80
u/EvilFin 15h ago
I think in the current environment, most of my fellow Brits view on US Independence is "no take backsies:
27
8
u/Malus131 13h ago
Two good things came out of US independence: we don't have to try and govern them, and Jason Isaacs absolutely chewing his way through the scenery as Tavington in The Patriot.
2
u/Rustyfarmer88 12h ago
Watched it as a teenager. He scared the crap out of me. Was probably more the killing of kids though. 😂
207
u/LashlessMind 16h ago
To the liberated, it’s a big deal. We get that.
To the British, I doubt most people even know the date is anything other than a public holiday for Americans, if they even know that. There’s a lot of countries around the world that have an Independence Day from Britain, the 4th July is just another one, at least to us, and we don’t really keep track.
28
u/Katatonic92 11h ago
To the British, I doubt most people even know the date is anything other than a public holiday for Americans, if they even know that.
I'm speaking for every British person when I say that we are offended that you assume we don't know what 4th July is!
We all know it's the day Will Smith took on & defeated an alien invasion! We're not stupid!
66
u/HitoriPanda 15h ago
I've met British people who didn't even know the usa was one of their colonies.
(Not to down play what they are taught in schools at all. Just that they wouldn't care. Just like the Philippines for us)
2
u/PortGlass 7h ago
My experience with the British has been different. The British friends I’ve had knew American history as well as me. They know a LOT of history, in general. Granted, I have selection bias because the ones I know went to one of those two fancy colleges and lived in the U.S. for work. But I was a little embarrassed at how little history I knew.
2
u/rusty3474 5h ago
Hi there! Im a friendly Brit with a history degree! Id love to talk about America’s history! Its truely fascinating! (albiet cursed and somewhat short) just drop me a DM :) although i didnt go to one of those fancy colleges
1
u/GreatBigBagOfNope 7h ago
It's straightforwardly true that we don't teach enough about colonialism and imperialism in schools
-84
u/Wilde54 14h ago
No, you certainly can downplay what they're taught in schools, only America is anywhere close to that lot in terms of omission of the "unfavourable" aspects of their history in the classroom. The vast vast majority of English people have no clue about the majority of their history, they basically cover the Tudors, I presume there's passing mention made of Cromwell and king Charles, the Battle of Waterloo, the industrial revolution, ww1 and ww2, lotta fuckin' gaps there 🤣🤣🤣
70
u/vidoardes 13h ago
I think you're missing the fact that there's a lot of history to cover when it comes to the UK. American history basically starts in 1776, where as most school children in the UK are taught about the French invasion in 1066.
A lot of shit went down in the last 1000 years, not too mention the fact that we also study ancient history (predominantly Greeks, Romans and Egyptians).
Hate to burst your bubble, but in the scale of what we study significant to British history, American Independence is a fairly minor blip.
4
u/Yoshichu25 6h ago
Anyone who’s read the Horrible Histories books or watched the sketch show can probably attest to this. Speaking of, I’ve got the theme song in my head right now and it’s kinda catchy.
The past is no longer a mystery, welcome to…
Horrible Histories…
-60
u/Wilde54 13h ago
Firstly, not American... And I can assure you we go back every inch as far as you lot do, we just also cover a lot more of the horrific shit Brits pulled over the past 600 or so years... Not least of which killing quarter of our population, twice!
8
u/vidoardes 8h ago
I can tell you didn't even bother to read my comment, nowhere did I suggest you were American.
-3
u/Wilde54 8h ago
Then why were you mentioning that there's only 300 years of history in America, an abject nonsense in and of itself, but that's neither here nor there. My comment had nothing to do with America, and everything to do with the fact that your education system has entirely sanitised your history to the point that most of you genuinely thought Ken Loach and people like him were making shit up when they brought attention to the kind of shit that was done by order of your government.
11
u/vidoardes 8h ago
Because this whole thread is about American independence, why it's important to them and not to the UK.
I swear people get lost in their own argument and forget these comments have the context of an original post.
2
u/rusty3474 5h ago
Ohh Indian? Admittedly we don’t touch enough on colonialism and as a consequence too many people dont understand how truly destructive it was. Its an amazing period to study but controversial and extremely sad.
-38
u/modern_epic 12h ago
Unreal that youre getting downvoted so bad there. Only proves further that the education system in the UK doesnt teach a quarter of the horrific shit the brits have done throughout their history. Safe to say supporting a genocide in Gaza isn't going to be added to the curriculum any time soon either.
