One thing that always stuck out to me was in the book about the Second World War and how it told a story about an air raid of London on Valentine’s Day and asked the reader to try to pick out what did and didn’t happen. After reading about the atrocities that happened, it’s revealed that it was all true, aside from one single detail: that it was in Dresden, Germany, not London. Then it asked the reader to consider that the Allies perhaps weren’t an objectively morally good military force, but rather simply fighting against a worse one that made them look better in comparison.
That is a nice moral perspective, but looking at Dresden, it was an industrial centre, important for supply and a propagandistic Hotspot. After what my people have done on the eastern front, nothing done to us could have swayed the moral highground the Allies had.
agree 100% allies bombed Zadar as well , you cannot consider it a war crime when its a response to atrocities you commited, also Zadar was very strategically important and the ustashas would not think twice about civilian casualties, so you cannot fight a 'clean' war against fascists. @CloudDieStrifende
@CloudDieStrifende Idk man I don't think living in an industrial center is a great enough crime to make burning civilians to death a totally good or even really neutral act. In the second and third days of the bombings, industrial targets were used, but on the first day because the original industrial target was obscured by the weather, they basically just said 'fuck it we ball' and went for the city center itself. The point OP was making wasn't even that the allies lost the moral high ground through this, but that the moral high ground of the allies allowed the horrors resulting from their actions to be diminished. Now personally I don't buy into any of the "moral high ground" stuff that strongly anyway. WW2 was not fought on moral grounds. It was not even a result of Germany breaking the terms of the treaty of Versailles. If either of those were the case, the war would've started a lot earlier. In truth, the allies were quite okay spending many years turning a blind eye to the atrocities being committed, and to the invasion and annexation of other territories. The allies got involved because Poland in particular was invaded, and Poland had made an agreement with the UK to ask that they step in if they were ever invaded. From there, it was all alliances as in WW1. Also giving out a free pass based on the allies' being on the right side of the war is problematic because it enforces this 'ends justify the means' mentality that means countries have no fear of continuing to commit atrocities because the lesson learned in WW2 was that you can do literally whatever you want so long as you win and so long as you can say 'oh all those civilians were just collateral actually and we promise we were aiming at the military target behind them'
The songs were really impressive! Not only did they accurately describe the historical context, they also sounded like popular contemporary songs, which is quite a difficult feat to pull off!
I really liked how they always chose relevant songs to parody, not just in the style but the themes of the song, like R.E.S.P.E.C.T for Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement, "changes" for Charles Darwin and evolution.
looking back at this, I notice that there's really a lot of references to "oh, now he's dead and he becomes king. Oh, now he's just died as well and now she's queen." and i noticed how they just skim over the topics of people dying and then others being rlly happy because "now im in charge!" as a kid, i didnt think too much of this and i just thought "one day there could be an episode all about me or even somebody who reigned in my lifetime" wow, horrible histories really stopped me from having terrible existential thoughts about dying.
all the best kids media is like that. Avatar the last airbender was great and also had themes of anti-establishment, as we see power structures from all 4 bending styles that create a form of opression. the obvious one is the imperialist nature of the fire nation, but there's also the misogyny of the northern water temple, the fascist monarchism of ba sing se, and how despite priding itself on freedom, the Air temple didn't treat aang freely at all. there's also Lego Ninjago that similarly had solid writing that an adult can enjoy. same with the DCAU kids media is at its best when it tries to contextualise its message in a way someone who might not have the understanding an adult might can still appreciate. a child watching ATLA will be able to see it and recognise imperialism is bad, that there's no easy way to stop it, and that even those who supposedly benefit from it, still suffer to a degree
@ America does this all too often. When I was a kid, I never thought about it but after I studied ECE, I noticed a lot of American kids programming tends to be a little patronizing. This is why shows like avatar the last air bender and Mr Rogers neighborhood are such classics. Because they don’t treat their audience like they have no working brain cells.
If you want really good educational shows that are touching on complicated topics while not being shallow, alfred j kwak and the once upon a time series are diamonds
Looking at the title I kinda laughed and went “Oh! It’s one of these meme titles, I’m sure the video will be unhinged and exaggerated for jokes!” But it a serious, very informative video about systems in society and the impact media has on us. Very well made! Also, the Guy Fawkes quote from the author is legendary.
the thumbnail and title are a bit tongue-in-cheek but no lies were told!! 😅 I'm happy you ended up enjoying the video and Terry Deary the author is just a legendary man
I've ALWAYS loved this series of Horrible Histories. A I can assure that I was well into fifties when this first aired down here in Australia, and I've enjoyed watching it again and again with ALL of my grandchildren.
Frfr best video thanks, I loved watching this on TV and talking to my friends about it after. Even though I don't watch much tv now, it's great to see a lot of the cast still doing stuff
@@MimiMortmaineveryone’s getting recommended here, CONGRATS! People are finally getting to see your work! And I must say it’s brilliant, thoughtful, and explains a lot about the bias shift in younger generations in the uk very well. I remember talking to my parents about how awful the ‘Industrial Revolution and its consequences’ (see what I did there 😂) was for the lower classes, I was about 10-11 at the time, and it genuinely took them by surprise that I had that view, because when they were in school they were thought only about how it paved the way for modern technological advancement and the increase in the standard of living. I also found around that time that I had a VERY different perspective on the British empire than they did, all from schooling and horrible histories.
I want to thank Terry Deary for being a formative influence on me as a kid- I started reading very early (hyperlexia, my parents got me these fluffy books that were safe to sleep on when I was like 2 because I kept reading in bed until I fell asleep) and Horrible Histories are the first books I really remember staying up late to read again and again. I think I would've been about 6? my copies all ended up a bit battered because I'd read them in bed and fall asleep with them
lol me too! i remember being six and reading about a six-year old kid in some book.. acting like a little kid... and i was really indignant because i thought i was so much smarter than him lol
Loved these books as a child, got a signed copy of Bloody Scotland at home. He may not call himself a historian but he gets exactly what makes history so interesting and that's the unique human experiences you learn about.
"Remember remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot, Was Guy Fawkes the devil, the Stuarts all saints? Are we glad that they caught him ... Or not?" Is a rhyme that has stayed in my mind since I first heard it. I would sing it every bonfire night! Even though it took me a few years to fully understand it, the idea of questioning how we're taught to view parts of history is something i picked up on immediately.
I mean, let us not pretend Guy Fawkes was a liberal revolutionary. King James and the Parliament might not be saints but the goal of the Gunpowder Plot was to establish a Catholic Monarchy in England, not some form of republic or a stateless anarchist society (despite V for Vendetta and Anonymous appropriating the imagery).
@gokbay3057 Yes, this is a brilliant point that I didn't know how to write into my original comment, thank you! I did blindly sing that verse as a kid and now, with more context, I can't say I am on the side of the plot. (There's theories of was all a setup anyway, since the king wasn't even planned to be in parliament) I still quite like the rewrite though, as the plot is taught as well black and white. It's why it took me so long to actually learn their motive (and still not feel confident enough that I could phrase it well so ty for bringing it up for me 😅) And not to mention that Fawkes was not even the group's leader but simply their explosives expert, and it didn't even take place on the 5th. The whole thing is a bit odd imo
@@gokbay3057also, let's not forget that if the old Houses of Parliament had been cratered, the amount of powder that was packed into the cellars would have wrought untold damage upon surrounding residential areas in London. And likely moved up the timeline for the Great Fire of London by over half a century. While the Stuarts had no rights to demonise Catholics the way they did, Fawkes and his band of merry bombers were terrorists through and through
@@gokbay3057aye but the later Catholic king James prior to the 'glorious' revolution was pretty decent. Treated Catholics and protestants as equal which the protestants didn't like. At the very least guy Fawkes was fighting against discrimination of Catholics
I just want to make one note on the quote at 8:00 There are still aboriginal Tasmanians! The myth of the native Tasmanians going extinct is based on the fact that she was considered the last "full blooded" aboriginal Tasmanian. But Australian Aboriginal people aren't considered any less aboriginal just because they have some english/European/non aboriginal ancestry
Indeed, now Tasmania has one of the highest populations of Indigenous Australians (about 5%). It's worth noting though, Terry's sentiment is still valid. The Hobart town penal colony was established in 1803, and by the mid 1830s almost all of the Indigenous population had been wiped out. Even though Tasmania as a whole still remained largely unsettled by the Europeans. 200 survivers of "The Black War" were promised clemency and the right to live on their land in peace if they turned themselves in, naturally, the Europeans then banished them to Flinder's island where many of them died. The policy of Terra Nullius ("Nobody's land") allowed British settlers to freely claim any uninhabited land for the crown. Of course, the British simply ignored Indigenous Australian's presence so that they could legally claim the land per Terra Nullius.I'm intensely surprised this myth still persists in Britain... Almost every British colony established already had people living on that land..
