That raises the question, why would we focus on national history anyways? If we measure events purely by inherent importance, then we should learn stuff from all over the world instead of just our own country or continent, and then all European countries should learn as much about eachothers colonies as about their own. But if we measure the value of events in relation to their relevance to us (in what way did the things and structures we know get formed, and how well do the events fit in our general story?), then how important are the colonies to us?

I don't know to which degree the 'tons of wealth' were actually important to Belgium. My Belgian History textbook only mentions the following things about Congolese finances: 1) In the first years the colony was privately owned by Leopld II (with no official ties to Belgium), so the money went to him personally instead of the state. 2) After the Belgian state bought Congo in 1908, the 'free state' was restored which meant that it was mostly exploited by private international companies. 3) The book also says this: "The Belgian and Congolese treasuries were strictly seperated, to avoid that Belgium would have to fill financial shortages in Congo or would have to 'pay' for Congo in any way. After all, there was still little enthusiasm among the Belgian citizens for the colonial project."

Either way, my point is that if schools skip this, it's rather because of a lack of time than because of an intentional omission of the 'bad history'. I'm pretty sure we also skipped the whole pillarisation, even though it was a very important part of Belgian society and still has effects today. We only had 2 years / 2 hours per week to learn about everything that happened in the last 250 years, so it was mostly just a string of major political events (French Revolution, Napoleon, Belgian Revolution, French-German War, World War 1, Russian Revolution, Interwar struggles, World War 2, Cold War...)

Didn't even learn about the Vikings invasion or that half of your country was once known as Danelaw.   That the normans who were pretty much Vikings invaded and conquered the Saxons.  

We did get the Viking raids in the Netherlands. However, I think it was mostly a 'friendly' version of history that we got. For example with the Vikings, sure they raided (and pillaged, raped and killed) but the focus was on their great excursions and where they reached. Same with the Romans and everything else in old times, always focusing on the victors, even the crusades were a fun excursion... Except the Spanish inquisition, couldn't really spin a positive on that one. Kinda funny, crusades were good but then in the dark ages religion became the villain that never recovered. The Dutch colonies were all people fleeing from religious prosecution after all...

I'm all for people believing in whatever they want to believe in.  However, I know there was good reason to punish certain beliefs.  Take for instance the Puritans.  They should have all been killed before allowing to escape to America.  We are still dealing with Puritan laws in USA called the blue laws.  Can't buy liquor in most states on Sunday except at a bar -contradictory.  Can't buy beer on Sunday till after 12pm because supposed to be in church.

My country, Switzerland, was the laughing 3rd in WWII, whole Europe was crashed but the Nazis and Jews had their money in our Swiss banks. Obviously, the Nazis couldn't attack the one country that stashed their money. Of course, the Swiss bank played their evil part in the aftermath and kept the money of the murdered Jews and didn't want to know anything of their surviving dependants who would have a rightful claim of the money. Of course, they wanted to keep it for themselves. In recent times, Switzerland payed hundreds of millions to the Jews as reparation.

Despite the evil part the Swiss banks and some other Swiss players played in WWII I think Switzerland, a tiny little country, did act correctly during WWII in order to not be completely destroyed by a gigantic and powerful Nazi regime. And anybody thinking otherwise, should go and *beep* themselves, or better, should be dropped out into the crossfire of a battlefield!

Well, there's often also a lot of truth to the 'friendly' version of history as well. The middle ages are often depicted as a violent and dark period, while the reality is a lot more nuanced. This is especially true for the Vikings, who are usually seen as some of the most violent and brutal people in history, while in reality they weren't really all that different from others and were actually mostly concerned with trade. It makes sense that schools would react to this by highlighting their more positive sides.

Btw, the term 'dark ages' is a (rather negative) synonym for the early middle ages, which are roughly the years 500-1000. The crusades only started a century after that.

Ah, I'm mistaken with the Roman invasion of Jerusalem, that was all told as part of the great expansion of Roman empire. You're right, the crusades are in the dark ages. I don't think we covered that, which might explain the crossed wires in my memory :/ The 11th century is all a bit hazy, rather a big gap from the 6th century to the Mongols arriving in the 13th century. It was simply the dark ages in between, nothing happened. (except the actual crusades lol, and well the viking raids)

Finding out things about the quality of your education is very interesting.

Canada here. Mostly talked about the comparatively peaceful interactions with Canada British compared to natives. But we still leaned about colonialism and reservations etc. Slavery of course discussed and causes of both world wars. Looking back it all seemed neutral, the texts didn’t shame either side, it just told the events as they happened. 

In regards to the US, it makes sense to paint a more positive picture of the past while acknowledging the negatives at the same time. The US became a global superpower and the road there should be acknowledged.

See, all skipped, I had to look up what Iberia is. We did get a bit of the decline of the Eastern Roman Empire, yet most of it was local history in that period. The feudal system was discussed a lot, but only locally. The Islamic world was only really discussed in ancient times with Egypt and Mesopotamia. Well, actually is was never discussed since Islam wasn't around until the 7th century. (Islam was discussed in religion class) Just like China only got attention before the Romans were around, then only some bits when Marco Polo came around.

There is a lot to cover, 2 hours of history per week definitely didn't cut it. From Neanderthals to 7 billion people with over 10,000 religions, 6,500 languages in between.

The style of teaching wasn't very engaging either. It was mostly the teacher writing down facts, copied from a text book, which we had to copy down ourselves. Then learn those by heart to answer questions in a test. It was rather boring. I say discussed, but actually there was no discussion. Addressed is a better term. My English teacher was better at teaching history taking us to see a play of Hamlet!

I'm 'discovering' a lot more about history right now while playing FS2020. I'm flying around the world and check out the places visit on Google maps, check out the local museums and old buildings. Yesterday I learned the Dutch also had colonies in India from a Dutch-Armenian cemetery in Surat. Nagpur was the geographical center of India where the zero milestone is from where British Raj measured distances in India. And also seeing the Pakistan-India split portrayed from both sides in local exhibits. Now that's a good way to teach history!

Of course none of that was around when I was in school, long before the internet and flight sims. (fs 1.0 just came around) We had textbooks and a library with encyclopedias to look things up. Yet mostly it was just copying down what the teacher copied down from the textbooks, while having the rest of the textbook as reference.

I wish I had, but I was always too scared of getting in trouble. He was a real dickhead.

Attitudes like that are sadly not uncommon in rural towns like the one I grew up in. I like it so much better here in Melbourne, where people in general are more tolerant and informed and not stuck decades in the past.