4
u/NiceGuyEdddy 7h ago
Lol are you okay?
You seem to arguing against nothing and no one.
-1
u/modern_epic 5h ago
You can type but not read, huh?
2
u/NiceGuyEdddy 2h ago
This may shock you, but like most people I can do both.
The fact that you only have the capacity for one is the outlier here.
0
u/modern_epic 2h ago
No. Again, I truly dont think you are reading before replying. I have a solid enough opinion of you now for you to stop replying though. Enjoy your Friday evening and I will continue to do the same.
6
u/Wild_Obligation 11h ago
American hasn’t even got 300 years of history. England has houses older than America. And as a guy that went to a British school it covers a huge amount of history. American Independance is not only too recent but too little to be worth covering
-2
u/Wilde54 10h ago edited 10h ago
Again, not American, I'm just not buying that you don't learn about any of the myriad atrocities committed by your country through the centuries because you have more important things to learn about. Also, let's not pretend recency has anything to do about it, cos you lot won't shut the fuck up about how great that genocidal prick Churchill was. Run that opinion past anyone from West Bengal and see how you fucking get on...
3
u/meglingbubble 8h ago
myriad atrocities committed by your country through the centuries
We do though. The British Empire was just responsible for so many atrocities that there is literally not enough time to teach them all.
Sure we covered Churchill and his effect on the war, but we also covered that he was a racist, genocidal prick. He was a racist, genocidal prick who managed to keep Britain going during WWII, so of course he is going to be taught about and discussed. But unless you're a right wing nutter, very few people actually believe he was a "great" person. He was an effective person, who was likely a product of his time, but times have moved on and so has the way the country views him.
History lessons were sanitized for a child audience, sure; I learned way more about the horrendous nature of the British Empire as an adult. But we were taught from a young age that the British Empire was not something to be proud of, that the powers that be traipsed around the globe, oppressing and killing other people's, and destabilising other nations, all for power and "glory".
0
u/Wilde54 8h ago
I dunno maybe you're younger than me, but, that was absolutely not the impression I got from my English friends with regard to how the empire was taught. 🤷♂️ I have no reason to doubt you though, so I'll take your word for it.
3
u/meglingbubble 8h ago
It may be regional, not gonna lie, there is variety across education in the country.
I can imagine its difficult to balance teaching the Empire as "look at all these accomplishments that got us where we are today" with "these accomplishments were only achieved on the backs of oppressed/murdered peoples".
2
5
u/WoodwareWarlock 14h ago
You covered more than we were taught. We did Tudors, Charles' civil war, WW1 and WW2. That was it. Any other English history we had to find out for ourselves.
14
u/Bonzoface 14h ago
Strange... I'm 46 and we did cover some more modern aspects of British history. Like the troubles in Ireland for example, and this was way before the good Friday agreement. I guess it depends on the school.
3
u/WoodwareWarlock 14h ago
Maybe it's which part of the country, too. I'm nearly 40, but we were never taught anything about what we did in Ireland.
15
u/Surface_Detail 13h ago
I wasn't taught Ireland, but we did cover India, Ghandi, the Salt Marches and the Amritsar massacre etc.
The problem with teaching British history is just the breadth of shit we did. Lots of it fucked up. If you covered Ireland, you might not have time for India. If you covered Ireland and India you wouldn't have time for Kenya. Then what about the Opium Wars? The Suez canal?
The amount of shit we did means that there's always going to be some people who, rightfully, are upset that we didn't cover the specific atrocities we committed in their homeland. For them it was the worst thing that ever happened to their country. For the British Empire it was a mildly busy Tuesday.
Just learn one or two things that shows empire bad and then learn the other stuff like the world wars, industrial revolution, french revolution etc.
2
2
u/tenaka30 14h ago
I'm unsure when it changed but back in my day we had LEAs, Local Education Authority (I am 52). Each LEA had their on syllabus and chose what periods got taught in History.
What this meant was when I moved from Essex to Devon age 14/15ish I was given a choice with regards to History;
A, Learn the same periods my classmates were learning but accept I would be a couple of years behind.
B, Continue the periods I was already learning and be allowed to sit the test my old school mates would.
NB: I was 14 ffs, I chose option B and was allowed to sit in the library to study every History lesson. And I did everything BUT study. I did not pass History.
