I've always pondered, we learn in school about how we gained our independence and war, yadda yadda yadda.

what i wonder is how do the teachers explain the war in england?

or in france?

just askin.

ramos

Maybe they just realized we were too much of a pain in the arse to try to control, and the hassle just wasn't worth it in the long run

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That's not far from what the historians say. 

I was taught that the loss of America was because supporting our troops there was a logistical nightmare. And that is basically what it was. By the time messages had arrived in Britain and then responses were sent back to America everything had changed completely. Shipping troops out took weeks not hours. It was a war we could never win, however I do feel that the Americans were quite right on "No taxation without representation".

History - are we still allowed to teach that in school or have we got to the point where we might upset someone if we talk about any conflict.

Really towards the end of my school time we learnt about mediaeval British history, WWI, and the Holocaust, which seems to have preference over anything else that happened between 1939 -1945 (which I don't have a problem with - I just have a problem with people knowing nothing else about the last great conflict in world history and the apparent total denia of WWII ever happening in the curriculum)

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Much of the history I was taught at school was based on wartime propaganda (this was not many years after the end of WWII), jingoistic nationalism (we still had the remains of a once-great British Empire) or simply not true. I was always fascinated by ancient history but I learned a very valuable lesson when the world-famous Piltdown Man was exposed as a hoax while I was still at school. They consequently had to rewrite the text books & after that I took everything I was told with a very large pinch of salt. This gave me the cynical attitude I still have today.

Piltdown is not far from where I was brought up & still live. Read all about it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/03/piltdown_man/html/default.stm

PS. This would have been a better screen name for me than Hagar.

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Thank you thank you thank you. For being the first to point that out properly.

It's totally romanticized here, and although it's an interesting and important history, most of us are a little too smug about the whole "birthplace of democracy" thing (which is not really true). And  very few Americans seem to understand that most of our "Revolutionary War Heroes" were in fact British- many of them did not want to sever ties completely with the Empire (Benjamin  Franklin is a good example), despite being ready to fight for what they wanted from the government.
To me, having bothered to supplement the cartoon version fed to me as a youngster with other sources of info,I think the most significant and worthwhile thing about that war was that it allowed this continent to provide fertile ground for the latest ideas in democracy that were struggling to take root in Europe at that time. That form of government hasn't exactly reached perfection here (and most likely never will), but it gathered strength here, rippled back outward and changed the world- mostly for the better, IMHO.
But I'm no expert; old Thomas Paine could explain it better.

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Did you even read anything from my link?

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Katahu could equally ask if you read it to the end:
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Of course, in his comparison of George Washington to Vo Nguyen Giap, Britain is the U.S. and its (at the time) colonies (vying as the United States) VietNam. 8)

In my humble opinion Doug the history books should be rewritten so that folks get the truth and not the hollywood version.

Of course that may not sell or make many movies LOL

The truth rarely does.

A lot of people do not know that a good many of the British Regiments serving in the colonies at that time were Colonial Regiments (India) for example and hired German units.
A large part of the Regular British Army was fighting in Europe against one of the worse dictators of all time, the little fat fellow "Napoleon".
Thank God he got his but kicked by one of the Greatest Generals of all time.

In conclusion, the All-Powerful Red Coats lost the war anyways to a bunch of farmers.  
Not really and to make the statement correct you should have said "British farmers" LOL

If we look at the last World War, World War Two, one major reasons the Allies won is the "Idea of Freedom".
We the people of the free world did not want to be enslaved, that idea pushed not only the men and women in uniform but the civilian population as well to feats never before seen, envisioned or imagined by Axis military and civilian leaders.

That "Idea" and of course logistics and firepower and yes having one of the Greatest Statesman that ever walked on the face of the earth, "Sir Winston Churchill"
brought forth victory to the Allies.

So in real life if you keep the idea of freedom and you have the will to support it you will be unbeatable.

Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug

Your absolutely right...I have my evil people mixed up. LOL

Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug
P.S. They have so many dam wars over there it is hard to keep track of.  I am still waiting for the 100 years war to end.

You are absolutely right Doug!

It is strange years after the American Revolution they had a Civil War.  I say no more on that one.

What I do find interesting is during the American Civil War men lined up to fire volleys of led at each other and attack in frontal assaults.

You would have thought that we the Canadians, the British, the French and the Germans etc. would have learnt a lesson from the American Civil War during World War One.
Frontal assaults just do not work against dug in troops and artillery.

Yet, again we try it in the Second World War as well.

I know Politicians start wars and Generals,  Admirals and Air Chief Marshalls end them BUT you would think someone would pick up a history book on battles and read it.

I think during any frontal assault the Politician should be dressed in red, placed on a large white horse next to the General and lead the assault.
That would place an end to frontal assaults before they begin.

Well I think I might be slightly off topic so I shall quit rambling on. LOL

Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug

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It was

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Umm... not exactly.

President Thomas Jefferson, attempting to force the warring European nations to respect America's neutral rights, enacted the embargo act in 1807.  It barred any ships from exporting goods to foerign nations from American ports.  This also effectively ended imports (there were two more acts which weakened the Embargo Act passed in the last days of Jefferson's presidency, not necissarily worth mentioning).

The War of 1812 occured largely because of a change in philosophies when Madison took office.  Jefferson believed that as soon as the Napoleonic wars ended, the European powers would let America alone.  Madison, on the other hand, believed that the continual violations of America's neutrality were part of a bigger plan by Britain to knock America off as a trading rival.

While all this was going on, the European powers simply laughed at America's idealism.  They believed that when superpowers were at war, lesser nations (such as America) should choose a side and be done with it, not ramble about neutral rights and morality.  In it's first few years, the Embargo Act did more damage to America then to any European nations, which quickly found new markets in Canada and South America.

Eventually, Madison and the republican controlled house and senate would stand no more.  They believed that a swift invasion of British Canada would bring victory.  Ironically, as America declared war, Britain had finally decided to give in and reopen trade.

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True, but irrelevant.  Madison was back in the White House two days later after the Brits were defeated at Baltimore.  The burning never served any strategic purpose.

btw, I'm taking an AP US History course rigth now, we do 500 years of history in extreme detail, so I know this stuff pretty well

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I don't get it.  Not sure if the link was meant for me, but everything on that page (and I mean everything) we've covered.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the French War against America.

After the end of the "French and Indian War"  The French started conniving to retake the lost territories, including French Canada... (and I'm not too sure they've ever stopped completely trying to retake French Canada).  Technically, they stopped when Napoleon was forced to sell Louisiana to the Americans (not that that stopped attempts later to retake it) for much needed cash to pursue its European Wars...

I tend to think that the War for American Independence  could have been solved satisfactorily by negotiations between the British and the Colonials, had it not been for French activisim and money.

FOr that matter, French connivance reached such a point that the delegates sent by the US to negotiate a settlement with Britain (conveniently brokered by the peace loving French) were *ordered* to reveal their complete instructions to the French, and to not negotiated with the British without getting the approval of the French, and whatever the French negotiated with the British - even if that meant the dismemberment of the Colonies - they had to agree.  Only the fact that some of the delegates went behind the French backs and reached agreement with the British saved the sovereignty of the fledgling nation.

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The motto on New Hampshire license plates is, "Live Free or Die," which is an  excerpt of a statement in a letter sent to Bennington, Vermont, from General John Stark (New Hampshire Militia) 30 years after the war. Bennington was commemorating the defeat of a Hessian force by combined units of the "Green Mountain Boys" (from what is now Vermont) and the New Hampshire militia. Not much seems to be mentioned of this in the history books but it was the reason that Saratoga, beleaguered and fresh troops and supplies now captured, was surrendered.

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I wouldn't put it quite like that. Remember our king was German back in those days and Britain ruled a fair whack of what would one day be northwest Germany.