Know Your Historical Events

Education in the United States has one constant: everybody is always declaring that we're terrible at it. Whether it's falling behind the Japanese (a completely random sidebar here - that whole "the Japanese go to school 220 days a year and we only do 180, so we must be doing worse" argument that I heard nankaimo [sorry, I just had to use that there because I just couldn't think of the English term for a minute {that term is over and over again}] during my time in high school is absolutely irrelevant. The Japanese do go to school that many days a year, but Saturdays are not a full day of education in the classical US sense. On top of that, while their education system may help in things like math, where exactness is paramount, it suppresses values like individuality. But I digress...) or worrying about whether our education is enough for the future, we tend to be worrywarts. I came across a test that has been given to students in college by a group who are trying to show that we're not great at history, and according to the test results, they're right. You can access the test right here (60 questions, if you're curious about how long it will take) and it's a pretty good overview of historical basics. I got 86.67% and would have done better if I had paid attention to a couple of the questions. Some were definite misses, but I would put my history knowledge as tested by this group right around an A-. The interesting thing is that even at vaunted Harvard, the school average is a D+ (69%), and this is a group of students who are paying nearly $25000/year. Take the quiz and see if you're smarter than the average Harvard attendee.