@@clarebradbery1790I mean this whole empty land thing even goes as far back as the Anglo Saxon invasions. People have said to me that Britain was just a vast empty lands and the Anglo Saxons just took it because they needed land. When in reality we know that they were firstly invited by the Britons, then they invaded and slaughtered (not genocided as we know everyone in Britain still can trace majority of their roots to the ancient Britons including the English) pushing back Brythonic Kingdom, etc people will go to extreme length to support colonisation. Another example is Israel, many people will say Israel settled on a vast wasteland with no people, even so original Zionist knew there was people there
So as a tasmanian i was actually under the impression that we no longer had any tasmanian aboriginals at all not just no more "full blooded" i thought the people calling themselves tasmanian aboriginals were mainland aboriginals who had either themselves moved to tasmania or were descended of those who had moved, looks like I've got some research to do... if anyone has some good sources I'd appreciate them but I'll start with google :)
Looked into it furthur and it seems the people who taught me history decided to generalise full blooded to mean all, obviously blood purity is a disgusting metric for anything outside of a chemistry lab, i was in school less than a decade ago, goes to show that even in tassie we still have a long way to go with teaching true and accurate history :(
I read the British Empire book as a kid, and while I do think I parsed it in a kind of piecemeal way (picking up on some points and not quite getting others), that was absolutely my first encounter with the concept of the empire, and what shaped my perception of it. So for me, I'm sure that the original aim of the book succeeded, because when I'd later see people kicking up a fuss about the illusion of the Glorious Empire being shattered, I kind of had no idea what they were talking about, because for me the illusion had never existed in the first place. The things I associated with the British Empire first and foremost were the parts in the book about the slave trade, British army violence in India, and the extinction of indigenous Tasmanians. I don't think I can really claim in good faith to clearly remember anything else, but that was enough - and in a weird way, I think it took the first backlash I saw to fully comprehend, viscerally, how awful the consequences of the empire had actually been, because up til then I'd had a weirdly pragmatic/matter-of-fact perspective on 'yes, the British Empire committed atrocities, that's just a fact, Horrible Histories said so and I believe it.' Like, the book got in early enough that its stance became my formative/fundamental perception on the topic before anything else could influence me. (If anything, I think the one problem I encountered was that the focus on so much violence in the books sometimes confused me - it was occasionally easy, as a child, to focus on the fact that everyone was apparently committing violence left right and centre, and to miss the power structures that informed what kind of violence was being perpetuated, against who, and what that meant. But at the same time, I think that a view of 'it was possible for anyone in history to do awful things' was at least better for me to have picked up on than 'x group never did awful things ever,' or 'if they did, they were justified and therefore the awful things weren't awful anyway.' )
The matter of fact approach you describe it really valuable, I think, because it means your view isn’t affected by all the emotionally charged opinions that a lot of people grow into and it means we can actually have useful conversations
I think that, for all its worth, all empires in the past have their dark secrets, horrible histories does point this out, but i think it's unfair to say that Everything they did WAS evil. Good people and good things have propped up because of the empires that came before. Things such as measurements and math, roads, rails, engines, medicines, and man made miracles The British empire was the first to forgo slavery, and in majority also reduce racism within their own nation compared to for example America, which even during the ww2 forced other nations to segregate their bars for their soldiers. It is very easy to be swept up in all the negatives which have been done, and forget the good things.
@@rubotok3703 all of these good things and good people develop in spite of empires, not because of them. It is really important to not attribute one thing to another like that.
@@rubotok3703if you're willing to exterminate any and every indigenous population you can find in order to learn how to build train tracks over their houses, what does that say about you as a person?
These books were my childhood ngl. I'm autistic and one of my main hyperfixations was (and still is) history as a whole. When i was about six years old i came across the series on netflix and was immediatley hooked. About a year later i recieved most of the books for my birthday, and ever since then I've been a die hard fan (Matthew Baynton changed my 6 year old brain chemistry btw)
Omg its like staring into a mirror! history is my special interested and horrible histories got me into it and for my 8th birthday i got a box set of the books and read them cover to cover lots of times!
me too, i have Autism and am obsessed with history since i was 7 way back in the 1970s and went to the tower of London and was gripped by Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey, now i am almost 60 and still love history. I also love Ghosts .
Controversy you missed: The original Mary Seacole had a line about Florence Nightingale being racist. They had complaints from the Florence Nightingale association (or smth). Now the version you see gets that part cut which makes it unclear why she started on her own. There is a lyrics version that still got it
Quite an irrelevant detail. I mean, considering negative aspects of your history is a sign that your civilization is in the final stage of it's life cycle; do the Indians and the Chinese seek to be anti-racist and hyper-aware of the negative aspects of their past? No.
@ I mean, it's always a good idea to check over your work to make sure that you haven't made a mistake. Concerning Mary Seacole, it's an important part of her story as to why she set off on her own rather than work under Nightingale.
@@Jukelbo489"Considering negative aspects of your history is a sign that your civilisation is in the final stage of it's life" that's usually because people realise their rulers suck and toss them out. Implying reflecting on history is inherently bad because it ends régimes is like saying reading or education or spare time are bad because they do the same thing. It's a stupid perspective that only makes sense if you're planning to actively benefit from the flaws of your society to the detriment of others
Horrible histories made me fall in love with the past. I’ve now got an unconditional place to study history and archaeology at uni starting this September. Crazy to think that the course of my life and career has been shaped by a ‘kids’ show
I'm just finishing my history degree that i chose to do because Horrible Histories made me fall in love with history as a child! All the best for university, enjoy every minute of it!
Watching this video I was like "this sounds a bit.... Anarchisty... ". So I looked up if Deary is an Anarchist, and voila, he is a vocal Anarchist. Thanks for helping me find out that one of my favorite childhood authors is so Awesome. I am going to make sure I give my horrible histories boxed set to a kid who will love them the same way I love them.
I can't believe it took me so long to find this video!! It combines all the things I love: horrible histories, literary analysis, and finding leftist themes in unsuspecting works of art !!
I find it very interesting that most children are naturally very anti-authority / anti-establishment, and I also find it interesting how in comics like the beano and in childrens media like horrible histories that is encouraged and celebrated. Its almost like theres some part of us as people that at the very least is able to find flaw with and want to challenge authority, especially in the way our society has established it and itself.
Semi-antidisestablishmentarianist teenager here. I feel like history class, at least in my area, has advanced pretty far. You don't have to study dates anymore, and things are pretty even handed. They tell you a fella had cities burned to the ground, show you the cool stuff they did with all the territory they conquered, and let you draw your own conclusions (and half the time make you write an essay on what you think about the whole situation).
Yeah I wouldn’t say that it’s as dreary anymore as the HH books would say, but I also think that there are still undertones that promote a certain kind of nationalistic perspective (or at least there is in the UK!)
@@MimiMortmain All I can say is that my American history teacher was a truly great individual, he really did love his country, but always encouraged questioning. He was an authoritative teacher (I can remember a couple times during the year when he pointed out we were just about to be becoming adults, and how our behavior should've been embarrassing), but tried his best to get us to think about the systems still present in the world today. It's seemingly more about the quality of the teacher as an individual, rather than the system as a whole, which kind of flies in the face of the whole idea that it's the system to blame.
@@MimiMortmainat least where I grew up in South Yorkshire where pretty much all the teachers had lived through the 80’s it’s fair to say as much as they could whilst sticking to the national curriculum authority was not painted in the most sympathetic way
The irony is many of the people who trash History classes and "establishment" history are by and large not much different to the those they're criticising. More often than not they're crying about a vague idea rather than any real fact or study they've seen.
@MimiMortmain I do agree with this, baring in mind I left school a while ago now, we were encouraged to form our own opinions, most questions were essays where we had to form an opinion in conclusion, but facts were still presented in a biased manner absolutely.
Thanks so much for making this video! I grew up reading the books and watching the series but, as a child, I couldn't explain why it was that I hated learning history at school but loved Horrible Histories. Being a kid, I didn't think too much into it and completely missed the anti-establishment tone. After watching your video, I can appreciate those undertones and am so grateful to have grown up with this series. It's one of many that make me appreciate that entertainment made for children doesn't always have to be a sparkly eye grab- there are so many series' and books and films that are made by people who sincerely wish to educate and entertain (edutain?) simultaneously.
I discovered Horrible Histories (the TV series, although I did end up reading a couple of the books) as an adult, and also missed the anti-establishment tone. People, even the ones who are famous for making history, can be ridiculous, wrong, and have their quirks. They're just human, like the rest of us. I felt the same humour was applied to Henry VIII on his computer deciding to start a new church, as to the Aztec Come Dine With Me where the only food was maize and beans, with its resulting flatulence. I think the team did a wonderful job in making us laugh at just about everybody, and judgement (if any) was left to the viewer.
7:55 - Just a small fact-check of Terry's words here, talking about the 'native Tasmanians' being wiped out. Whilst it's true there was a genocide, and successive massacres, we did not die out! The extinction myth was propagated by the British after the 'Black Wars' of the 1820s and early 1830s. After this period, they found it useful to pretend they had created a settler 'oasis'. In fact, we very much survived. Patsy Cameron's book 'Grease & Ochre' gives a good explanation, and also 'My People's Songs' by Joel Stephen Birnie - two Tasmanian Aboriginal people of different Nations/language groups on the island - Trouwunna/lutruwita (depending on what area of the island, it was known by one name or the other; pronounced Tru-wun-nah and lah-tru-wit-tah)
as a primary schooler and young high schooler, I was very into learning about history, and given the way primary school history was taught, I never quite understood what exactly it meant about making history seem fun. Then high school came along, and I found myself SO glad that I could drop history as a subject when picking GCSEs. I didn't realise this until this video, but now I get what it was aiming for - the way high school is run means that history was all about remembering seemingly meaningless dates and names over and over until you forget why you loved anything in the first place. Also ty for subtitles :DDD
And there never was unintended consequences for well meaning acts of influencing others anywhere and thus people should be free to experiment with impressionable youths in topics one has little formal training and a dislike to accountability and very entrenched opinions 😂
What an excellent video! Horrible Histories was a huge part of my childhood and I think it significantly shaped how I view the world. I always appreciated how it was honest about history and didn't seem to sugarcoat anything, especially that it didn't always paint Britain as "the good guys". I'm Australian, so I only ever learnt about Australian history in primary school, indigenous history, the penal colony, the goldrush, then the federation of Australia, so my knowledge of world history was just Horrible histories until high school.
