53 (nineteen years ago)

I mean, there are obviously huge gaps in everyone's knowledge of history -- I'm guessing there aren't a lot of people here who could summarize what was going on in China around 500CE or around Nigeria in the 1200s -- but it's the history that you feel like you knew once, or you've read a few times, or that you're actively interested in but still can't remember, that's the frustrating and embarrassing stuff.

On the other hand, I was happy when I watched the Daily Show do a bit where they had a little clip slamming each president from Washington on and at the end I was going "You forgot Zachary Taylor!" and then Jon makes a joke like, "For those of you paying attention, yes, we forgot Zachary Taylor" and I suddenly felt like King Nerd (in a good way).

― Casuistry, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:02 (nineteen years ago)

Thank you, Robert S.

― aimurchie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:07 (nineteen years ago)

Thank you, King Nerd.

― aimurchie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:21 (nineteen years ago)

Herod was a character in "Rome". I didn't know it all happened at the same time!

Herod was a family name, and there are about five of them, all related to each other, who were famous in one way or another at that time. The Herod at the beginning of the Bible stories about Jesus is not the same as the Herod at the end, I believe.

I haven't watched most of this season of Rome (our Rome-watching group got really busy, we're hoping to catch up soon) but Caear is assassinated in 44BCE and Augustus rules until 14CE I think, so there you go.

― Casuistry, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:26 (nineteen years ago)

I got a BA in History (American, post WWII), and not only do I not know anything, I'm not sure I ever did. Mr teeny got his undergrad and a masters in classics, it is useful for impressing some old partner at the law firm and for explaining the rome show to me.

― teeny, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:30 (nineteen years ago)

i have a degree in modern history and know jack-shit. it's a big world ~~and everyone has guns~~.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:31 (nineteen years ago)

'modern history' meaning 'from the fall of the roman empire down to 1973' where i went. a lot of ground to cover!

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:33 (nineteen years ago)

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