The Date Test (gotta start somewhere)

from The Diary:

Two years ago, Patrick had made suggestions to their school administration about the curriculum for the course in Christian Apologetics. The school was nominally Christian in its charter, the administration was warm in its response, and Patrick soon discovered that he had volunteered to teach apologetics himself. He was to teach the entire senior class, half of them per semester. Shortly after he began, he discovered that none of his students knew anything about church history. Then he discovered that they didn't seem to know much about history period.

He was nonplussed. He spent the rest of the semester trying to awaken their curiosity about what they had missed, and some of them seemed to respond. When he ran into the same wall of ignorance with the second half of the senior class, however, he decided he had to try something different.

We talked about it and reached the conclusion that teachers must be making discoveries like this all the time. Why don't we ever hear about it? Probably because it's a dirty secret that has to be covered up. So we elected to pursue an opposite course. Perhaps the only positive step one could take was to find bottom.' Just how bad was it?

As part of his curriculum materials, Patrick had a list of seventy-five significant historical dates. We used this as a template and compiled a list of the seventy-five historical events, all the way from the birth of Alexander the Great and the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the bombing of Hiroshima. Amerian history was somewhat over-represented, but not in any esoteric way. In the next class session, Patrick handed out the list of events and told the class to date them (year only).

The results were so appalling that Patrick wound up grading the test on the basis of just four dates: Columbus's discovery of Ameria, The Declaration of Independence, Pearl Harbor, and the bombing of Hiroshima. Of the thirty-two college-bound high school seniors in the class, two got all four of the dates correct. The majority got only one or two correct. Some got none of them correct. On the rest of the list their performance was laughable.

We weren't laughing, though. By reputation and record, this was a good high school. We thought someone in the administration would want to know what the test had revealed. Patrick discussed it with administrators and history teachers. They wanted to know if he had announced the test. They downplayed the importance of knowing dates. They wanted to know what mainstream historical events had to do with Christian Apologetics. Patrick patiently explained that the Christian faith and the Church existed within the context of western civilization and could neither be understood nor defended without knowing the relationship between, say, the Reformation and the Renaissance. He was told that it was unfair to test students without some warning of what they would be asked about.

In the Boomer Bible, in the book of Psayings, chapter 5Y, there's a list of 50 different years. For lack of the original list of 75, this'll suffice, even though it's a reverse of the original Test, and actually easier having to match up events to years, rather than the other way around. Years are more mnemonic.

I know at least one of the years in the list is a joke, maybe more. Don't know how to tell, though, not really knowing history all that well.

But let's see how I do. Rules for myself: No looking anything up, no Wikipedia (which I shouldn't rely on quite so much anyway, according to Lloyd Pye), no nothing. Go from memory. No consulting, no lifelines, no phoning a friend. And do it in the span of a "class period". Readyyyyyyyyyy BREAK