The show was a crucial part of my childhood and I had the chance to meet Ben Willbond at a convention late last year! I love that weird freak of a show and so did my stepdad, absolute iconic show.
i saw Terry Deary give a talk at durham book festival this year, and got to ask a question about what sources he uses (his answer: other history books, not primary sources, and though some historians call him a plagiarist for that, he doesn't care.) i found him to be irreverent and very likeable. he was outspoken about his political views and clearly takes pride in his northern, working class roots. he just seemed like a really nice, funny, down to earth guy, with a head full of interesting history anecdotes. i would massively recommend his newest book, A History In Britain In Ten Enemies, which is for adults. i found it very educational while also making me laugh with an equal measure of silly lighthearted jokes and accurate satire towards shitty politicians and bigots.
Greg Jenner, the historian consult for the show, also has a fantastic history podcast called "you're dead to me". I have listened to almost every episode and it's delightful
@@Misstressofdons When I saw his picture in this video, he was oddly familiar to me, but for a different reason. I think he appeared sometimes as an extra who never spoke but just nodded in different HH sketches, for example, in Queen for 9 Days.
My dad was a history teacher for 15-20 years and detests Deary with a passion. After getting my degree and loving his books as a kid, i get why. When a teacher cares, history is amazing. A tapestry of human experience. Amazing stories of survival, ingenuity, misfortune and tragedy... with a bad teacher its some boring dates and some names you can barely remember. I think Deary struck gold with his work, and its done an amazing job in getting millions of kids to learn more about history. But he seens to have had a shit history teacher as a kid and never grew out of that.
You’re right but in a way I think it works out. It appeals to the kids who probably need it most! If you’re a kid with a great history teacher you’re already being well educated. If you’re a kid with a bad history teacher and you’ve developed a disdain for the subject as a result, then this aspect of the branding is more likely to resonate and catch your attention
Given Dearys age, his takes on the education system probably have more to do with the actual system he was put through, and less to do with one bad teacher. But then he's just decided that the education system couldn't have changed in any way in the decades since, and continues to make the same outdated complaints. (Not that the education system in the UK isn't still awful in a lot of ways, but differently from what he complains about).
@Albinojackrussel Oh absolutely. But he doesn't say that, and I suppose that's where the ire comes from, he regards the institutions as entirely awful, and when you come from particularly poor areas of the UK, thats not the message you want kids to hear.
It appears he never really grew up His hatred of education is so childish and petty He's an incredibly angry man, who seems intent in his old age of pulling the ladder up
Little bit on the Tasmanians (aka the Palawa people) is that while yes the last “full blooded” palawa person died over a hundred years ago, may part palawa people are still around, still fighting for rights and recognition, and still practicing customs
And it’s BECAUSE of what Britain did to our native peoples that it’s so important for even those with a just a trickle of aboriginal heritage to try to learn about and preserve that heritage before it’s lost forever- I married a 1/16th Noongar man, and we’re in the process of sending him to visit his uncle in WA so that they can go meet his Noongar relatives and elders and hopefully learn as much as possible so as to preserve the culture. Luckily, the Noongar people aren’t in much danger of dying out, but my heart breaks every time for those like the Palawa
@@jssyoutube1 In Tasmania, collectively, the aboriginal people are the palawa or pakana people, there are many groups inside this major collective, however. Such as the muwinina people of nipaluna/southern-er tasmania.
In retrospect, it's a shame that the series was limited to the kinds of history that were already mainstream in europe. I would have LOVED an HH book about precolonial African empires, Chinese dynasties, queer history, native American history...
It's probably hard when it is an English author writing for an English publisher, for an English audience, in England. But having this style of book and tv show from other perspectives would be amazing. Especially since the books had no issue with talking down about Britain and cutting through the propaganda
It was a good range. The 6 main people who wrote and acted the whole show weren’t going to go back/asian face to do a sketch in less interesting history
I think it's pretty telling that the book that's hardest to find is barmy british empire. Edit to avoid pointless arguments: I don't mean this in a conspiracy theory way, and I'm mainly talking about how easy it is to buy in physical shops, where as as kid I aquired all my books. I know Amazon exists.
It's on Amazon for £2.70 paperback, with the kindle edition £4.70. Perhaps two years ago it was harder to find. Or perhaps anyone struggling to find it isn't trying very hard.
moving from south america to australia, this show was a pillar in my first days getting used to all the changes involved, i look back on horrible histories so fondly. starting from the fact that it helped me catch up on a lot of european history that was not covered in my former history curriculum but was crucial in aus, and helped me learn new vocab as an ESL student (i very vividly remember looking up the meaning of the word 'acur-rat'), it also was pivotal in putting that anti-establishment lens in history that made it so much more complex, nuanced and more interesting to learn. the show is brilliant at getting kids interested in history and demonstrating that there are complexities to history because real living people went through it
My one criticism of Terry Deary, who I otherwise attribute a large part of my lifelong fascination of history to and respect a lot, is that his views on history education seem a bit dated at times: in my history education, especially in post primary school, throughout the 2000's and early 2010's, there was a lot more emphasis on the existence of competing narratives of history, and encouragement to approach history from an analytical perspective more than simply rote learning. Hell, in an Irish Catholic school, we were even challenged to consider if Cromwell was actually that bad a guy; which is pretty serious sacrilege, for those that don't know...
We generally consider him to be an utter villain in the UK. Main reason is that he was of a different protestant denomination to the overwhelming majority of the UK (He was a Puritan and we were overwhelmingly Anglican) and this led to him introducing religious reforms that to most people seemed utterly inexplicable, tyrannical or even un-Christian.
@moritamikamikara3879 iirc, he banned stuff like music and dancing because it was against his religion. People were so angry at him that they called the next king merry monarch because in comparison to cromwell he was seen as alot nicer
@sudanesegamer7886 Ireland absolutely see Cromwell as a bad guy. His conquest of Ireland killed 40% of the population and ensured that Catholics pretty much could not own land.
@thedebatedealer9187 yeah, and to add to that, he was the main reason Ireland was under firm british rule. Before him, most of ireland acted as though they weren't rules by britain. Before that, they mainly focused on small parts but after him, everyone was pushed to the west which had the worst rocky land. But some Irish people didnt hate him because they also hated the british and he made life bad for them. Im not saying people loved him. There wouldnt be any universe where anyone would like him. He was an ugly man inside and out.
Deary may not have intended it, but the enjoyment I got out of horrible histories is a large reason for me choosing a history GCSE. And it was really fun. Perhaps because I have never met a non-fun history teacher (I once played ultimate Frisbee with a history teacher from Australia who played Pokémon). But it was just really fun. Igniting fun in an academic subject is something I think is really important. Now, even as I’m not in education, I consume a lot of fun educational media because, thanks to horrible histories, I know educational things can be fun. Honestly, aside from English, I enjoyed every subject I did in school, to varying degrees (My computer science teacher was a colossal arsehole). Simon Whistler is a particular favourite of mine when it comes to educational media. I think across his RUclips channels he’s my most watched RUclipsr.
As a Horrible Histories mega fan, I'm so happy it's not just me that gives this show such high praise. It's a children's show like no other and we were so lucky to grow up with it
History teacher here - though not from the UK. I love using Horrible Histories at school exactly because of those undertones and I don‘t think I‘m alone in this! Getting children to think critically about the past is exactly what history lessons should be there for (and to some extent are, depending on your country’s curriculum). I can only use it with older students, because the language is a bit difficult for non-natives but I wish there was something similar in my native language to work with. I think there are a lot of adults and teachers who know exactly what Horrible Histories is doing and like it because of it, not in spite of it ;)
"Getting children to think critically about the past is exactly what history lessons should be there for" How about giving them as accurate an image of historical facts and the link between them instead ? That seems like it should come first before "teaching them to think criticially".
That‘s a fun question! Of course you‘re right. History lessons obviously also need to give you an understanding of what we know about the past and how we know it. If you think about History like any other social or natural science, of course we need to have the tools and base knowledge to work in that area. If I know nothing about Romans or the sources we have telling us about Romans, I can‘t really think about why I hear more about Roman generals than other people living and working during the same era. However, in History, we have so much material to work with, that we‘re kind of reliant on teaching kids how to engage with areas of history not covered in lessons - why they weren‘t taught them and which sources and portrayals are reliable.
@ Sure but again, that should come after you've told them what we know. What we know How we know How you can know more And that's before even talking about whether or not (in public schools and early educations, not university and above) we should even teach history neutrally to begin with, instead of focusing on the parts that relate to one's nation's personal history and how it relates to current values and attitudes, to fostering a sense of fellowship between compatriots, and a healthy sense of pride about one's predecessors.
I think you‘re assuming that this process is one in which only one thing can happen at the time. That‘s not how education happens. If you just get told facts all day every day, you‘re much less likely to remember everything rather than, for instance, mixing it up and letting someone figure the how what and why out themselves by studying sources. Yes, that is something you can already do with 10-year-olds. Now the second aspect I find very funny, because that is something that is done already. If you haven‘t realised maybe it‘s time to critically think back to your history lessons: what kind of history did you get taught in school? Was it the history of your country, something people who do educational plans think is important for you as a citizen to know, or was it a general overview of all the ‚most important bits‘ that only included your country when necessary? This is why it‘s important to start thinking critically about history early, btw. So that no one believes that any school is teaching history „neutrally“. Now, I‘m not saying selecting what to teach is wrong. But it is sensible to know that whatever you‘re being taught in school can never be the whole (his)tory and how to start learning more from reputable sources from a young age. Because some people will maybe not go to university. But - at least in my opinion, and my country‘s education system agrees with me there - they still deserve to have the ability to learn more if they want to and realise when they‘re being told nonsense.
