How well do you understand American (or your own national) history?

[BurtWorm]

And how well do you think your education grounded you in it?

[BurtWorm]

1. Who's the expert? Who's pretty shaky?

Care to confess?

[Lady President]

10. I admit it

I voted pretty shaky which is especially sad because my father was a history teacher and in theory I'm well-educated.

[BurtWorm]

11. You know, since this is obviously based on self-assessment

you may know a lot more than you think, and those of us who voted surprisingly well may know a lot less than we think.

[Nikia]

2. I'm not going to declare myself an expert

I have studied history extensively. Both my history professors said that I have an exceptional understanding of it. An expert would imply that I'd be the one to give outstanding advice on it, which I am uncertain about my ability to do.

[BurtWorm]

3. Is there any aspect of it you might consider your strong point?

Any particular era?

[Nikia]

7. After World I to World War II

It reminds me of our current era. In both eras, we thought that everything would be great after the war (in current era, the Cold War). There was a big divide in values and wealth. The divide in wealth lead to a depression in both cases (Our current recession has not been termed that but things are bad.). Americans didn't really want to be involved with the world at large until Americans were attacked. In both cases, the presidents probably knew about it before it happened and let it to allow them to beome involved in war (I do think it is good that we were involved in Worl War II.). There are important differences like social policy wise, Bush is more like Hoover than FDR.

[BurtWorm]

4. Surprisingly uniform understanding here.

I was expecting a lot more diversity.

[Punkingal]

5. I minored in history in college....

but that was a long time ago.

[BurtWorm]

6. Was American history your specialty?

[Piltdown13]

8. I had very poor American history instruction in school

When I was in junior high and high school, our district split U.S. history over two years -- 8th and 9th grades -- so you had a break halfway through (about the time you get done with the Civil War) during which you transition from middle school to high school. My 8th grade history teacher was more interested in checking out the cute phys ed teacher out the window than in teaching us anything, and the guy in 9th grade was a male chauvinist pig -- he actually held up my exam paper once and said to the class, "Hey, gentlemen, you need to study harder because Piltdown here got the high score AGAIN and a girl shouldn't always be getting the high score!" following it up with some comment to the effect that they should feel bad they were "beaten" by a girl! Needless to say, I didn't get much out of either of those classes.

The kicker was, my school added an AP American History class my junior year, and they REFUSED to let me take it -- because of that two-year fiasco, I "had taken" US history and therefore shouldn't be taking up space in the AP class (which wasn't even full).

Fortunately, I've since found some books that have gotten me up to speed on some parts, but in terms of instruction, I took a lot more world history type stuff. :-)

[BurtWorm]

9. I didn't get good history education in high school, either.

World history, in particular, sucked. I took a class on European history that devoted half of its curriculum to an incomprehensible "game" about the French revolution. Most of what I know about history I've learned since leaving formal education altogether.

[HydroAddict]

12. Feel pity for me...

Most my history knowledge comes from the History Channel...sad, isn't it?

The good is, I'm usually the winner when playing games like Trivial Pursuit and I always rank in the top 15% at IWon.com's trivia challenge (I play daily, part of my morning routine).

[BurtWorm]

13. Does that mean you voted Surprisingly Well?

[ironflange]

14. Canadians tend to be pretty ignorant about their history

I'd say most of us know more about American history than Canadian.

[BurtWorm]

15. It won't surprise you to know most Americans don't have the first clue

about Canadian history. I include myself in that number. I don't even know when Canada gained its independence, let alone how it did. I know there was a battle on the Plain of Abraham in Quebec City, but I don't know what it was about. Something between the Brits and the French, I'd guess. Did the French win? And how did the Brits take control of Quebec? Why is Quebec Canadian and not its own country? Maybe the Brits won the battle in Quebec City?

[BrotherBuzz]

16. I didn't know squat about Canadian history till...

I started playing serious Trivial Pursuit games and needed to bone up on Canadian history and hockey (what the hell does a native born Californian know about hockey?) to improve my odds with that Canadian company's game.

[MissouriTeacher]

17. Well I used to teach the stuff...

so I figure my knowledge of it is above average.

However, I enjoy early American history more than most other time periods. There are some eras like in the late 1800s that I'm fairly ignorant about.

[BurtWorm]

18. That's a funny Twain quote!

And apropos!