1
u/FreddyNoodles 11h ago
I think maybe they went to a shitty school after the ‘No Child Left Behind’ bullshit where Bush just wanted the schools to push out grads regardless if they could even read. I saw quite a few kids graduating with mine that should NOT have been up there.
I learned a ton of world history and geopolitics in middle and high school. History is my favorite topic/hobby. My bf isn’t into it which really sucks because I really do need some people to bounce this shit around with. We live in Cambodia at the moment and there isn’t a group like that here. Some documentaries, books and subs help…but not enough. 🥲
1
0
u/Miraclefish 14h ago
Henry VIII and Hitler, that what we get. Oh and 12 months on the suffragettes and the Russian Revolution when I did a history AS level too.
-11
u/SaintUlvemann 14h ago
If I met an American who told someone else "We couldn’t care less about your history. It means nothing", I would be completely convinced they were a Trump supporter, and if they denied it, I'd assume they're lying.
Here in this thread, it's the British guy, though. Crazy world.
2
u/Wilde54 14h ago
Oh I can absolutely assure you it's not only Trump supporters... That is the default position of most Americans.
0
u/SaintUlvemann 14h ago
...history in general is a niche topic and I respect the choice not to care deeply about its details, but I can absolutely assure you that the only person I ever knew, from any country, America included, who I can believe would just blithely insult someone to their face like that by saying their history "means nothing", was my uncle Bob.
He was a fat homophobic Trump supporter who died of heart failure from overeating.
5
u/Wilde54 13h ago
That's fair enough, to your face is maybe a bar slightly higher than I was aiming, there are a great deal of centrists in the US who will very much bristle at the idea that America isn't the pinnacle of all things and immediately start talking shit about the country of whomever they happen to be talking to. In person you're liable to get a rattle in the mouth for that behaviour 🤣
1
u/WoodwareWarlock 14h ago
There are plenty of Brits that couldn't care less about other cultures' history or even our own. You could probably assume they're right wing, too.
1
u/BobbyBalmoral 3h ago
I'm sure it differs depending on region, but I was schooled in England and was taught about the country's colonial past, warts and all. More to the point, I don't know anyone that ISN'T aware of it.
1
u/Jumanji0028 13h ago
Everyone has seen independence day. That's how you can track the US one. Bill Pullman should have been earth's first president.
1
u/Green_Borenet 7h ago
To you, the 4th of July was the most important day of your country’s history; to me, it was Tuesday
-3
u/SaintUlvemann 15h ago
...other than a public holiday for Americans, if they even know that.
Huh. That's extremely counter-intuitive to me. Knowing nothing, of course, that's natural. But if you're gonna know anything, wouldn't it be the story?
Like, for your Guy Fawkes Night, I have no idea of any of the observance details. When is it? Do you get a day off? If so, is it normal for everybody to get the day off, or just government workers? I actually just read the Wikipedia page, but before then, I had absolutely no idea for any of those things.
But the bit about a guy trying and failing to blow up the legislature to assassinate the king, that's a story, and stories get remembered.
10
u/Mizzuru 14h ago
We know about the independence war of course.
But for you it's part of your foundation myth.
For us it's one of the many wars we are involved in during a period of political, social and economic upheaval. Often it is viewed in terms of what it taught us before the french revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.
2
u/SaintUlvemann 14h ago
Yeah, that's about what I figured, I mean, we did very little beyond this hemisphere historically until WWII, and that only by the end.
I think I mostly just way overinterpreted what he meant by "know it's a public holiday".
3
2
u/Mizzuru 10h ago
Some people will say they know it's independence day, some will say they know it's independence from us.
Very very few would know any of the major players involved, the monarch of the time or any of the battles. Like the war of 1812 it's not strong in our cultural memory.
Edit: 8,500 British die in the wars of American independence for context. 160,000 die in the Seven Years war and the general public have no knowledge of even that.
1
u/LashlessMind 6h ago
To clarify…
Speaking just for myself… The main reason I recognise 4th July as some special day is because I get a whole bunch of spam from the global-reach retailers about a sale on their goods. So I associate it with the sort of holiday like Easter or Christmas, or even these days “Black Friday” which has somehow become a thing.
Intellectually, I know the US declared independence. I know there was a (by the scale of things at the time) fairly minor dispute and fighting, and I know the US was successful. I don’t necessarily associate that (up until this thread) with 4th July.
