Be Excellent To Each Other

In the Grauniad today, Simon Schama suggests six events in British history everyone should know:


From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/201 ... ry-schools

So, today's 'fun' game - what six events do you think matter most?

My feeble attempt, in no particular order:

- 1066. Natch.
- The Magna Carta
- Henry VIII's break from Rome
- The Civil Wars and the aftermath
- The Glorious Revolution of 1688
- Joining the EEC in 1973

Any others?

The launch of the Dreamcast?

How about the multiple suffrage acts? Without those we'd still be ruled by an elitist bunch of poshos endlessly feathering their nests and giving their mates and school chums a leg up.

license to print bananas.

The schism

The CUStastrophy

Dudley's Transparency Trauma

DavPaz creating the Ammo thread

Grim... paying the £12 (date tbc)

Considering what we've ended up with, I'd say the colonisation of the new world and/or the Declaration of Independance were pretty important.

???

Yes, boots.


Repeal of the Corn Laws?

Discovering Iron
Discovering Gravity
Splitting the Atom
Space Travel
Faster then Light Travel
Wormholes.

Discovering how to make a pick
Discovering Iron
Canal Travel
Building to the top of the world.
The Swan Dive.
Portals.

Good one. That and fire. Perhaps the wheel too.

The problem I guess is we tend to forget about the ancient times. I don't know if those 300 really change Western history? Was the fall of the Roman Empire the worst thing to have happened to civilisation?
Also, these 6 events tend to lead to broad themes ('The World Wars', 'Industrialisation', 'the growth of Parliament', 'the rise and fall of ') rather than specific days.

Worst thing to happen to Civilisation in Western Europe? Maybe, but other places were civilizing quite happily whilst the Franks and Saxons were cheerfully killing each other. In 476 Constantinople was still perfectly fine, and India was entering a golden age of mathematics and astronomy.

History is one subject I am terribly ignorant about and so I doubt I could give the dates to any of the events mentioned in the first post (or later posts)
I will try and think of important historical events if I can.

Hore Riding
Philosophy
Modern Armor
Advanced Flight
Nuclear Fusion
Future Technology

jsut to add, in the netherlands we had a whole "50 most important things regarding history/sports/science/ etc craze,

this is the history one, in english
http://entoen.nu/en

'The Spread of Chritianity' is in there; some kind of religious cheese, presumably. A great boon indeed.

No mention of the creation of the Republic of United Provinces, or the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1814, but they've made sure to include 'Country Mansions'. What an odd list.

I blame the Walloons, with their bonkers lists. They're so crazy!

well they did a bit of a different way, as i think is don e a bit in your six jkey dates, as they are using "windows" to events, rather than dates, and a window is often a personal story related to an event.. like william of orange to talk about the dutch republic (even though there is a separate republic article) or anne frank about the second world war..

I'm not sure many people would regard the anglo-dutch treaty as such an important milestone, non scholars would not know about it, and colonisation itself is covered in other windows (indonesian independence max havelaar)

but there was a lot of discussion when the list was published "more women" "more surinamese" "more sports" etc..