American Revolution -- British are bad guys

[Zombie_Babies]

After all, how much are American children taught about the Spanish-American War, or even the War of 1812?

When I was in school (some time ago, to be sure) we learned about the Spanish-American War and the War of 1812. Both were given a period of more than a day to discuss as well, IIRC.

Of course back then we were also constantly being bombarded with anti-Communist propaganda. I don't mean the 60s here or anything, either. 1980s, ya'all. Twas quite the different time ... or not.

 

[Jet Shield]

My earliest memories of school involve practicing what to do in the event that the air-raid or nuclear attack sirens went off. I wonder who thought hiding under a little desk was going to help anything if a nuke is dropped on you.

 

[MarkB]

My earliest memories of school involve practicing what to do in the event that the air-raid or nuclear attack sirens went off. I wonder who thought hiding under a little desk was going to help anything if a nuke is dropped on you.

To be fair, at distances of a few miles, the primary initial sources of damage from a nuclear explosion are the heat and blast waves, and if you're in a reasonably sturdy building, the major factor in determining how badly those affect you is whether you're standing up in front of a window that's about to be transformed into molten shrapnel, or crouching down in cover.

There's still the far-from-insignificant matter of lingering death from radiation poisoning, but if you're on the outskirts of town, duck-and-cover is not a valueless strategy - and is probably the only one you'd have in the time available.

 

[Zombie_Babies]

My earliest memories of school involve practicing what to do in the event that the air-raid or nuclear attack sirens went off. I wonder who thought hiding under a little desk was going to help anything if a nuke is dropped on you.

Well, it really would have helped. See, it creates a false sense of calm which, in turn, creates control.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

(snip) Some of the police cruisers in Malvern, Pennsylvania, still sport "Remember Paoli!" bumper stickers, which has always seemed a bit dramatic to me. (snip)

Living in the Philippines this combination of history and drama seems to be normal, even for more recent events.

For example, one of the national heroes whom many Pinoys consider to be a martyr for being killed by his political rival wasn't actually killed by that rival but there are three other possibilies in order of most likely to least likely:

1. His own party killed him in retaliation for the murders of other party members he orchestrated.
2. His wife's family killed him in retaliation for grabbing some of the family wealth (which was itself stolen by his wife's family).
3. He was a notorious philanderer and an angry, cuckolded husband got him.

1. is the most likely but the other two are reasonable possibilities. Anyway, this traitor (oh yeah, I forget to mention that, like his father and son, he committed treason - another fact that is often omitted) is remembered every Heroes' Day, he's on t-shirts and on the money etc.... It's just drama.

(snip)History is neat. And it doesn't have to be very old at all before people start rewriting it to suit their political needs. It's amazing we remember anything accurately. Maybe we don't.(snip)

Yep. That's exactly what we have here.