Posted on 04/25/2015 9:39:10 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
With the 200th anniversary of the famous Battle of Waterloo just two months away a survey in Britain has revealed that most ofthe public know little about it and some even think it's just an Abba song, while many thought the French actually won.
A survey of Britons published in the build-up to the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo found three-quarters knew little or nothing about it -- while many thought France won.
The poll of 2,070 people for the National Army Museum found 73 percent either knew nothing or next to nothing about the battle, one of the most important in the nation's history.
When asked what came to mind when Waterloo was mentioned, 54 percent of people aged 18 to 24 said the London railway station named after the battle, while 46 percent cited the Eurovision-winning song by Swedish pop group ABBA.
The Battle of Waterloo, fought outside Brussels in 1815, saw the Duke of Wellington lead the British and allied forces to a final, decisive victory over French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
But the survey found only 53 percent knew Wellington commanded the British troops.
The other 47 percent thought it could have been 16th-century navigator Francis Drake, Britain's World War II prime minister Winston Churchill, King Arthur, who ruled in the fifth century, and even the wizard Albus Dumbledore from the "Harry Potter" books.
Fourteen percent thought Napoleon actually won.
"Despite the Battle of Waterloo being an iconic moment in British history, UK public awareness is dramatically low," said Janice Murray, director-general of the National Army Museum.
The Swedes got Norway, because of it.
It all started in the 60s with the chants of “Hey Hey Ho Ho Western Civ Has Got to Go.” Learning about history got slammed as only learning “White History”.
The only things they'll teach about WWII are, that the Soviet Union defeated Hitler single-handedly, and that the US was evil for dropping the Atom Bomb.
The good and the bad of English history is that there is so much of it and it is all very well documented.
Well the disco era is a bit incomprehensible...
I guess you had to be there...
I'm not sure where youth has its attention fixed these days, but my take on this is that Ancient Aliens and Bigfoot are probably taken as more real than the history we learned growing up.
Wait.
They hit Chickamauga too?
LOL
You bring up a good point. I’m something of a military history buff, although leaning more towards the technology aspect. I could name off important Civil War battles and Generals, but to put them in logical sequence and levels of importance? Nope.
WWII however, I could really get in depth. I had many relatives that served. I picked their brains about their experiences, and they were shocked that a person my age knew so much about that time. My Wife’s Grandfather was a Corsair pilot in the Pacific. He was stunned at how much I knew when we met.
Waterloo though? That’s like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Brits should at least know the results of that battle, if not the minute details... Just as Americans should know the results of Gettysburg.
Hitler was an Austrian pretending to be German.
Stalin was a Georgian pretending to be Russian.
And Obama is a Kenyan pretending to be an American.
My ancestors were Prussian, already here in America for a century when Field Marshal Blucher kicked Napoleon’s tuckus and saved Wellington’s as well.
Blucher had the gout, then a dose of the piles, got drunk, read the map wrong and lead a calvary charge straight into Napoleon’s flank. The krauts creamed the frog’s butts while Wellington regrouped his retreating forces.
Sad but all true
caddis the elder
Stalin was a Georgian pretending to be Russian.
And Obama is a Kenyan pretending to be an American.
A fine collection of Three A-holes Pretending to be Human...
I saw a movie about Waterloo. They showed Blucher charging on horseback and calling his soldiers “my children”.
Nagasaki. Brits should at least know the results of that battle, if not the minute details... Just as Americans should know the results of Gettysburg.
The Civil War will be always taught, at least a little, because of its link to the end of slavery. WWII? The Holocaust Deniers may win over time. The Japanese atrocities are pretty much already down the memory hole, so that war may also get short shrift.
As an aside, I find the battles of Midway and Gettysburg similar in that they both so complex, with so many heroes and battles within the battles, that I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the complexity of them.
I see what you did there...
One consequence of the widespread ignorance of our own, let alone each others’ histories by both Britons and Americans is that many Americans assume that the Revolutionary War (known in Britain as the War of American Independence) was as significant an event in British history as it self-evidently was in American history. Whereas for the British that war, important as it was, was just one in a century of wars, soon to be overwhelmed in scale and significance - militarily, economically and politically, by the Napoleonic Wars.
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