The History Test

Just a brief one, since I'm travelling at the moment but am also feeling guilty about not having said much for a while. (It also doesn't help that no one has done anything funny or noteworthy at the museum for a little while. Come on, people!).

What I want to do is try to figure out a reasonable baseline for judging history awareness.

The initial entry standard, developed based on multiple years of experience, is to establish whether the candidate knows which came first: the Vikings or the Romans?

Answer: The Romans, with a roughly four-century gap between them.* Hopefully, this did not surprise you, since you are actually on this blog of all places.

A vast number of people, due to the prevalent notion of "history as progress" (a topic for another time, although see the Telescope as well), as well as a profound absence of knowledge regarding either period, really**, will say the Vikings were first, however. Whether it's actually a majority or no, I haven't counted, but it's LOADS (not to mention the people who want to know whether the Vikings are "Bronze Age").

Anyhow, this basic standard will let you know what kind of conversation you can then have--probably a good idea to work with the big picture here. But it also got me wondering what is a fair expectation of peoples' knowledge. When are you allowed to despair?***

So, I've been exploring the standard of the Millennium-by-Century--in part to counteract the effects of the Telescope and make sure people can get at least a general sense of change-over-time. So, what the Millennium-by-Century quiz does is ask, very simply, for the candidate to name a significant person, event, phenomenon, or trend, from each of the 10 centuries of the last millennium (i.e. back to the year 1000). Just ten things from history. And knowing where, within 100 years, they fall.

As a rough guide to the level of precision we're looking at here, here are my answers off the top of my head (they're different every time I do this):
20th century: First and Second World Wars
19th century: Industrial Revolution
18th century: Enlightenment
17th century: (Most of the) rule of Louis XIV
16th century: Rule of Mary Tudor
15th century: End of the Hundred Years' War
14th century: Breton War of Succession
13th century: (Most of the) building of Chartres Cathedral (in its current incarnation)
12th century: So many Cistercians
11th century: Norman Conquest of England

Obviously, my answers are very Euro-centric, because that's what I do; they're also mostly political, because again that's a lot of what I do (though honestly I consider myself a social historians). But the choices are infinite. It's really hard to get a wrong answer, unless you just simply don't know your history. (I had wanted to bring it back all the way to the year 0, but to be honest I am not particularly good with the late Roman Empire--so I can't expect that from others. Use for bonus points?)

Is this fair? I think so. And then people can know what they should look into!

In other history-quiz news, I don't regularly read Hark A Vagrant, but her 1066 quiz is quite a marvel.

*This chronology is from the English perspective. Let's keep things simple.
**I mean, all the people who say they would quite like to live in the Roman period (or 'Roman times' as it's commonly known here), are obviously only able to picture the smallest, most elite segment of society! But this, too, is a topic for another time.
***Please don't actually. In reality this is a great teaching moment! Help them learn! It's fun!