Out of curiosity, do school children in Britain have to learn

[sinkingfeeling]

all the kings and queens that have ruled throughout history?

[tirebiter]

1. So long as they learn who they lost to in the United States and Ireland

And who saved their asses in 1918 and 1945 we can be friends, Let’s also never forget that Dylan beat the Beatles.

[whathehell]

5. Lol..

You're bad..

[dflprincess]

6. Let us remember that Britain stood mostly alone holding off Hitler for two years

which gave FDR time to build up our armed forces as much as he could. Granted he managed to pull off lend-lease which helped but the Brits and other Commonwealth Countries did the fighting (along with resistance groups).

And let's be thankful there was an eastern front without that who knows what would have happened. The U.S. did not win the war by itself and after nearly 80 years we might want to drop the attitude. Especially with the recent study that Japan & Germany now have stronger democracies than we do.

[ShazzieB]

17. I agree with every word.

The U.S. took its sweet time getting involved in WWII (not because of FDR, but because of isolationist attitudes in the country as a whole). As a result, the war lasted a lot longer than it would have if we'd gone in earlier. (Also, even after we got involved, it took a while to turn things around, giving Hitler's genocide machine more time to gear up and kill millions more people than it would have had time for otherwise.)

What we finally contributed to the war definitely made a difference, but we shouldn't go overboard patting ourselves in the back, imo.

[DBoon]

7. spoken like a "real american"

I would contend, though, that it was the Beach Boys who beat the Beatles.

[brush]

11. And don't forget all the Motown hits of that era.

[wnylib]

20. But the Beatles came after Motown and the Beach Boys

and took over the rock scene as the Motown and California surfing sounds faded into the background.

Just saying what I remember. I'm a big Dylan fan (still) and we did bounce back with Springsteen, Billy Joel, and many others.

[brush]

23. Your recollection is slightly off. Motown hits kept coming thru the 60s and '70s.

They coincided with the Beatles' invasion. The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Mary Wells, Gladys Knight, The Jackson Five, Michael Jackson by himself, Patti LaBelle...come on, Motown kept churning out the hits.

Maybe you were so overwhelmed by the Beatles you were unaware of other acts. And then there was Aretha Franklin, Otic Redding and other Atlantic Records artists who had huge hits also.

Maybe your focus was "rock and roll and pop" hits and not R&B, but Michael Jackson was called the king of pop.

And like you said, Dylan had huge hits during the '60s too, it wasn't all Beatles all the time as the Stones had big hits as well. The Loving Spoonful, the Monkees, Dave Clark Five, etc.

[wnylib]

24. I remember all those groups

very well. Had most of their records. Saw some of them perform in person.

I did not say that the Motown groups, Beach Boys, and other artists from the 60s and 70s discontinued producing hits. But they did get overshadowed by the Beatles.

[brush]

25. Not to all demographics.

[Sneederbunk]

2. Not only that, but the entire Beatles Catalogue.

[El Supremo]

3. I had to learn about AEthelred the Unready.

When studying English History in Texas. Wasn't there a Half-a-Canute too?

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. You might appreciate "1066 And All That"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_and_All_That

Written in the late 1920s, but some of us still suffered the kind of history teaching (and learning) it lampoons into the 1970s.

This confusing period was summed up rather amusingly in 1066 And All That: “Canute had two sons, Halfacanute and Partacanute, and two other offspring, Rathacanute and Hardlicanute.” (WC Sellar and RJ Yeatman) They went on to say that “After his death … [the] kingdom was divided between two other sons, Aftercanute and Harold Harebrush.”

https://www.bragmedallion.com/blog/one-got-away/

The real people, from that link:

[El Supremo]

16. I've got that book.

We used it in class.

[Skittles]

4. I did

yup

[sinkingfeeling]

9. I think yours is the only serious answer I got. Thanks.

[Midnight Writer]

8. Probably about like we had to "learn" all the Presidents.

[dflprincess]

18. I never had to learn all the presidents.

[Irish_Dem]

10. Other countries are jealous that Americans only have to learn 200 years of history.

China has 5000 years of written history.
Japan over 2000 years of written history.

I have Chinese friends who immigrated to the US and earned PhDs in American history at Univ of Virginia.
They say American history is like a pop quiz compared to Chinese history.

[wnylib]

21. I suppose Egyptian history classes are no picnic, either.

[Irish_Dem]

22. Right

In China there are thousands of years of Emperors to memorize.

Egypt has 4000 years of written history and all of their kings/pharaohs, to memorize.

[Karadeniz]

12. The only thing I've heard is that they have to perfectly sing Bohemian Rhapsody in order to get a

driver's license.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Less and less

I had a very traditional history teacher in the late 1970s, and we probably did go through every king or queen, though some in much more detail than others (especially those with battles - boy, did he love a battle diagram). I personally can recite all the English (then British) monarchs from 1066 onwards, but I didn't have to learn that for school.

But history teaching has in general moved away from "this is the monarch; this defines the era" thought. Some eras get a lot more attention than others, in the lower grades; at one point, it was the Tudors and World War Two, though I don't know if that still holds.

[T_i_B]

15. When I was growing up...

.... You learnt some of the Kings and Queens at school. And books of English history are often based on the Kings and Queens from Alfred The Great onwards. So that's essentially how I learnt history as an avid bookworm. But school invariably takes a broader approach.

I've kinda taken the approach of learning through the monarchs when swotting up on other countries histories as well, be it Kings of France or Holy Roman Emperors.

[LeftishBrit]

19. Not really

Many years ago, they did. As Muriel says, see '1066 and All That'!

I think there are three historic monarchs that everyone remembers: Henry VIII, Charles I (and his unfortunate head) and Victoria. Apart from those, people vary in whom they know about. I think nowadays popular history probably deals with the kings and queens *more* than school history does.