In Britain, we do learn at least a little bit about Roosevelt dying before the end of the war and a bit about his differences with Truman (though I admit this may be different in different courses in the UK)
Do Americans learn about Churchill being elected out and Attlee coming in to be prime minister, and how they differed, or is it considered irrelevant
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In my 1990s public education we did not.
As it turns out, WW2 is an enormous subject. We have to be selective about what is instructed to students in the 45 minute daily sessions they have to cover the entirety of American history from Pre-Columbian to modern events in the course of 180 days of 11th grade. Our post-war history was very different from that of Britain.
But yeah, we might also spend 5 minutes covering FDR’s relationship with Churchill and most of us won’t be able to recall it 10 years later upon request.
A lot of us are aware that Churchill was replaced near the end of WWII. Very little is discussed on what effects that may have had in negotiations and such.
>though I admit this may be different in different courses in the UK
Yeah I only remember learning about “life on the home front” in P7 (rationing, blackouts, air raids, evacuees, etc.) and then nothing about the war in S1 and S2 and then I dropped history as a subject.
I’ve never heard that name in my life, and I liked history. Northern Virginia high school education from 04-08.
A someone who was really into WWII history in school, I have to say that I know that Churchill was replaced at the end of WWII but I honestly couldn’t’ve told you who he was replaced by or a single thing about it.
When I was in school, Attlee was mentioned mainly in terms of the Appeasement Policy *before* Churchill.
Mostly we moved on from VE Day to the Pacific theater, and then from that to things like the Marshall Plan.
We didn’t really specifically cover British domestic politics again until Thatcher, but did cover the general dissolution of the British Empire (India, Kenya, etc), in the postwar section.
I’m afraid not. Most attention spent on the final days of WWII in American public education will be focused primarily around the Pacific Theater.
It might be mentioned in passing, but with the Fall of Berlin, Atomic Bombs, and War Crime trials to cover, any details will be assuredly glossed over unless the teacher is particularly interested in British history.
In Hs generally no. In a college course focused on post 1945 Europe, we talked about it
In a high school history course, that might be a little too in the weeds. In a university-level course specifically about WWII, yes, that might be discussed.
No. That sounds a bit like British history, not American history.
The switch from Atlee back to Churchill wasn’t until 1951. You mean the switch from Churchill to Atlee.
But we learned about the Potsdam Conference in terms of what the conference was about, not so much the politics within the other countries. At least at the high school level 50 years ago.
I attended public school in the early 2010s and learned about it, but it was only discussed for 10 minutes or so as part of a larger unit regarding the closing negotiations of WWII.
From who to Churchill?
Pretty sure we were taught that Churchill was PM from the reign of Queen Victoria up until he died and was replaced by Mrs Thatcher.
We heard about it, but we didn’t learn the new guy’s name. Or how Churchill lost the election. It’s not part of the test, it’s more one of the things the teacher throws in because he/she thought it was weird more than anything else.
I imagine you learned about Roosevelt dying and Truman taking over because Truman actually made serious decisions during the war, like dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima.
We learn that Churchill was voted out of office after the war, but we don’t learn much about who replaced him. The only thing I know about Attlee is that he created the NHS, which is something I didn’t learn in school because it only really affected Britain.
Nope, honestly we aren’t taught a lot of UK history just like I’m sure they aren’t taught a lot of US history.
The post war negotiations were an important part of European and cold war history but I’m not sure anything that happened at them would have changed what came next.
I would think that the problem of Roosevelt dying and the decisions Truman had to immediately make were what we focused on.
Not that it was intended as a slight.
Not likely to be discussed given the focus on the topic is an American one. Here in PR it’s even more localized.
From what I remember Chamberlain was more focused on and the transition from him to Churchill, and not much if at all on Attlee coming in. WWII is a big subject and we tend to focus on pivotal events in the whole context of the war, and by that 1945ish time we’re really focused on Potsdam Conference, death of Roosevelt, Truman taking over, atomic bombings, end of the war, and transition into the Cold War and setup for the Korean War.
Towards the end the of the war the focus was on the partition of Germany and the dropping of the bomb. I don’t remember learning about Attlee except when I researched WW2 on my own.
We touched on it a bit as part of postwar Europe. It was such a big victory for Labour and it made for an easy reference point to discuss the transition to postwar Europe.
A typical American high school student is unlikely to learn this unless their teacher has a personal interest in 20th century Britain. From what I understand, Attlee’s coming to power was mostly a matter of the UK’s domestic politics and not something with global implications massive enough to be noticed in a history curriculum in the United States. On the other hand, I would expect British students to learn about Truman because he gave the order to drop the atom bomb, which DID have massive global implications.
