not much is said over in East Canada about those, about as much as how Canada had aboriginal culture schools that were still in use right up until the 1990s. For those who dont know what those are, its basically a school where aboriginal kids were taken from their parents, taught the ways of catholicism, and if they ever tried to learn of their own culture or language, they were often beaten brutally.

I can give you a pretty good example. For some time in the past, Poland was occupied by Sweden. In Sweden this was referred to as "The age of Greatness", as the swedish empire was at it's peak. They had Finland, Norway and the Baltic countries under their command as well, thus they were a force to be reckoned with, hence the name of the age. At this point they could actually challenge Russia.

In Poland on the other hand, the same period was called "The Swedish Flood of Sins" (literate translation) since it stripped them of both their pride and power and was under the reign of foreign king. These were considered very dark times, and when the swedes finally lost their grip of the country, it was seen as one of the most important events in polish history. Meanwhile the swedish history books speak of the beginning of the fall of an empire, which was finalized on the 17th of May 1905 when Sweden lost Norway.

Speaking of which, the 17th of May is now Norways independence day, which is by far their biggest national celebration as it symbolizes the end of decades of occupation (Sweden and Denmark took turns "owning" Norway for quite some time). Meanwhile, the day has no particular meaning here in Sweden, but needless to say that it's a very dark day in the history books.

P.S. Hopefully I got all the facts right here, my memory of history class is not what it used to be.

I've never been taught that at all actually, even when I chose to study history at GCSE (Got an A* in it!)

We learn about how we won the war, had a massive empire and how we eventually cut off the head of one of our Kings...You know, the usual.

In Quebec we're taught a lot about wars with indians and how we fucked em over in pretrty much every aspect. Those damn Black Robes Also about how the indians would kidnap europeans and torture them. The Huron and Iroquois (I think).
Also we're taught about how the french and british always fought and fucked each other over. It's been a while though, I forget a lot. There was no bias between enlish and french in english high schools. I'm sure the french schools are totally anti-english.

Our licence plates in Quebec say "Je me souviens" (I will remember), which has something to do with when the land here was called 'New France' and all french. The the english claimed it or something so the french will 'never forget', I really forget the exact reason why though. A lot of french people are bitter about the past and hate enlgish people.

I believe your talking about the 7 year war in the mid 1800's, the one where the english and french fought hard to see who would control the colonies of Canada, while the indians just watched and sighed, knowing it was like Aliens vs. prederator "whoever wins, we lose."

English of course won, going through the gulf of st lawrance (2nd last battle was in the New Brunswick, right next to my hometown. twas a naval battle.), rode it all the way into Quebec City, and just whooped ass. England claimed Canada as its own, and even let the French live there too. But of course, the french like to bitch and whine, so they are still sore losers to this day

and if anyone says I have a bias against the french, je me suis francais par mon pere (im french on my dads side).

Lol, moi avec. Aussi par mon pere. Mais j'aime pas tellement les francais d'ici. Beaucoups d'entres eux sont des cons pis des racistes. Il y ana quand memes des gens qui sont meilleurs.
I just like showing off my french =P My shitty Quebec french

dont worry, my french sucks too. I can listen A-OK, but speaking it sucks.

yeah, French in general are quite the snooty bucnh. They like to think they are better then others, they always have trouble getting along with some groups of people, and then theres the whole seperatist bullcrap.

all in all, theres a good portion of french people that can suck my left testicle. not all, because that would be just plain wrong.

Yeah the American Revolution is very much a footnote in history in the Uk. Or for me it has been, it jsut doesn't get mentioned that much.

If I think about what we covered. Romans, Jacobites in Scotland. World war 1. British Empire in India. But the last two were never just glossed over. They covered a lot of what complete fuckers we were during that.

America: the forgotten Bastard child of Mother England.

I remember once seeing photos of murals in North Korea depicting various forms of domination over the Western swine, specifically America. Seems like there was at least one of a North Korean soldier standing triumphant over a dead American. I tried to find them again but have been unsuccessful. I suppose thats more of an indoctrination than a history lesson.....but perhaps they're one in the same?

