American History in Two Versions
Having enjoyed stormwreath 's presentation of British history, I thought it would be fun to write up the American version. As it happens, I need to give two versions.
Version 1: (What I learned in grade school, with a bit of extrapolation going forward):
* Christoper Columbus decided to prove that the world was round to backwards Spaniards and bumped into America along the way.
* In order to escape persecution by Europeans, some brave people got on a boat called the Mayflower and sailed to Massachusetts, where some nice Indians taught them how to grow corn by planting fish heads, and they all celebrated in a big feast which we call Thanksgiving.
* King George imposed taxes on the colonists which was a Very Bad Thing. Sam Adams threw tea overboard in protest. The British came to suppress us. Paul Revere sounded the alarm. The minutemen fought back very bravely and were much smarter because they didn't wear bright red targets and march in easily shot-at ranks.
* We declared Independence on July 4, 1776, which is the day freedom was introduced to the world. We have a liberty bell to prove it, though it does have a crack in it.
* George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and then took over the army and we defeated the British. The British tried to mess with us again a few decades later but we beat them again. Then they stopped bothering us and became our best friends when we saved their bacon a few wars later.
* There was a guy named Daniel Boone who shot a bear. Or maybe it was Davy Crockett.
* The Mexicans surrounded a bunch of us at the Alamo and killed everybody and we are never going to forget this, though nobody really knows what any of that was about. Someone sank the Maine sometime for some reason and we aren't going to forget that either.
* Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and fought a huge war to make sure they were freed. He learned to read by firelight and was a very honest guy.
* A bunch of people in covered wagons moved West to settle the frontier where there were a lot of buffalo, and some Indians who kept insisting on shooting at us.
* We won. Our country goes from sea to shining sea.
* Europe got into a flaming mess in the early 1900's, but we went to sort it out and got the war to end on Armistice Day.
* The stock market collapsed in 1929 and a bunch of people jumped out of windows. There was a big depression and everybody lost their jobs and had to live in clusters of tents called Hoovervilles. There was a big dust bowl in the middle of the country and a lot of locusts.
* Hitler tried to take over Europe. The British tried to appease him. We went and kicked his behind and won the war. We also had to go fight the Japanese who bombed us at Pearl Harbor which is a day that will be forever infamous. We beat them too.
* We fought the communists in Korea. Then we fought them some more in Vietnam. If we'd have been willing to bomb them a bit more it would have been OK, but we didn't and so we got defeated. Happily we got our mojo back and brought freedom to Grenada, Panama, Kuwait and Iraq. We prop up the Unitied Nations and pretty much make the world a better place and nobody is not nearly grateful enough for our efforts, but that's OK. We are the land of the free and the home of the brave and we win a lot of medals at the Olympics.
Version II: (learned in high school)
* We were founded by a bunch of rich white guys who hypocritically declared themselves free while writing a consitution that only counted black slaves as 3/5 of a person.
* We began our project of killing all of the natives starting with the ones who helped us out in Massachusetts. We killed millions of them by shooting them, starving them and giving them blankets infected with small pox. There was the trail of tears and Wounded Knee and we took over all their land and made them live on reservations where we still keep treating them very badly.
* We fought a big civil war over economic interests. The slaves were freed, but then we made them all into sharecroppers and lynched them and passed Jim Crow laws. We finally got Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement and that started us towards progress, but we are still a very racist country.
* We fought a war with Mexico to steal a bunch of their land. Then they had to become migrant workers and we treated them very badly.
* We fought a war with Spain to maintain some colonial interests.
* We kept sending the marines into central America to defend the interests of the banana companies.
* We did get to fight against Hitler who is the most evil man who ever lived and that was a good thing. But then we turned right around and started the cold war and got into a nuclear arms race that would probably destroy the world some day. We also had McCarthyism and persecuted a lot of people.
* Our country got taken over by the military-industrial complex and our government lies to us a lot.
* We destroyed Vietnam in our zeal to end communism and just made everything over there terrible. We set the stage for the Khmer Rouge and more genocide. Nixon is a very evil president who had a lot to do with all of this and there's no tree high enough from which to hang him and it's a pity that all he had to do was resign from office and live in disgrace.