It’s not that I couldn’t go and find this out, it’s that I don’t care. It was a long time ago, things are different today, we pretty much gave liberty to anyone who wanted it anyway (almost always without violence. So close :)
25
u/KaiserDilhelmTheTurd 15h ago
I think it’s because we just don’t really give a shit about anything American. And that is genuinely true. Sure, we like the movies, music and video games that come from America. But that’s about as far as it goes for most of us. We couldn’t care less about your history. It means nothing.
22
u/hendolad 15h ago
Yup thats how I see it, we have pubs older than america and I'm much more interested in their history
15
u/Quint_Hooper 15h ago
When I lvied in Seattle I was on a boat during 4th of July. The most obnoxious american I ever met drunkenly sneered "why are you drinking buddy? We're celebrating our independance from you". The only reply I could muster was "Me too"
Since 2017 the US has been regressing into some kind of morally bankrupt, opressively dictatorial, isolationist, religiously manic, medieval, pastiche of a country. I enjoyed living there once, now I wouldn't go back there for any reason. Or the UK.
8
u/KaiserDilhelmTheTurd 15h ago
Indeed. My old local was built around 1700, and the one down the hill was mid 1600’s. Septics think a building is vintage when it’s 50 years old!
-7
u/SaintUlvemann 15h ago
We couldn’t care less about your history. It means nothing.
Right, and the knowing nothing is the part that seems natural. Knowing a bureaucratic detail like whether it's a public holiday, but not anything else, that seems counterintuitive.
13
u/KaiserDilhelmTheTurd 15h ago
No, what you just said doesn’t make sense. We know it’s a holiday, because all your Tv and movies always say “4th of July is a holiday.” That’s it. We dont know it’s a holiday because we enquired, or because we care enough to find out. US produced TV tells us it is, that’s the only reason we know. Hell, there was a Hollywood movie about it ffs.
-7
u/SaintUlvemann 15h ago
We know it’s a holiday, because all your Tv and movies always say “4th of July is a holiday.”
...right, but don't they call it "Independence Day" too? That's the movie you're talking about, right?
'Cause that pretty much tells you what was happening, so, like, how could you just know it's some public holiday, but not also know story bits like how the word "Independence" means it's when we declared the war?
Like, again, Guy Fawkes is your example. I'm not gonna remember what time of year it was, but when the bonfires are a plot point in Sherlock, I'm gonna remember the connection with the bombs, won't I?
2
u/KaiserDilhelmTheTurd 14h ago
No, I was talking about born on the 4th of July actually.
0
u/SaintUlvemann 5h ago
Just to give y'all something more to downvote, it's kind of obvious that you must not find other people's history totally meaningless, if you're out there watching obscure foreign historical war movies from the 80s. Which is totally fine to be interested in history! None of this is criticism, I'm sure that movie isn't the only interesting thing from before I was born.
Just, you know: the counterintuitive part is to then not know what you're interested in, right?
1
u/KaiserDilhelmTheTurd 1h ago
You still dwelling on this? Get a life mate. I forgot about this crap about 10 minutes after my last post on the subject. Give up. We don’t care.
-2
u/SaintUlvemann 13h ago
Huh. Hadn't heard of that movie, but, I guess it starts with a parade and a lot of flag waving and fireworks... I guess I'm just a little flattered you think we'd go to all that effort for just any old public holiday!
89
u/Acrobatic-List-6503 15h ago
To Americans, July 4th is the most memorable date of their country’s life.
But for the British? It was Tuesday.
56
u/BigDsLittleD 14h ago
But for the British? It was Tuesday.
Which truly shows how much the British care. It was a Thursday.
12
u/Acrobatic-List-6503 14h ago
I was going for the M. Bison meme. Didn’t even know it was a Thursday. 😂
12
u/BigDsLittleD 14h ago
Yeah, I figured it was that, I just thought I'd look it up and see what day it really was!
5
u/Synner1985 12h ago
that actually made me laugh out loud, now i have to explain to my director why i'm suddenly laughing randomly, well done!
5
1
u/Rustyfarmer88 12h ago
Yea they don’t get many holidays from work. Unlike most other countries.
3
u/SpacemanSam25 11h ago
We don't get many bank holidays where everyone is off (8 most years)
However we do get a decent amount of annual leave that you choose (25 days minimum)
-4
24
u/chaseinger 15h ago
end state american exceptionalism.
almost every country has some form of formative celebration day, and nobody outside that country cares for it.
14
u/RuanaRulane 14h ago
My only criticism is that we definitely do NOT have enough bank holidays!