@@caseusbelli "I think you‘re assuming that this process is one in which only one thing can happen at the time" I moreso see it as a pyramid where everything will eventually happen at the same time but the very basics will be only or almost entirely only one thing, namely the facts, then as you learn more it'll be the facts + the sources, then facts + sources + historiographic methods, etc. " That‘s not how education happens. " I mean in my country that's exactly how it happens. Well... No, actually unfortunately in my country it's just the facts, and a narrative to go with them, maybe some comments about how different people at the time perceived things differently, quite late generally, and maybe on top of that you'll have your teacher not being able to hold off his tongue about his own politics. If we're talking education from 3 to 18. "what kind of history did you get taught in school?" I know it is being done already, I'm saying that it is good that it is being done, not that it's not being done. "Was it the history of your country, something people who do educational plans think is important for you as a citizen to know, or was it a general overview of all the ‚most important bits‘ that only included your country when necessary?" Well, kinda both, it wasn't strictly one or the other, there were definitely "most important bits" that didn't include my country (although it's arguable whether or not those weren't things that teachers and statesmen thought was important for civic education), like learning about prehistory, bronze age, development of agriculture, writing, math, democracy, monarchy, etc, then also stuff like the US, USSR and china, that kinda stuff, but we have a strong and explicit tradition in my country of what we call the "roman national", or "national story" if you will, which is explicitly and self admittedly about trying to foster a sense of identity and historic grounding to students, to give them an idea of the legacy they are a prolongation of. " So that no one believes that any school is teaching history „neutrally“ " See that sounds a bit contradictory to me given the comparison you've made to the natural sciences. If history is just a science, then we don't need to teach kids about history critically we can just teach them neutrally, if we agree that it isn't being taught neutrally and that it shouldn't be taught neutrally, then it's unclear why we should teach them critically in some senses of the word. "But - at least in my opinion, and my country‘s education system agrees with me there - they still deserve to have the ability to learn more if they want to and realise when they‘re being told nonsense." Well... I'll hold off on getting too deep on that point here, I have very mixed feelings about the state of my education system. Or our buraucracy in general.
6:00 this is the reason why my dad loved this show so much- he really wanted me to grow up with a deep understanding of capitalism and the poverty that is always bestowed on the poorest in the country and whenever someone tries to stand up for a change the show always shows it in a funny/good light and I find that fascinating when a lot of documentaries would take a less strong stance on such matters of revolution/strong figures fighting for equality and fairness.
I think this series takes a Brilliant and fun approach. I love history but a lot of people find it boring. Horrible histories makes it fun for everyone
I loved this video essay! Liked and subscribed. Great analysis of the anti-establishment undertones in Horrible Histories. I loved the TV show! I always appreciated how it was critical of the higher-ups and did a lot of stories around the exploitation of the working class. You're right that the shows are not elitist about what part of history you can enjoy. It's not snobby about liking historical poo facts. Schools really are so rigid and untailored around learning. I love how Horrible Histories makes history exciting and criticises colonisation and exploitation. Also, I like your analysis of how Horrible Histories translated the medium of books to tv shows. Great editing! Love the visuals. They’re super aesthetic and engaging. You match visuals to lyrics well. It’s lovely to watch. And love you adding in dialogue, like King Charles at the end. Fun to find another Breadtube channel! Liked and Subscribed!!!
I think the fact that the horrible histories tv show depicts basically every monarch and coloniser as stupid, insane, violent or crazy is why im anti monarchy
That's a pretty stupid reason to think that, honestly. It's like saying of corse the Earth isn't flat. Otherwise, the cheese on The Moon would spoil. You're right, but just making fun of another person is not a valid argument. What are you 12?
@ThoseOtherJeremysLie Yeah except it's not accurate, kings and colonisers were by and large neither stupid, nor insane, nor "violent" any more than anyone else in their era. They had their ups and downs, obviously, but it's so very far from "every" that it's not even funny.
This show got away with a lot. I remember they had some wacky sketches with literal Nazi characters, including Hitler himself. Kind of demystifies the Nazis and reveals how ridiculous they actually were, while still taking them seriously as a threat.
This show is what cemented my stick-up-for-the-little-guy approach to life, especially when my mum would go "oh, ew, why a rat?" and I'd go "he's the smart one!" this approach fell through when I grew up to be queer, trans, and autistic. Turns out I /am/ the little guy. I should've seen this coming.
The one thing i will never agree with terry deary on is his anti-library stance. For someone whos very anti capitalist and anti authority he seems determined to make as much money as possible at the expense of education
It broke my little teenage heart when that interview came out. I'm with him that the cap is not high enough (maybe shouldn't even exist), but most of what he's complaining about (people not buying physical books in physical book stores) has nothing to do with libraries and everything to do with Amazon. That he refuses (refused?) to see that and favours ladder pulling is just... it's so disappointing
And there's no reason to be surprised. "Anti-capitalist" folk are the most capitalist you could ever find if you look at their actual behaviour instead of their words. In fact, it seems they only have their ideology to profit from it.
For me learn we were less weird. I’m Icelandic. Also just so people know they didn’t get 100% correct and definitely pronounced the name wrong but I love we are included ❤ so I take what I get. I was literally so excited when they did the Icelandic Alþingi skit cus its really accurate to our culture:)
I used to be OBSESSED with this show. I would watch it every single day and I have a framed collage of Mathew Baynton on my dresser at this current moment. I am currently wrapped in a Pachacuti blanket. So HH combined with a video essay is like perfect
I think it's super important to consider the underlying stances behind all types of media. HH is a fun example here but sometimes the subtle messages can be nefarious 😰 nothing is purely a simple fact, HH included!
These books Shaped my childhood, raised in a very conservative family, i used to borrow them from the school library. Read them at home, during primary school. By the time i was a teenager and the show started i was already addicted and by the time i was 15, id volunteered in my local Labour party and became a Socialist. Its didn't quite click for me at the time but these books turned my into a Socialist and now i am a High School teacher. I try to take what ive learned from these books and pass on the knowledge to my students.
Nice story. These books also played a role in feeding my enthusiasm for history. I did some teaching, like you, and am now on to a PhD. I hope you aren't one of teachers that impose their opinions on their students though. I've some teacher like that and absolutely hated it. When I am teaching I always tell me students that I teach them how to think, not what to think.
I think two of the actors in Horrible Histories were also in Peep Show: one who played Gerard (the man with a tube up his nose) and Simon (Dobby’s ex boyfriend who also teased Mark when he couldn’t answer the music question).
I love these. They made learning random facts (I forcibly educate people when I hear/see something remotely related) super easy, and all without the illusion of ‘Britain = 100% good’.
The second last cast shot was from that Shakespeare movie they made, not from HH. (Not that I care, you could've included a pic from Ghosts and I'd still be happy- they're such an awesome troop)
Needed a video to listen to while cooking, saw that the one I wanted was not uploaded yet. Clicked this. Definitely no regrets. Very interesting stuff! 10/10
My parents bought me a Horrible Histories book about all of the British monarchs (Cruel Kings and Mean Queens I think?) when we had a vacation in London, and I ate it up when we got back to my cousin’s house every night. It was bizarre to see the glorification of all things monarchy while doing all the usual tourist stuff during the day, and then reading a book that was equal parts unserious and scathing about said monarchy in the evening. It was formative in a way I don’t think I’ll ever fully articulate, but I’m thankful for it.
Its also more historically accurate then most history or geographic documentaries. Out of 800+ facts, only about 18 were incorrect, that % is higher then the vast majority of other documentaries. And yes, it counts a documentary.
It is objectively easy to talk about history in an anti-establishment way because we have already seen the full negative results of their actions. The problem with the current establishment/authority is that they are trying really hard to convince people that they are “not like those terrible people of the past” and even if there is a parallel, it is for some kind of a “greater good” promised in the future.
I love this show. I once contacted the custom designer for Charles II, as I think it's the ultimate halloween custom and they actually replied. PLUS I remember having all the books as a kid ANDDDD the show Bloopers are GOATED. Seeing pages from the book again has me feel insane nostalgia
Really unsure why I have been recommended this video since it’s 3 yrs old with 4k views but whatever have a new subscriber and I hope you choose to make more :)
Also, did you stop making videos? Because I've just had a quick glance at your page and if the content of this video, and the subjects of the others, is anything to go by, this is an incredible channel!
I was already planning to return to RUclips this year, but my channel blowing up this week has given me the motivation to actually get back to it 😊 I’m researching a new video as we speak!
I know this is years late, but thank you for this video. I watched half of it, then told my mum and we watched the whole thing together lol I saw this series on TV at 19, got obsessed with the songs, and recalled my lil bro having these books so i read those too. And got the rest of my family into it too lol. There we were, technically two boomers, a uni student, and a tough stubborn and cool highschool boy, all watching this series together for fun. my dad can't even watch tv programs and follow them well (he really never moved on from radio), but EVEN HE would watch this with us. But i felt too comfortable with the underlying anti-establishment tone coz... i was undiagnosed neurodivergent in a different cultural landscape than what my parents grew up in. Something about this series was ... .logical. it made sense in more ways than just historical knowledge...
I think this show encapsulates the difference between British humour and American humor. Especially for children. Disney Channel programming is all about family friendly tasteful content. I remember hearing that for the development of Bear in the Big Blue House, they wanted a program that didn't turn kids against the adults. While I think all these approaches are fine, not sugar coating the truth and making children aware of the nastier side of life better prepares them. Using comedy is a great way to make them aware but not traumatise them. The only thing I wish the tv show did was talk more about what the brits did to Ireland. However there was a cd of it narrated by Terry Derry that I loved listening too.