Version 1: (What I learned in grade school, with a bit of extrapolation going forward):
* Christoper Columbus decided to prove that the world was round to backwards Spaniards and bumped into America along the way.
* In order to escape persecution by Europeans, some brave people got on a boat called the Mayflower and sailed to Massachusetts, where some nice Indians taught them how to grow corn by planting fish heads, and they all celebrated in a big feast which we call Thanksgiving.
* King George imposed taxes on the colonists which was a Very Bad Thing. Sam Adams threw tea overboard in protest. The British came to suppress us. Paul Revere sounded the alarm. The minutemen fought back very bravely and were much smarter because they didn't wear bright red targets and march in easily shot-at ranks.
* We declared Independence on July 4, 1776, which is the day freedom was introduced to the world. We have a liberty bell to prove it, though it does have a crack in it.
* George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and then took over the army and we defeated the British. The British tried to mess with us again a few decades later but we beat them again. Then they stopped bothering us and became our best friends when we saved their bacon a few wars later.
* There was a guy named Daniel Boone who shot a bear. Or maybe it was Davy Crockett.
* The Mexicans surrounded a bunch of us at the Alamo and killed everybody and we are never going to forget this, though nobody really knows what any of that was about. Someone sank the Maine sometime for some reason and we aren't going to forget that either.
* Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and fought a huge war to make sure they were freed. He learned to read by firelight and was a very honest guy.
* A bunch of people in covered wagons moved West to settle the frontier where there were a lot of buffalo, and some Indians who kept insisting on shooting at us.
* We won. Our country goes from sea to shining sea.
* Europe got into a flaming mess in the early 1900's, but we went to sort it out and got the war to end on Armistice Day.
* The stock market collapsed in 1929 and a bunch of people jumped out of windows. There was a big depression and everybody lost their jobs and had to live in clusters of tents called Hoovervilles. There was a big dust bowl in the middle of the country and a lot of locusts.
* Hitler tried to take over Europe. The British tried to appease him. We went and kicked his behind and won the war. We also had to go fight the Japanese who bombed us at Pearl Harbor which is a day that will be forever infamous. We beat them too.
* We fought the communists in Korea. Then we fought them some more in Vietnam. If we'd have been willing to bomb them a bit more it would have been OK, but we didn't and so we got defeated. Happily we got our mojo back and brought freedom to Grenada, Panama, Kuwait and Iraq. We prop up the Unitied Nations and pretty much make the world a better place and nobody is not nearly grateful enough for our efforts, but that's OK. We are the land of the free and the home of the brave and we win a lot of medals at the Olympics.
Version II: (learned in high school)
* We were founded by a bunch of rich white guys who hypocritically declared themselves free while writing a consitution that only counted black slaves as 3/5 of a person.
* We began our project of killing all of the natives starting with the ones who helped us out in Massachusetts. We killed millions of them by shooting them, starving them and giving them blankets infected with small pox. There was the trail of tears and Wounded Knee and we took over all their land and made them live on reservations where we still keep treating them very badly.
* We fought a big civil war over economic interests. The slaves were freed, but then we made them all into sharecroppers and lynched them and passed Jim Crow laws. We finally got Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement and that started us towards progress, but we are still a very racist country.
* We fought a war with Mexico to steal a bunch of their land. Then they had to become migrant workers and we treated them very badly.
* We fought a war with Spain to maintain some colonial interests.
* We kept sending the marines into central America to defend the interests of the banana companies.
* We did get to fight against Hitler who is the most evil man who ever lived and that was a good thing. But then we turned right around and started the cold war and got into a nuclear arms race that would probably destroy the world some day. We also had McCarthyism and persecuted a lot of people.
* Our country got taken over by the military-industrial complex and our government lies to us a lot.
* We destroyed Vietnam in our zeal to end communism and just made everything over there terrible. We set the stage for the Khmer Rouge and more genocide. Nixon is a very evil president who had a lot to do with all of this and there's no tree high enough from which to hang him and it's a pity that all he had to do was resign from office and live in disgrace.