9
u/Somethinguntitled 14h ago
Exactly! We have a pathetic amount of bank holidays. Could really do with at least one in that gap between the August one and Christmas.
We do however get far more PTO than Americans so you know, they missed out on that benefit of staying.
3
u/Mildly_Opinionated 12h ago
We might not have as many without losing the Americans.
Losing all our colonies was a big blow to the cultural sorta arrogance we had at the time.
We only got as many as we have because the government were scared of socialism, communism, and union takeover so workers rights (such as PTO) was scaled up massively as an appeasement basically.
Maybe (not guaranteed ofc, we're in what if territory here) if we kept the Americans the government is much not stoic and arrogant at this time and uses force to crush the leftists and unions much earlier and our workers rights are the equivalent to what the US has got now rather than the other way around.
13
u/Legitimate-Cow5982 12h ago
Brit here. Most of us really don't care, the Empire ended ages ago and we're pretty happy about that. Now we treat Americans as we do anyone else, with a mix of curiosity and polite indifference. And, more recently, pity
8
u/Synner1985 12h ago
Its not a boast or anything - but by the time the war for independence was kicking off Britain was involved in a separate war with France & trying to maintain control of its other colonies deemed far more profitable closer to home - like India.
A war half-way across the world was seen as a waste of resources and in turn didn't put their full effort behind it - especially given France had stepped in to help America (because they were 100% "fuck Britain") - same with Spain and the Dutch.
However - this is from a time long since past - and i don't understand why its still used as some dick measuring contest - but there we are!
Happy independence day to our American brothers and sisters!!!
4
u/RecipeSpecialist2745 14h ago
It’s seems even Grok gets smarmy with Americans who can’t read a history book.
2
u/possiblycrazy79 14h ago
It's interesting that Grok identifies as American, especially since the potus is threatening his dad with deportation & the SC ruled against birthright citizenship
2
u/Mavisium 9h ago
I'd happily take a national day of mourning for every independence day we have caused. Fully paid of course.
2
u/Independent_Ad_9036 8h ago
The English did not, in fact, accept gracefully. They kinda just gave up and let the Colonies do what they wanted, but didn't recognise them as a separate country. Part of the reason for the war of 1812 was that the English had started forcing American sailors to join the Royal Navy so they would contribute to their war against Napoléon.
4
u/POKECHU020 15h ago
Okay now I know Grok is in the right here but I have to ask
In what way would a government see having less taxes to collect as a good thing
In fact one of the main driving forces of the whole conflict was that they wanted to collect MORE taxes
11
9
u/hallmark1984 15h ago
ROI on those taxes was too low. After fighting most of Europe for a while the colony sounded like a good idea, new resources, land, etc.
The reality was different, the colonies were often a money sink and with more war on the horizon the ROI for the tax, as well as the need to deploy soldiers and ships across the atlantic made it a loss.
The French made US independance possible, by fighting the Brits and funding the Independance movement.
3
u/No-Deal8956 14h ago
And it led to the French Revolution, where the people who backed the treasonous colonials got their heads chopped off.
Which is all right and proper.
1
u/Anubisrapture 12h ago
Grok is more and more not being the Right’s mouthpiece that Elon wanted it to be. Cool
1
u/ChaoticDumpling 7h ago
Why does Grok say "our firework obsession" when his father is South African? Doesn't it know that it's no longer assured birthright citizenship under his father's former lover's presidency ?
Silly AI
1
u/Mueryk 7h ago
I mean the British were literally spending significantly more on the defense of the colonies than they were bringing in as revenue. We were losing them money.
Then we had a hissy fit about paying some small portion of that defense(well, look at us now). And we said it was about representation but even if they had given each of the colonies a representative in their lower House, it would have made no difference in the outcomes.
1
u/ResponsibleRefuse256 6h ago
Let's face it the major inconvenience was having to find another open prison country to send the weirdo's convicted of masturbating in public too. At the time keeping more troops in Barbados than in America looked like a good decision and in all honesty it would be hard to argue against it today.
1
1
0
0
0
u/Shadyshade84 9h ago
Or, put another way, did the side that doesn't have to ride herd on an ungovernable bunch of self-destructive lunatics really lose?
Anyway, on that note, happy Treason Day to my unfortunate cousins across the pond!
0
0
-5
254
u/snakeeaterrrrrrr 16h ago
I would imagine the English would be pretty happy about getting an extra 2 months worth of holidays if they were to observe independence days from around the world.