Lies they told you in history class

[Ruwrak]

This is hardly the first time in class we've had to unlearn what is essentially propaganda we were taught as kids. It got me wondering if other schools/states/countries have the same kind of biases in the classroom.

So guys, what kind of lies, if any, did you learn in your history class?

I wouldn't label it as propaganda really... More a colored vision of history.
Where Europe classes place their history central of the world, the USA does it to theirs and probably the middle east does also. Noone likes to hear that their country sucks, so the history is told from a pro point of view.

I.e. the Dutch fought valliantly at Arnhem... or did we?
(With all respects for the veterans that gave their lives for our freedom etc.) But we got smooshed within what... 3 days?

Yet we don't hear much about those people in the books. We read about the heroic resistance, the jews in hiding. Did we get taught about Hitler, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Göring? Not so much. However we did get taught the dry hard facts of -why- WWII was allowed to happen (believe it or not, it had far little to do with Hitler then people think. True, he is a massmurderer by todays standards, but there was more to it then merely conquest & jew hating.)

 

[Shazbah]

i'm australian, so in our classes we learn nothing, but i have a relative in the states who, no shit, was taught that saddam hussein was behind 9/11.

Really? Nothing? No stolen Generation, or White Australia Policy? Not even WW1 or WW2? I do hope you're in year 7 or 8, because by the end of compulsory history I had learnt all of that.
I'm from Newcastle, NSW

 

[Dimitriov]

So guys, what kind of lies, if any, did you learn in your history class?

That history class is important or even slightly relevant to anyone besides historians and people that work in museums. Basically, that history class has any justification for it's existence whatsoever is the lie.

As a fun exercise let's assume you aren't in fact trolling. Please defend your statement.

I ask you to defend it because, as the existence of History classes implies, you seem to be making a claim that goes against what the majority of people believe. You may be right, if so please explain how. Or more likely you were taught History poorly and don't understand the true, and very important, reasons for studying the past: in which case you have my sympathy as that is not entirely your fault.

 

[Supertegwyn]

i'm australian, so in our classes we learn nothing, but i have a relative in the states who, no shit, was taught that saddam hussein was behind 9/11.

Really? Nothing? No stolen Generation, or White Australia Policy? Not even WW1 or WW2? I do hope you're in year 7 or 8, because by the end of compulsory history I had learnt all of that.
I'm from Newcastle, NSW

I knew all of that by year 2. Either he pays no attention in class or he's trolling.
Canberra, A.C.T.

 

[Justanewguy]

:\ You know, as a History student, I've seen more fallacies in the stuff you guys have posted as "truth" than in what your idiot teachers taught you. In fact, at least half the posts in here which are suggesting an alternate "fact" as the real way it happened are either missing a large part of the story or misinterpreting the real facts in a different way.

This is honestly funny in some ways, and horribly depressing in a lot of others.

So guys, what kind of lies, if any, did you learn in your history class?

That history class is important or even slightly relevant to anyone besides historians and people that work in museums. Basically, that history class has any justification for it's existence whatsoever is the lie.

For the record, though, you're an idiot.

 

[Shazbah]

I knew all of that by year 2. Either he pays no attention in class or he's trolling.
Canberra, A.C.T.

Wow, you're lucky, I had to wait until year 9 and 10, and even then learnt most of the White Australia Policy from history majors and university :-( teaches me for going to a rural public school.

yeah, i'm 19 and i can honestly say i have no idea what WW1 was about, accept that it was apparently started (sort of) when some guy assassinated some toher guy... as for the stolen generation, to be fair we studied it for like... a day, when kevin rudd apoligised (for not he nor anyone alive today was responsible for thus the apology meant nothing)
it can't help that the highschool i attended tied with some other highschool as worst in the ACT when they ran that test a few years ago.

That really sucks. I do think Australian history is pretty dry and boring (no civil war or quest for independence) but I do think everyone should know the history behind their country. Even if you stay clear of the Whitlam dismissal, you should learn about the Stolen Generation and the White Australia Policy, kind of makes me ashamed of this country, but also makes me determined to stamp out the last of the racism in this country if I ever get the chance.

 

[similar.squirrel]

They never told us about CHEMTRAILS, even though CHEMTRAILS are a very real thing being created by ISRAEL so we stop breeding and become HOMOSEXUALS.

Anyway, I can't actually recall anything, except a few mispellings of names involved in the Hungarian 1956 rising. Guess Europe is a bit more careful about its history, for obvious reasons.

 

[Shazbah]

Gahhhhhhh.

No offence, but is this you?

Sadly enough there is a frightening large percent of the population of this country that represent this guy...
Hopefully not itchcrotch though, we need as many "good" Australian on the interwebs showing the world we're not really a bunch of racist bogans

 

[spacewalker]

this topic reminds me of a book called "lies my teacher told me" written by a history teacher, or was it history professor. An interesting read, probably more so for somone living in the US.

 

[jonyboy13]

Important to mention, I live in Israel.