About the “British things” section, I feel like the outrage was because the song blatantly implied that Britain never invented anything, which is a blatant ahistoric claim that could not be further from the truth
Yeah, I don't think anyone sane was under the delusion that tea, sugar, or the other things mentioned in the song originated in Britain. But the way it was presented was so negative, as though Britain had no right to have acquired, adapted, or adopted them into our culture. Which frankly is something that both left and right should not have been comfortable with, as that perspective means that different cultures should be discouraged from exchanging the best bits of eachother and improving apon those things to suit themselves. That is hardly the message you want to promote if you want cultural cohabitation, integration, and exchange, or even for British people to take pride in accepting their own culture and achievements while welcoming that of others.
@@PrincessNinja007 I listened to the song (which was harder to find than I expected; It's from Series 1 episode 9, originally released in 2009). I think the lyric they're referencing would be "British things, I'm afraid there's hardly any" and "British things, British things, there are none we declare. All our favourite British things, seem to all come from elsewhere". Silly to get worked up over for sure, but it does imply it. The issue is that it's clearly being slightly facetious, given that the rest of the song is pointing to all the things we consider British but aren't, such as tea.
@@Roman_Eagle This seems to be nonsense to me. In fact I'm not sure where in the song you seem to be getting the idea it thinks that it's bad to share ideas or inventions? It's largely just pointing out things that aren't British, and how many of those things caused conflict and deaths. The slavery in sugar production and trade, and the British conquest of India in relation to tea for example.
Horrible histories was the sole reason Im such a history nerd today. I picked up one of their books when I was 9, and was immediately enthralled by the past
Great commentary, I remember the books fondly, I was a bit too old for the tv show, but I grew up with it's equivalents which were Maid Marion and her merry band (Starring Time team's own Tony Robinson as well as a fab cast) and Black adder, both of which I highly suggest folk watch and would make great material for analysis should you wish to continue with this theme.
If Deary is actually upset about his books being used in schools, he might need to re-evaluate his preconceptions about schools. It feels like his image of a classroom includes a rusty battle axe of a teacher, swinging a cane and demanding rote memorisation of dates. A lot of teachers today, and even back in 2012 when he made those comments, grew up with Horrible Histories. They saw first hand how learning could be fun, and it likely made them want to teach others. Teachers WANT to teach, and want students to enjoy learning. Good educators can recognise the value in a series like HH. I would argue putting his books in schools has had a positive effect on how subjects like history are taught. The value of grabbing students’ attention with a funny story is well known by teachers, a tool that HH uses in every book. I know you can’t tell someone how to feel about any given situation, but I personally would be proud to have my work in schools, promoting discovery and learning. Undermining the status quo, one poop joke at a time.
I started watching this show after I started my history learning at university. It completely reshaped my way of understanding history and totally changed my academic interests ever since.
i don't usually watch yt videos with fewer than 100K views because i worry they'll be low quality but i'm so glad i watched this one; a fantastic explanation of a concept that's been on the tip of my tongue but i hadn't fully realised ever since watching horrible histories 14 years ago as a kid. had no clue who terry deary was; LOVE him now. everything in this video was spot on, great stuff.
I have a friend who works in a library and says Terry Deary hates libraries, this is seemingly because his books *are* so popular in libraries and obviously he makes less money for them being rented out for free rather than being bought. It feels like the anti-establishment tone of HH would be pro-libraries since it gives everyone more access to public information. However, I guess there is the duality of man when you're thinking about how much money you could be making. Idk I just wanted to point this out. The other thing is sadly not all of the books are completely historically accurate. Either due to incorrect sources he may have been given or the history being updated since publication. I remember someone taking about Egyptology and someone chiming in saying they were incorrect. The latter person didn't have a source beyond "Horrible Histories said so" while the former person studying multiple sources had never seen anything with the claims talked about. This is all to say nothing is absolutely perfect. Terry Deary and HH can be wonderfully anti-establishment whilst also trying to undermine access to free literature.
so glad this is on my fyp!!! horrible histories inspired me to take history at gcse and if im lucky ill be taking history at uni this year too!! really cool to find an in-depth look into this show!! :D
But it's not "literally just showing", it self admittedly has a bias in how it tells it, selecting only the "horrible" parts of history. If I have a complete recollection of your life in front of me, and I edit out all the parts that make you look good, or always juxtapose them/insist with ones that'd make you look bad, and then told everyone about it, would you say I'm "just" showing your life ?
The entire show is about negative aspects of history. All countries got this treatment. But people were finding an issue with the british colonial and establishment history specifically, which has often been downplayed and untaught by the government. The root problem isn't omitted variable bias, its their inability to handle the unfiltered retelling of the events.
@@pal1379 But it's not unfiltered though. It's literally filtered to distil the bad part and exagerate (for comedic effect I'll grant you but that doesn't really change the point given that we're talking about kids) the stupidity and malice of people in charge.
@ colonialism and corrupt authority is bad enough that it doesn't need to be selectively shown. An exaggerated comical retelling actually made it look better than it was.
@ unfiltered wasn't the best word choice, so my bad about that. what I meant was that the bad parts weren't deliberately left out or justified like a lot of standardised education did.
Wow, I loved the books and show as a kid but never really considered the possibility of it teaching something as politically important as that! Of course, it makes a lot of sense when you think of it in that way. This is a brilliant video, thanks for creating it!
HH tv show was still very much Anglocentric, but I suppose that was a natural choice to make. What baffled me was that while the Americas were featured quite a bit, there was no Asia, none whatsoever, despite it being the birth of historical (as opposed to prehistoric) age of humanity, the most populous and the most culturally diverse continent.
You’re right and I do think that’s a gap in the show and I hope they work on it for the future. My guess is that the budget, especially in the first episodes, did not stretch to hire lots of different actors to play enough historical people from across the world to properly make sketches about those histories. The choice would be either to have white actors playing POC characters or not to include sketches about those histories at all. As blackface and yellowface are huge issues, I think they chose right in that context. I hope in the future that film and TV casting becomes more and more inclusive so that histories of all cultures can be represented!
@@chingizzhylkybayev8575 I’ve just been thinking about that after I sent the reply. My only guess is that the Egyptians and Aztecs often feature in the UK primary school history curriculum so that’s why they made sure to include them. Maybe it took them too long to realise ‘hang on, maybe we should get actors from the correct backgrounds to represent people from outside Europe’. You’re right to point out the contradiction and I think it exposes a lot of flaws with the ways history is taught!
Honestly, I don't know if this is just me, but there seems to be a massive "we don't talk about Asia" vibe in media. Just at large, Asia, Africa, and pre-colonial Australia are super hush hush. Australia I get because of the cultural genocide (I'm Australian), but Asia and Africa are almost entirely neglected in every historical show. If not outright hidden.
It is weird that we get medieval Mexico and Peru and ancient Africa just thrown in with Europe in terms of books. The writers and actors have since gone on to say more diverse casting would have been better- we see this as the series grows on (Dominique Moore isn't just for supportign parts but gets to play Harriet Tubman, Rosa Park and Mary Seacole). The last seasons aren't good, but they do at least show minority actors in the roles. It would have been a great opportunity to showcase Latine and Egyptian comedians. I believe Rotten Rulers is the only book I recall that gives equal page time to Asian and African kings and queens. I think the issue is mostly trying to punch up, while viewing Aztec, Inca and ancient Egyptian cultures as "dead" societies. Thing is, it winds up reflecting some colonialist propaganda by accident thanks to the limited sources available.
i’m a massive fan of horrible histories, (you can play basically any scene for me and i can quote it all the way through) and i’ve always liked the way that they portray the monarchs/emperors, like emperor nero is portrayed as an uptight, self centered idiot, henry 8th is portrayed as angry and stupid, george the 4th is just basically like a comic relief character, it just shows all the “important people” the way that their actions show them to be, and it kind of shows kids that people in positions of power are all similar to that, which again shows the anti-establishment undertones of the series, i’ve probably worded this terribly but i just appreciate HH showing all the powerful people in this way
Weird question but has Horrible Histories talked about ‘Tulip Mania’ in one of their episodes: I ask because it’s one of the earliest examples of a financial bubble and it has the potential for a lot of jokes about how silly the concept is.
I don’t think they’ve covered Tulip Mania, but I haven’t seen all the newest episodes so I don’t know for sure. It has a lot of potential for some good jokes!
@ It’s the financial bubble when back in the 17th Century: Tulips were seen as being very rare and Valuable so traders tried to buy it in the hope of selling it later, but the value of these Tulips crashed through the floor. One of the reasons why people take an interest in this time period is because it has some similarities between NFTs and
One thing that always stuck out to me was in the book about the Second World War and how it told a story about an air raid of London on Valentine’s Day and asked the reader to try to pick out what did and didn’t happen. After reading about the atrocities that happened, it’s revealed that it was all true, aside from one single detail: that it was in Dresden, Germany, not London. Then it asked the reader to consider that the Allies perhaps weren’t an objectively morally good military force, but rather simply fighting against a worse one that made them look better in comparison.
As a child, that completely changed my view on things like the World Wars. It had a profound effect on me. These kinds of things do need to be told.