1776 - American revolution starts w/ signing of Declaration of Independence, written July 3, sent July 4. Something on the 3rd and then the 4th, at least. Signed on the 4th.
1812 - War of. British start up w/ their pissiness again. White House burned. One of the big battles of the war (battle of New Orleans, maybe?) happened after the treaty was signed, because word hadn't gotten to them yet. Maybe that was some other war.
1860 - Um... not the Civil War yet. Dunno.
1914 - WWI starts w/ assassination by anarchist (maybe that was just McKinley) of Archduke Franz (I only know his first name because of the band) Ferdinand. He wasn't that important, but tensions and connections and politics being what they were, it did the trick.
1941 - Pearl Habor, US enters WWII. Roosevelt might have know and let it happen, but jury's still out on that. Also, Japanese diplomats did something. Maybe told the President or wanted to stop it-- something along those lines.
1066 - El Cid, right? Spanish... king? Only remember the name and date from a book called Myths and Legends I had as a kid.
1215 - No idea. No, MAGNA CARTA! BOOYAH!
1640 - No clue. OK, no way the 95 Theses could have been this late, right? Yeah. Henry 8 breaks from Catholic Church, establishes Church of England?
1688 - Spanish Armada? No wait, that was 1588. Not the Diet of Worms, right?
753 BC - Peleponysean war? I know nothing about it besides the name, and that it was Grecean history. Is that the same as 300?
44 BC - Um, probably Rome... something. Dunno. Alexander the Great born? Dies? He was 33, I remember that.
476 - That has to be Charlemange.
1453 - Diet of Worms? Martin Luther nails the 95 Theses?
1783 - Um... American Revolution ends? Battle of Lexington?
1865 - Civil War ends, Lincoln assassinated at Ford's Theater by anarchist-- no, not anarchist, Southern sympathizer, right?-- John Wilkes Booth. Sic Semper Tyrannis. I was a teenager before they explained to me what this guy's problem was. Before that I saw the Unsolved Mysteries that claimed JWB was framed, and actually a conspiracy did it. Lucky I didn't keep that in mind too much.
1799 - Not 89? Dunno. Russo-Chinese war?
Also, this might be the year Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground, unless that was '64.
1918 - This must be the year US entered WWI. So Lusitania, then?
1945 - Hitler dies, Germany quits, Hiroshima, Japan surrenders. We win!
1820 - Seems a safe bet this isn't meant to refer to Joseph Smith's First Vision. So I don't know.
1815 - Huh? Andrew Jackson, maybe? Dunno. Jacksonian revolution? That's in there somewhere.
1917 - Russian revolution, Lennin, Czar killed. Rasputin.
1500 BC - Dunno. Greece?
1912 - Titanic hits iceberg, sinks.
1916 - This must be when those hundreds of thousands of French young men died. Or something. I know it's the name of a Motorhead album.
1588 - Spanish Armada defeated by... English? And it was a big deal, because the SA was so huge and renowned. I only know the date because of the movie Billy Madison.
1929 - Stock Market crashes on Black Tuesday, Great Depression begins.
2001 million BC - Joke. Dave 17.
1348 - No clue. Giotto?
1607 - Nope. Diet of Worms? Henry 8 breaks from Catholic Church, establishes Church of England?
1877 - Couldn't tell you.
1788 - Battle of Lexington?
1898 - Railroads? No no, Britain fights China, takes Hong Kong, and signs 99-year lease on it, because that's the sense of humor of the day. Opium Wars, they're called? Those might be something else.
0 - Jesus Christ born. And I could point out there's no year zero, and that scholars now think he was actually born 6 or 7 BC, because there's Roman records of the big census then and not 1 AD, but, you know. We get it. And "Zero" signifies that people used to have more of a sense of just how important the birth of Christ was that we made it the calender's pivot point. Not just religiously significant.
1984 - The Orwell book.
"Four thousand and some BC" - What could this be? Egypt? Too early for the Exodus. Not sure what this date is meant to signify.
1919 - WWI ends. Treaty of Versalles must be around this time.
1944 - Battle of the Bulge?
1836 - Nada.
399 BC - Rome founded? No... dunno.
1564 - Diet of Worms? This looks like the right date. I know Diet means council, and I think it had something to do w/ the Reformation. Like, DW was against it. That's all I got.
33 - Christ crucified.
1871 - Not sure I've even heard this date cited as important, ever.
337 - Wait, this must be Charlemange. No, it must be something in Church history. Council of Nicea was 316... Wasn't there another Council? Maybe Constantine died? Or is this when Rome gets sacked?
1848 - OK, I once picked a book at the Goodwill Bins called Revolutions of 1848. Apparently lots of stuff happened that year. I haven't read it yet, and may have gotten rid of it. I do remember this is when Karl Marx published I think The Communist Manifesto, but there's an off chance it was Das Kapital instead. Also, something happened in... Denmark?
323 BC - I'm gonna say Hannibal crossing the Alps, even though I think that was way later.
1452 - Dunno.
1789 - Constitution ratified (so I think it's the same year as the Conventions), George Washington elected first President (and it's cute to point out that technically the nation had a "president" before GW, but get over it)
1660 - Uh... Sistine Chapel? No, that was a hundred years before. Got nothing.
1763 - Oh... Boston Tea Party? Stamp Act? One of those.
1849 - I'm gonna say Missouri Comprimise. Did James Polk do something this year?
"And that's really just the beginning"

Tomorrow, I flip to the back of the book, so to speak, and check my answers.