The amount of BS they shove in our brains as kids is huge even compared to America.
Obviously, we were taught the Israeli side of the whole Middle East thingy, but we were never taught the other side (not that it's MOSTLY right, but still should've learned it)

My biggest problem is not that we were lied to, but that we didn't even learn about most of the important history, and if we did it was brief, not in high school or in important tests.

Barely about WW1, only about the holocaust and not WW2 in general, not about anything important in Europe, not AT ALL about the US. We were basically taught only about Jews in the world, in every possible country.

 

[cheesyman987]

In my History class, we were learning about the history of Crime and Punishment, and how it changes over time. One of the topics was reasons why people commit crimes, and how these reasons have changed over time.

One girl in my class (someone with below average intelligence (to put it nicely, couldn't even name any of the Beatles, didn't know 9/11 happened etc.)) said that television and video games were influencing people to commit crimes...

I pointed out that it was bullshit, and asked for evidence towards their case. They couldn't find any, but the teacher proceeded to listen to her and not to me (I was in the top of my class), and because the teacher sided with her, the whole class sided with her so that they wouldn't get into trouble.

I then got in trouble for arguing a valid point against a theory that has now been legally disproved in the United States...

 

[MaximumCrux]

In the UK we were taught for about 4 years in a row that the allied forces were stopping the "evil" Germans during WW2. We got on to higher education for A-levels and our teachers then allowed us to ask questions about Dresden and the atomic bombs dropped in Japan.

So i was taught that we were the morally superior side and that destroying entire cities civilian or not was "acceptable".

Shockingly i got more than my fair share of detentions after my 2000 word essay on "How you win a war by being more morally loose"

You seriously didn't study the Dresden bombings or the use of atomic weapons against Japan until A-levels? They were the pretty much the basis of my final year of GCSE History!

So guys, what kind of lies, if any, did you learn in your history class?

That history class is important or even slightly relevant to anyone besides historians and people that work in museums. Basically, that history class has any justification for it's existence whatsoever is the lie.

 

[Knife]

The Germens are all Nazi's born from the Devil--My History Teacher
Pardon me, but there is no evidence of all Germans being Nazi's. You seem to forget that the first country the Nazi's invaded was it's own---Me

i got Detention for talking bad to the teacher

While indeed not all germans were nazis, the first country to be invaded by nazis was Poland in 1939 unless we count the Anschluss (the annexation of Austria) back in 1938, the nazis at no point invaded Germany (though there were a couple attempts at revolutions), Hitler/the nazi party were democratically elected fair and square back in 1933 (though they did some horrible and undemocratic things along the way).

 

[Supertegwyn]

I knew all of that by year 2. Either he pays no attention in class or he's trolling.
Canberra, A.C.T.

Wow, you're lucky, I had to wait until year 9 and 10, and even then learnt most of the White Australia Policy from history majors and university :-( teaches me for going to a rural public school.

I loved history, so I would always read books and do my research. Quite fun actually. Us city folk had some good public schools as well, and we were taught a lot of history.

 

[efAston]

That John Simpson Kirkpatrick was an Australian war hero. He was neither.
Australia didn't get sent to die in Gallipoli by the some British twits drinking G&T in a chalet either. The British lost four times as many soldiers as Australia in the same battle, and the Turks, who were defending their own country, lost about eight times as many.
The Lusitania probably enabled the US to enter the war because it's what sold the war to the voters.

 

[RobCoxxy]

"We're going to elect a president and he'll do what we want"

Plenty of previous Republican presidents I can mention with pointless wars.

OT: That was really used to teach people?

Also, as an Englishman, I refuse to admit that all of us are shit.

 

[M920CAIN]

I'm not american & i'm not british. What's the deal with this video? it ain't so bad... it's semi-accurate and of course it makes americans to look like the good guys since it was made by an american... it's biased like most things, but it's pretty cute actually.

 

[Aidinthel]

*snip*

Fellow history student here, and I know what you mean. I'm tempted to write up a much larger post replying to all those people but It's after 1 AM and I have class tomorrow. Don't blame them too much: the subject is rather complicated and those who haven't dedicated themselves to it can't really be expected to know it very well for the same reason I can't do calculus. Of course, me not knowing calculus doesn't affect anyone but myself, whereas poor knowledge of history affects political decisions...

Anyway, my point is that you should take such things as a teaching opportunity rather than simply railing against their ignorance.

And maybe take the time to calmly explain to that guy why he is wrong rather than simply declaring him an idiot. (Which, admittedly, was my first impulse as well.)

OT: That was really used to teach people?

No. It was a commercial production aired on network TV.

 

[Shazbah]

*snip*

I love you... I knew Stephen Fry would have something to say along those lines...

I loved history, so I would always read books and do my research. Quite fun actually. Us city folk had some good public schools as well, and we were taught a lot of history.

I too love it, wish I had time to study it more (I do engineering, no spare time with that degree...) but I try my hardest to learn as much as possible. I should mention I grew up an hours north of Newcastle. If you thought Newcastle was bad you should see where I grew up, I don't think I even had a science lesson before high school, let alone a history lesson.