That is a nice moral perspective, but looking at Dresden, it was an industrial centre, important for supply and a propagandistic Hotspot. After what my people have done on the eastern front, nothing done to us could have swayed the moral highground the Allies had.
agree 100%
allies bombed Zadar as well , you cannot consider it a war crime when its a response to atrocities you commited, also Zadar was very strategically important and the ustashas would not think twice about civilian casualties, so you cannot fight a 'clean' war against fascists. @CloudDieStrifende
@CloudDieStrifende Idk man I don't think living in an industrial center is a great enough crime to make burning civilians to death a totally good or even really neutral act. In the second and third days of the bombings, industrial targets were used, but on the first day because the original industrial target was obscured by the weather, they basically just said 'fuck it we ball' and went for the city center itself. The point OP was making wasn't even that the allies lost the moral high ground through this, but that the moral high ground of the allies allowed the horrors resulting from their actions to be diminished.
Now personally I don't buy into any of the "moral high ground" stuff that strongly anyway. WW2 was not fought on moral grounds. It was not even a result of Germany breaking the terms of the treaty of Versailles. If either of those were the case, the war would've started a lot earlier. In truth, the allies were quite okay spending many years turning a blind eye to the atrocities being committed, and to the invasion and annexation of other territories. The allies got involved because Poland in particular was invaded, and Poland had made an agreement with the UK to ask that they step in if they were ever invaded. From there, it was all alliances as in WW1.
Also giving out a free pass based on the allies' being on the right side of the war is problematic because it enforces this 'ends justify the means' mentality that means countries have no fear of continuing to commit atrocities because the lesson learned in WW2 was that you can do literally whatever you want so long as you win and so long as you can say 'oh all those civilians were just collateral actually and we promise we were aiming at the military target behind them'
@CloudDieStrifende To put it much more simply, I suppose, two wrongs don't make a right.
The songs were really impressive! Not only did they accurately describe the historical context, they also sounded like popular contemporary songs, which is quite a difficult feat to pull off!
I really liked how they always chose relevant songs to parody, not just in the style but the themes of the song, like R.E.S.P.E.C.T for Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement, "changes" for Charles Darwin and evolution.
@@elliesaurusart1202 or Staying alive for the aztec sacrifices!
@@zappababe8577 i mean most of them are parodies of contemporary songs
@@elliesaurusart1202 I still love the Darwin song, the Charles Dickens song, and the Stupid Deaths theme!
They were actually based on actual songs, but with lyrics changed :)
looking back at this, I notice that there's really a lot of references to "oh, now he's dead and he becomes king. Oh, now he's just died as well and now she's queen." and i noticed how they just skim over the topics of people dying and then others being rlly happy because "now im in charge!"
as a kid, i didnt think too much of this and i just thought "one day there could be an episode all about me or even somebody who reigned in my lifetime"
wow, horrible histories really stopped me from having terrible existential thoughts about dying.
It’s funny because it had the opposite effect on me! I loved the stupid death sketches but they did freak me out existentially…
I like how smart the show is. It’s intelligent but it doesn’t patronize the kids or treat their adult viewers like idiots
That’s one of my favourite parts too. It was one of the only shows that me and my brother (nine year age gap) would happily watch together
all the best kids media is like that. Avatar the last airbender was great and also had themes of anti-establishment, as we see power structures from all 4 bending styles that create a form of opression. the obvious one is the imperialist nature of the fire nation, but there's also the misogyny of the northern water temple, the fascist monarchism of ba sing se, and how despite priding itself on freedom, the Air temple didn't treat aang freely at all.
there's also Lego Ninjago that similarly had solid writing that an adult can enjoy. same with the DCAU
kids media is at its best when it tries to contextualise its message in a way someone who might not have the understanding an adult might can still appreciate.
a child watching ATLA will be able to see it and recognise imperialism is bad, that there's no easy way to stop it, and that even those who supposedly benefit from it, still suffer to a degree
@ America does this all too often. When I was a kid, I never thought about it but after I studied ECE, I noticed a lot of American kids programming tends to be a little patronizing. This is why shows like avatar the last air bender and Mr Rogers neighborhood are such classics. Because they don’t treat their audience like they have no working brain cells.
Intelligent people are never patronising: they just assume everyone has a PhD in an unrelated field, or will do once they finish year 7.
If you want really good educational shows that are touching on complicated topics while not being shallow, alfred j kwak and the once upon a time series are diamonds
Looking at the title I kinda laughed and went “Oh! It’s one of these meme titles, I’m sure the video will be unhinged and exaggerated for jokes!” But it a serious, very informative video about systems in society and the impact media has on us. Very well made! Also, the Guy Fawkes quote from the author is legendary.
the thumbnail and title are a bit tongue-in-cheek but no lies were told!! 😅 I'm happy you ended up enjoying the video and Terry Deary the author is just a legendary man
I've ALWAYS loved this series of Horrible Histories. A I can assure that I was well into fifties when this first aired down here in Australia, and I've enjoyed watching it again and again with ALL of my grandchildren.
how dare RUclips hide this from me for 3 years
2K??!?! wtf thanks!! this vid is blowing up
hahah I’m surprised too that this is randomly blowing up now!
Frfr best video thanks, I loved watching this on TV and talking to my friends about it after. Even though I don't watch much tv now, it's great to see a lot of the cast still doing stuff
@@MimiMortmaineveryone’s getting recommended here, CONGRATS! People are finally getting to see your work! And I must say it’s brilliant, thoughtful, and explains a lot about the bias shift in younger generations in the uk very well.
I remember talking to my parents about how awful the ‘Industrial Revolution and its consequences’ (see what I did there 😂) was for the lower classes, I was about 10-11 at the time, and it genuinely took them by surprise that I had that view, because when they were in school they were thought only about how it paved the way for modern technological advancement and the increase in the standard of living. I also found around that time that I had a VERY different perspective on the British empire than they did, all from schooling and horrible histories.
i relate to this comment.
Right???
I want to thank Terry Deary for being a formative influence on me as a kid- I started reading very early (hyperlexia, my parents got me these fluffy books that were safe to sleep on when I was like 2 because I kept reading in bed until I fell asleep) and Horrible Histories are the first books I really remember staying up late to read again and again. I think I would've been about 6? my copies all ended up a bit battered because I'd read them in bed and fall asleep with them
That’s so lovely 🥰
me too, i was reading history books at a very young age and books like wuthering heights when i was 10
Sounds like me with the I Survived books.
lol me too! i remember being six and reading about a six-year old kid in some book.. acting like a little kid... and i was really indignant because i thought i was so much smarter than him lol
Deary would appreciate that! ❤
Loved these books as a child, got a signed copy of Bloody Scotland at home.
He may not call himself a historian but he gets exactly what makes history so interesting and that's the unique human experiences you learn about.
yay I’m happy you liked the books! where did you get the signed copy from? did you go to a signing? 🙂
"Remember remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot,
Was Guy Fawkes the devil, the Stuarts all saints?
Are we glad that they caught him ... Or not?"
Is a rhyme that has stayed in my mind since I first heard it. I would sing it every bonfire night! Even though it took me a few years to fully understand it, the idea of questioning how we're taught to view parts of history is something i picked up on immediately.
I mean, let us not pretend Guy Fawkes was a liberal revolutionary.
King James and the Parliament might not be saints but the goal of the Gunpowder Plot was to establish a Catholic Monarchy in England, not some form of republic or a stateless anarchist society (despite V for Vendetta and Anonymous appropriating the imagery).
@gokbay3057 Yes, this is a brilliant point that I didn't know how to write into my original comment, thank you! I did blindly sing that verse as a kid and now, with more context, I can't say I am on the side of the plot.
(There's theories of was all a setup anyway, since the king wasn't even planned to be in parliament)
I still quite like the rewrite though, as the plot is taught as well black and white. It's why it took me so long to actually learn their motive (and still not feel confident enough that I could phrase it well so ty for bringing it up for me 😅)
And not to mention that Fawkes was not even the group's leader but simply their explosives expert, and it didn't even take place on the 5th. The whole thing is a bit odd imo
@@gokbay3057also, let's not forget that if the old Houses of Parliament had been cratered, the amount of powder that was packed into the cellars would have wrought untold damage upon surrounding residential areas in London. And likely moved up the timeline for the Great Fire of London by over half a century. While the Stuarts had no rights to demonise Catholics the way they did, Fawkes and his band of merry bombers were terrorists through and through
@@gokbay3057As a Catholic I still approve! 👍
@@gokbay3057aye but the later Catholic king James prior to the 'glorious' revolution was pretty decent. Treated Catholics and protestants as equal which the protestants didn't like. At the very least guy Fawkes was fighting against discrimination of Catholics
I just want to make one note on the quote at 8:00
There are still aboriginal Tasmanians! The myth of the native Tasmanians going extinct is based on the fact that she was considered the last "full blooded" aboriginal Tasmanian. But Australian Aboriginal people aren't considered any less aboriginal just because they have some english/European/non aboriginal ancestry
Indeed, now Tasmania has one of the highest populations of Indigenous Australians (about 5%). It's worth noting though, Terry's sentiment is still valid. The Hobart town penal colony was established in 1803, and by the mid 1830s almost all of the Indigenous population had been wiped out. Even though Tasmania as a whole still remained largely unsettled by the Europeans. 200 survivers of "The Black War" were promised clemency and the right to live on their land in peace if they turned themselves in, naturally, the Europeans then banished them to Flinder's island where many of them died.
The policy of Terra Nullius ("Nobody's land") allowed British settlers to freely claim any uninhabited land for the crown. Of course, the British simply ignored Indigenous Australian's presence so that they could legally claim the land per Terra Nullius.I'm intensely surprised this myth still persists in Britain... Almost every British colony established already had people living on that land..
Agreed! It's ironically pretty racist to claim that aboriginal Tasmanians no longer exist just because they also have other blood!