Certainly makes you wonder how much our history (for Americans, that is) is distorted. Luckily we haven't had that much history....as far as the grand scheme of things go.

But, you know, things like Vietnam are pretty difficult to gloss over.

To be fair, It's highly illogical for a school to teach it's students about their own countries historical shortcomings. Certainly during my school history, not a bad word was said about all the bad things that Britain had done in the past.

I was always curious about how German schools covered WWII, if at all, but I would suspect that the topic would be avoided as much as possible

I don't know about the other Americans on this board, but in my high school U.S. History class we did cover a lot of our shortcomings. We talked about the mistreatement of the Native Americans through each time period, causes and results of Vietnam, and of course our problems with Civil Rights. My teachers also put it pretty bluntly that we more or less "stole" the southwest. I say more or less as the U.S. invoked a war against Mexico (but didn't fire the first shot), they did pay for the land, and there are probably some more details I'm missing out on.

One more thing before I close is we mentioned the irony of the U.S. being an imperial power. Current events are usually shunned on being taught as students hate having opinions thrown at their face. Well teachers aren't allowed to share opinions, but I guess students did have discussion in class.

I don't know that "stole" would be the best way to describe the annexation (probably another bad way to describe it) of the southwest. It was pretty costly for all. Ask anyone from San Antonio.

Good point that the school systems will acknowledge our shortcomings, at least we did as well. Probably didn't analyze them as much as we should, but they were discussed and no one came away feeling proud about it.

Wow, 1984 much? If anything, a countries shortcommings should be emphasized

You know, I really don't think so. WWII stands in the history books as a valuable lesson of how things can go terribly wrong if you allow extremists to go too far. I very much doubt that Germany is too ashamed of their past to just sweep it under the rug and pretend that it never happened (even though it might not be the most cheerful topic during history lessons), then raise generation after generation kept in ignorance about the past. If anything I think they would place a lot of focus on the subject in order to try and make sure that coming generations don't make the same mistake.

They say that history is written by the people who won the battles or wars, this isnt the case. Each side has a different view on what took place and how things played out. Depending on what country in Europe you go to school in there is varying differences in how WWI and WWII took place. Who did what, and how bad it was.

The Korean War has many different view points on it. Especially since its considered the 'forgotten war'. You have the Russian viewpoint, the Chinese, the North Korean, the South Korean, the Japanese, and the American. Not to mention the mishmash of all of these together depending on what country is more of a friend of whom. According to Japan the whole Korean peninsula was a horrible mess and they wanted to clean it all up and save the Koreans. According to the Chinese the Koreans were being oppressed and China needed to step in. America has the same view. The Koreans asked for help but got a lot more than they barganed for and essentially turned a post Japanese area into a War Zone that started in the 50s and still continues today.

Now the Americans said they tried to fight off the communists in China and the North. The Chinese and North will say they tried to remove the Americans from a part of the world they had no place of being in. The Japanese say that this just prooves that the Korean people are too wild to control, and the Russians will say that the North is a great trading partner and allie and the rest of the world, with the exception to China doesnt understand how much the North continues to struggle with the American Imperialists breathing down their neck with sanctions and hardships. The Americans will say they are doing so because the North are doing horrible things and selling drugs and weapons. The North will say the only reason they are doing that is because without it they cant make any money to support their people due to the sanctions. The Japanese are still not caring. The Russians want the North on their side if shit hits the fan and the South wants everyone to hold hands and live in peace, but under their rule because they are smarter.

So ya thats a little example.

CRX Forum

Actually, one part that was left out: Yes the french were allowed to stay, but the english tried many times to assimilate their culture and breed them out. This is why Quebec is so anal about their language laws, because they fear assimilation from english Canada... and no not like Star Trek!

heheh, I hope so....

As soon as I wrote my Quebec comment I knew this joke would be coming... I walked into it.