Unless you’re talking to a history buff or an Anglophile, I would assume a typical American wouldn’t be able to name a British prime minister other than Churchill, Thatcher, Blair, and whoever might be in charge at the moment (since they’d be on the news).
EDIT: And I’m not trying to belittle British history here. There are plenty of US president’s I wouldn’t expect British students to learn about because they weren’t globally important.
I learned about it in my AP (advanced placement) European history class when I was 16. I doubt it was taught in the “normal” world history classes.
I went to a yee haw school in the late 90’s and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever even heard the name Attlee. Granted it’s been a long time and I was not the most attentive student, but I was in AP history so I would think that I’d probably know about it if it had been taught at all.
From what I recall the brief portion of our time we spent on WWII was basically “So Pearl Harbor got us involved, then there was D-Day, little fuckery on the Russian front (remember these guys, they’ll be important in the 1980s!), then the bombs and that’s all she wrote.”
As I recall, the history curriculum where/when I went to school focused heavily on Columbus, the first pilgrims, the Revolutionary War, the US Civil War, the industrial revolution, and events leading up the Civil Rights Act. The major foreign wars were pretty glossed over. Very, very US-centric.
Bear in mind American primary education is (I think, anyway) a lot less standardized than what I understand you have in the UK. Somebody who went through high school in a wealthy urban setting will probably have a much different experience to report than someone from a poor, rural area. Especially when you go back to the 90’s or earlier, before internet-driven globalization really started taking off and bringing us all onto a more even playing field.
No that’s a little more specific for a high school level history class about the modern world. In college we covered this in a British history class I took, but not much more than a slide on a PowerPoint and a couple minutes of lecture
For me, this was mentioned but not explored.
Certainly anyone studying that period in any detail would. But just an average world history class in high school probably wouldn’t be that detailed.
I actually only have a vague memory of that time so maybe it was talked about and I don’t remember or things are different now. But I don’t think we even got much past World War II in our classes, except perhaps some talk about the Cold War.
The trouble is I have learned a whole lot about that era since I got out of school and it’s really difficult to know what I learned in school versus outside of school.
Also remember we were still in a full on war at that point. That was more important than politics in the UK. In the Battle of Okinawa, which was ongoing during VE Day in Europe (peace declared there), there were 46,000 US casualties.
I remember being taught that he was replaced near the end of the war, but there was no specifics— we moved on pretty rapidly to other topics that were more important
We learned that Churchill was displaced, generally it’s just left at that and we figure everyone in Britain decided to be ungrateful pricks and kick him out after he led them through the war.
If I had to paraphrase like 9th grade text book it would be like
“The British people saw Winston as a great war leader but they didn’t want a war leader in peace time”
After that it would depend on your teacher if they wanted to expand and actually explain.
When class time is an hour gotta pick and choice some times
I’ve never been in a history class that got to WW2, they normally *just* get to appeasement before tests start
But I’d assume the answer is no
If we did I can’t remember. Don’t know what Attlee is.
No
>Do Americans learn about Churchill being elected out and Attlee coming in
In a college/uni-level European history course. Mostly Americans learn that’s when the “socialism came in …” and, well, you know what happened afterward, and all the way through till tomorrow, and that’s as far from irrelevant to America’s post-war existence as anything could possibly be.
I knew he was replaced. But by who or why wasn’t cover.
As others said, not really. However, I remember it being discussed that Churchill lost election in 1945, as an explanation for why pictures of Potsdam are lacking 2/3rds of Yalta. I remember someone in class asking “why did Churchill lose the election since he led the UK to victory?”, leading the teacher to give a few sentences as to why Churchill was seen as the man for war but Attlee the man for peace. When I worked as a teacher, this logical follow-up question in my experience was asked often.
But yes, it’s seen as fairly irrelevant and most forget it even if it was mentioned.
I didn’t see it a lot but as I recall the end of ww2 leads us right into our best economic time and our biggest time for innovation the 50’s which roles right into our civil rights movement. Basically by the time we’re done learning about ww2 we’re about to enter into very important subjects for our country so details about the end of ww2 are not as important here.
No. Usually in high school and college World War II is taught in the last few weeks of school. Time for lectures runs out quickly, so they only focus on the high points and the always end with the nuclear bombs. Sometimes there is time for topics after 1945, so the class needs to move onto those quickly. Finals tend to come soon after.
That happened before the war was over? I thought it was just after.