@@clarebradbery1790I mean this whole empty land thing even goes as far back as the Anglo Saxon invasions. People have said to me that Britain was just a vast empty lands and the Anglo Saxons just took it because they needed land. When in reality we know that they were firstly invited by the Britons, then they invaded and slaughtered (not genocided as we know everyone in Britain still can trace majority of their roots to the ancient Britons including the English) pushing back Brythonic Kingdom, etc people will go to extreme length to support colonisation. Another example is Israel, many people will say Israel settled on a vast wasteland with no people, even so original Zionist knew there was people there
So as a tasmanian i was actually under the impression that we no longer had any tasmanian aboriginals at all not just no more "full blooded" i thought the people calling themselves tasmanian aboriginals were mainland aboriginals who had either themselves moved to tasmania or were descended of those who had moved, looks like I've got some research to do... if anyone has some good sources I'd appreciate them but I'll start with google :)
Looked into it furthur and it seems the people who taught me history decided to generalise full blooded to mean all, obviously blood purity is a disgusting metric for anything outside of a chemistry lab, i was in school less than a decade ago, goes to show that even in tassie we still have a long way to go with teaching true and accurate history :(
I read the British Empire book as a kid, and while I do think I parsed it in a kind of piecemeal way (picking up on some points and not quite getting others), that was absolutely my first encounter with the concept of the empire, and what shaped my perception of it. So for me, I'm sure that the original aim of the book succeeded, because when I'd later see people kicking up a fuss about the illusion of the Glorious Empire being shattered, I kind of had no idea what they were talking about, because for me the illusion had never existed in the first place. The things I associated with the British Empire first and foremost were the parts in the book about the slave trade, British army violence in India, and the extinction of indigenous Tasmanians. I don't think I can really claim in good faith to clearly remember anything else, but that was enough - and in a weird way, I think it took the first backlash I saw to fully comprehend, viscerally, how awful the consequences of the empire had actually been, because up til then I'd had a weirdly pragmatic/matter-of-fact perspective on 'yes, the British Empire committed atrocities, that's just a fact, Horrible Histories said so and I believe it.' Like, the book got in early enough that its stance became my formative/fundamental perception on the topic before anything else could influence me.
(If anything, I think the one problem I encountered was that the focus on so much violence in the books sometimes confused me - it was occasionally easy, as a child, to focus on the fact that everyone was apparently committing violence left right and centre, and to miss the power structures that informed what kind of violence was being perpetuated, against who, and what that meant. But at the same time, I think that a view of 'it was possible for anyone in history to do awful things' was at least better for me to have picked up on than 'x group never did awful things ever,' or 'if they did, they were justified and therefore the awful things weren't awful anyway.' )
The matter of fact approach you describe it really valuable, I think, because it means your view isn’t affected by all the emotionally charged opinions that a lot of people grow into and it means we can actually have useful conversations
I think that, for all its worth, all empires in the past have their dark secrets, horrible histories does point this out, but i think it's unfair to say that Everything they did WAS evil.
Good people and good things have propped up because of the empires that came before.
Things such as measurements and math, roads, rails, engines, medicines, and man made miracles
The British empire was the first to forgo slavery, and in majority also reduce racism within their own nation compared to for example America, which even during the ww2 forced other nations to segregate their bars for their soldiers.
It is very easy to be swept up in all the negatives which have been done, and forget the good things.
@@rubotok3703 all of these good things and good people develop in spite of empires, not because of them.
It is really important to not attribute one thing to another like that.
@@mattymerr701 well, id say some of these things were because of empires, the expansive networks of roads and railways for example
@@rubotok3703if you're willing to exterminate any and every indigenous population you can find in order to learn how to build train tracks over their houses, what does that say about you as a person?
These books were my childhood ngl. I'm autistic and one of my main hyperfixations was (and still is) history as a whole. When i was about six years old i came across the series on netflix and was immediatley hooked. About a year later i recieved most of the books for my birthday, and ever since then I've been a die hard fan
(Matthew Baynton changed my 6 year old brain chemistry btw)
Omg its like staring into a mirror! history is my special interested and horrible histories got me into it and for my 8th birthday i got a box set of the books and read them cover to cover lots of times!
What's your favourite period in history?
@EggPotionFilms ok it changes but i always come back to the victorians u?
@@iconitoblubberry also changes for me but right now it's Germany/ Prussia under bismarck
me too, i have Autism and am obsessed with history since i was 7 way back in the 1970s and went to the tower of London and was gripped by Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey, now i am almost 60 and still love history. I also love Ghosts .
Controversy you missed: The original Mary Seacole had a line about Florence Nightingale being racist. They had complaints from the Florence Nightingale association (or smth). Now the version you see gets that part cut which makes it unclear why she started on her own. There is a lyrics version that still got it
Is it "she turned me down because me black, yep weird I know but true"? If so, it's still on the DVD versions!
Quite an irrelevant detail. I mean, considering negative aspects of your history is a sign that your civilization is in the final stage of it's life cycle; do the Indians and the Chinese seek to be anti-racist and hyper-aware of the negative aspects of their past? No.
@ I mean, it's always a good idea to check over your work to make sure that you haven't made a mistake. Concerning Mary Seacole, it's an important part of her story as to why she set off on her own rather than work under Nightingale.
@@Jukelbo489"Considering negative aspects of your history is a sign that your civilisation is in the final stage of it's life" that's usually because people realise their rulers suck and toss them out. Implying reflecting on history is inherently bad because it ends régimes is like saying reading or education or spare time are bad because they do the same thing. It's a stupid perspective that only makes sense if you're planning to actively benefit from the flaws of your society to the detriment of others
@Pihsrosnec This time over it's leading to "us" tossing our people out.
Horrible histories made me fall in love with the past. I’ve now got an unconditional place to study history and archaeology at uni starting this September. Crazy to think that the course of my life and career has been shaped by a ‘kids’ show
that's amazing, I'm so excited for you!! history and archaeology is a great combination and we need more people specialising in both
I'm just finishing my history degree that i chose to do because Horrible Histories made me fall in love with history as a child! All the best for university, enjoy every minute of it!
Me too! 🤣🤣
Watching this video I was like "this sounds a bit.... Anarchisty... ". So I looked up if Deary is an Anarchist, and voila, he is a vocal Anarchist. Thanks for helping me find out that one of my favorite childhood authors is so Awesome. I am going to make sure I give my horrible histories boxed set to a kid who will love them the same way I love them.
Hes also a generally horrible person sadly
He is vocally in favour of child labour, and against both libraries and schools
A thoroughly confusing man
Based and breadpilled
Always good to see some anarchist propaganda seeing success. Friggen loved horrible histories growing up, continue to love them today.
I can't believe it took me so long to find this video!! It combines all the things I love: horrible histories, literary analysis, and finding leftist themes in unsuspecting works of art !!
I felt the same when I was making the video! I’m happy you found it and enjoyed it 😁
I find it very interesting that most children are naturally very anti-authority / anti-establishment, and I also find it interesting how in comics like the beano and in childrens media like horrible histories that is encouraged and celebrated. Its almost like theres some part of us as people that at the very least is able to find flaw with and want to challenge authority, especially in the way our society has established it and itself.
Semi-antidisestablishmentarianist teenager here. I feel like history class, at least in my area, has advanced pretty far. You don't have to study dates anymore, and things are pretty even handed. They tell you a fella had cities burned to the ground, show you the cool stuff they did with all the territory they conquered, and let you draw your own conclusions (and half the time make you write an essay on what you think about the whole situation).
Yeah I wouldn’t say that it’s as dreary anymore as the HH books would say, but I also think that there are still undertones that promote a certain kind of nationalistic perspective (or at least there is in the UK!)
@@MimiMortmain All I can say is that my American history teacher was a truly great individual, he really did love his country, but always encouraged questioning. He was an authoritative teacher (I can remember a couple times during the year when he pointed out we were just about to be becoming adults, and how our behavior should've been embarrassing), but tried his best to get us to think about the systems still present in the world today.
It's seemingly more about the quality of the teacher as an individual, rather than the system as a whole, which kind of flies in the face of the whole idea that it's the system to blame.
@@MimiMortmainat least where I grew up in South Yorkshire where pretty much all the teachers had lived through the 80’s it’s fair to say as much as they could whilst sticking to the national curriculum authority was not painted in the most sympathetic way
The irony is many of the people who trash History classes and "establishment" history are by and large not much different to the those they're criticising.
More often than not they're crying about a vague idea rather than any real fact or study they've seen.
@MimiMortmain I do agree with this, baring in mind I left school a while ago now, we were encouraged to form our own opinions, most questions were essays where we had to form an opinion in conclusion, but facts were still presented in a biased manner absolutely.
I'm from Brazil, and this show was a very important part of my childhood, probably being the reason why I love history so much.
Thank you Brits 🙏
The first good thing us Br*tish people ever did
Yes! Thank you Brits also for Peppa Pig! Love that girlie. And for Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom and Shaun the Sheep.
Thanks so much for making this video! I grew up reading the books and watching the series but, as a child, I couldn't explain why it was that I hated learning history at school but loved Horrible Histories. Being a kid, I didn't think too much into it and completely missed the anti-establishment tone. After watching your video, I can appreciate those undertones and am so grateful to have grown up with this series. It's one of many that make me appreciate that entertainment made for children doesn't always have to be a sparkly eye grab- there are so many series' and books and films that are made by people who sincerely wish to educate and entertain (edutain?) simultaneously.
And thank you so much for coming to watch and for commenting 😊 Kids’ media shouldn’t be underestimated!
