Over the past three days, I've been reading The Independent's guide to Presidents of the United States of America (as in the heads of state of the world's most powerful country, not the 90s college rock band).
Flicking through the book makes me brutally aware of how little history I'm actually aware of - I'd barely heard of most of the men who have led America since George Washington, and I'm even shamefully ignorant of most of the pre-Reagan presidents.
But thinking about it, I'm not terribly well-versed in the leaders of my own country - both monarchs and Prime Ministers. I was born during Thatcher's reign, but prior to Maggie, I'm very hazy on who followed who.
Considering that I'm supposed to be a journalist (well, actually I've been a market analyst since January 1st, but it's the same ballpark), I suppose I should really know more about the history of this wee green country on this wee blue planet.
A bit of learning is in order methinks.
5 comments:
Well done on 33000 visitors...
I'm not 'great' on past PMs, can do broon,blair,major,thatcher,callaghan,wilson... then I'm screwed, i think wilson did it twice but meh...
US.. bush,clinton,bush,reagan,carter,err crap i thought i could do more than that, ah well(even these might be wrong.. hehe
on the up-side, we can't go backwards so screw it. That's what Google's for, this is the 21st century mate.
You probably know more about our presidents than half the American citizens; there are too many people born and raised here whose knowledge of American history is non-existent before 1980.
'Presidents of the United States'
dammit Jock - you have given me a 'Peaches' earworm...
'peaches come from a can, they were put there by a man ...working in a factory downtown.....etc..'
The most sobering thought for me is that I've lived through a third of the total the presidencies!
.... good luck, big guy... history is a helluva thing to get your mind around....
Eric
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