I discovered Horrible Histories (the TV series, although I did end up reading a couple of the books) as an adult, and also missed the anti-establishment tone. People, even the ones who are famous for making history, can be ridiculous, wrong, and have their quirks. They're just human, like the rest of us. I felt the same humour was applied to Henry VIII on his computer deciding to start a new church, as to the Aztec Come Dine With Me where the only food was maize and beans, with its resulting flatulence. I think the team did a wonderful job in making us laugh at just about everybody, and judgement (if any) was left to the viewer.
7:55 - Just a small fact-check of Terry's words here, talking about the 'native Tasmanians' being wiped out. Whilst it's true there was a genocide, and successive massacres, we did not die out! The extinction myth was propagated by the British after the 'Black Wars' of the 1820s and early 1830s. After this period, they found it useful to pretend they had created a settler 'oasis'. In fact, we very much survived. Patsy Cameron's book 'Grease & Ochre' gives a good explanation, and also 'My People's Songs' by Joel Stephen Birnie - two Tasmanian Aboriginal people of different Nations/language groups on the island - Trouwunna/lutruwita (depending on what area of the island, it was known by one name or the other; pronounced Tru-wun-nah and lah-tru-wit-tah)
as an australian i didn’t even know this was a myth 😭 im glad i guess? but wow
as a primary schooler and young high schooler, I was very into learning about history, and given the way primary school history was taught, I never quite understood what exactly it meant about making history seem fun. Then high school came along, and I found myself SO glad that I could drop history as a subject when picking GCSEs. I didn't realise this until this video, but now I get what it was aiming for - the way high school is run means that history was all about remembering seemingly meaningless dates and names over and over until you forget why you loved anything in the first place.
Also ty for subtitles :DDD
Any programme aimed at children which educates them, entertains them, and makes them question the status quo, sounds alright to me.
And there never was unintended consequences for well meaning acts of influencing others anywhere and thus people should be free to experiment with impressionable youths in topics one has little formal training and a dislike to accountability and very entrenched opinions
😂
@@TheGahta hit dogs gonna holler
What an excellent video! Horrible Histories was a huge part of my childhood and I think it significantly shaped how I view the world. I always appreciated how it was honest about history and didn't seem to sugarcoat anything, especially that it didn't always paint Britain as "the good guys". I'm Australian, so I only ever learnt about Australian history in primary school, indigenous history, the penal colony, the goldrush, then the federation of Australia, so my knowledge of world history was just Horrible histories until high school.
I'm happy you liked it!
The show was a crucial part of my childhood and I had the chance to meet Ben Willbond at a convention late last year! I love that weird freak of a show and so did my stepdad, absolute iconic show.
oh wow that sounds amazing!!
i saw Terry Deary give a talk at durham book festival this year, and got to ask a question about what sources he uses (his answer: other history books, not primary sources, and though some historians call him a plagiarist for that, he doesn't care.)
i found him to be irreverent and very likeable. he was outspoken about his political views and clearly takes pride in his northern, working class roots. he just seemed like a really nice, funny, down to earth guy, with a head full of interesting history anecdotes.
i would massively recommend his newest book, A History In Britain In Ten Enemies, which is for adults. i found it very educational while also making me laugh with an equal measure of silly lighthearted jokes and accurate satire towards shitty politicians and bigots.
Happy to hear that! There’s always the worry with meeting your heroes 😅
Thanks for your comment! It’s made me get your book recommendation out of the library 📚 😊
Greg Jenner, the historian consult for the show, also has a fantastic history podcast called "you're dead to me". I have listened to almost every episode and it's delightful
I WAS WONDERING WHY HE WAS ODDLY FAMILIAR! that’s been my bedtime podcast for months haha
@Misstressofdons I listen to it at work! I love it so much.
@@Misstressofdons When I saw his picture in this video, he was oddly familiar to me, but for a different reason. I think he appeared sometimes as an extra who never spoke but just nodded in different HH sketches, for example, in Queen for 9 Days.
My dad was a history teacher for 15-20 years and detests Deary with a passion. After getting my degree and loving his books as a kid, i get why.
When a teacher cares, history is amazing. A tapestry of human experience. Amazing stories of survival, ingenuity, misfortune and tragedy... with a bad teacher its some boring dates and some names you can barely remember.
I think Deary struck gold with his work, and its done an amazing job in getting millions of kids to learn more about history. But he seens to have had a shit history teacher as a kid and never grew out of that.
You’re right but in a way I think it works out. It appeals to the kids who probably need it most! If you’re a kid with a great history teacher you’re already being well educated. If you’re a kid with a bad history teacher and you’ve developed a disdain for the subject as a result, then this aspect of the branding is more likely to resonate and catch your attention
Given Dearys age, his takes on the education system probably have more to do with the actual system he was put through, and less to do with one bad teacher.
But then he's just decided that the education system couldn't have changed in any way in the decades since, and continues to make the same outdated complaints. (Not that the education system in the UK isn't still awful in a lot of ways, but differently from what he complains about).
@Albinojackrussel Oh absolutely. But he doesn't say that, and I suppose that's where the ire comes from, he regards the institutions as entirely awful, and when you come from particularly poor areas of the UK, thats not the message you want kids to hear.
It appears he never really grew up
His hatred of education is so childish and petty
He's an incredibly angry man, who seems intent in his old age of pulling the ladder up
@@KyunaCookies He's not wrong though
Little bit on the Tasmanians (aka the Palawa people) is that while yes the last “full blooded” palawa person died over a hundred years ago, may part palawa people are still around, still fighting for rights and recognition, and still practicing customs
And it’s BECAUSE of what Britain did to our native peoples that it’s so important for even those with a just a trickle of aboriginal heritage to try to learn about and preserve that heritage before it’s lost forever- I married a 1/16th Noongar man, and we’re in the process of sending him to visit his uncle in WA so that they can go meet his Noongar relatives and elders and hopefully learn as much as possible so as to preserve the culture.
Luckily, the Noongar people aren’t in much danger of dying out, but my heart breaks every time for those like the Palawa
The palawa people are only one of a number of groups of Aboriginal descent from Tasmania (both historically and in the present day).
@@jssyoutube1 In Tasmania, collectively, the aboriginal people are the palawa or pakana people, there are many groups inside this major collective, however. Such as the muwinina people of nipaluna/southern-er tasmania.
@@seaztheday4418 Oh i agree
In retrospect, it's a shame that the series was limited to the kinds of history that were already mainstream in europe. I would have LOVED an HH book about precolonial African empires, Chinese dynasties, queer history, native American history...
Omg yes that would be incredible
be careful what you wish for
It's probably hard when it is an English author writing for an English publisher, for an English audience, in England. But having this style of book and tv show from other perspectives would be amazing.
Especially since the books had no issue with talking down about Britain and cutting through the propaganda
@mattymerr701 My thoughts exactly.
It was a good range. The 6 main people who wrote and acted the whole show weren’t going to go back/asian face to do a sketch in less interesting history
I think it's pretty telling that the book that's hardest to find is barmy british empire.
Edit to avoid pointless arguments: I don't mean this in a conspiracy theory way, and I'm mainly talking about how easy it is to buy in physical shops, where as as kid I aquired all my books. I know Amazon exists.
yes it's very suspicious 🤔
I own a copy.
I have a copy! Which is weird, because we’re not British/in Britain. Don’t remember where we got it
It's on Amazon for £2.70 paperback, with the kindle edition £4.70.
Perhaps two years ago it was harder to find. Or perhaps anyone struggling to find it isn't trying very hard.
I wonder what the availability of it is in the US?
2:20 the original cast were so iconic I miss them 😢
moving from south america to australia, this show was a pillar in my first days getting used to all the changes involved, i look back on horrible histories so fondly. starting from the fact that it helped me catch up on a lot of european history that was not covered in my former history curriculum but was crucial in aus, and helped me learn new vocab as an ESL student (i very vividly remember looking up the meaning of the word 'acur-rat'), it also was pivotal in putting that anti-establishment lens in history that made it so much more complex, nuanced and more interesting to learn. the show is brilliant at getting kids interested in history and demonstrating that there are complexities to history because real living people went through it
My one criticism of Terry Deary, who I otherwise attribute a large part of my lifelong fascination of history to and respect a lot, is that his views on history education seem a bit dated at times: in my history education, especially in post primary school, throughout the 2000's and early 2010's, there was a lot more emphasis on the existence of competing narratives of history, and encouragement to approach history from an analytical perspective more than simply rote learning. Hell, in an Irish Catholic school, we were even challenged to consider if Cromwell was actually that bad a guy; which is pretty serious sacrilege, for those that don't know...
My school basically said neither britain or ireland find him as the good guy or the bad guy since he hurt ireland alot but hurt britain too.
We generally consider him to be an utter villain in the UK.
Main reason is that he was of a different protestant denomination to the overwhelming majority of the UK (He was a Puritan and we were overwhelmingly Anglican) and this led to him introducing religious reforms that to most people seemed utterly inexplicable, tyrannical or even un-Christian.
@moritamikamikara3879 iirc, he banned stuff like music and dancing because it was against his religion. People were so angry at him that they called the next king merry monarch because in comparison to cromwell he was seen as alot nicer
@sudanesegamer7886 Ireland absolutely see Cromwell as a bad guy. His conquest of Ireland killed 40% of the population and ensured that Catholics pretty much could not own land.
@thedebatedealer9187 yeah, and to add to that, he was the main reason Ireland was under firm british rule. Before him, most of ireland acted as though they weren't rules by britain. Before that, they mainly focused on small parts but after him, everyone was pushed to the west which had the worst rocky land. But some Irish people didnt hate him because they also hated the british and he made life bad for them. Im not saying people loved him. There wouldnt be any universe where anyone would like him. He was an ugly man inside and out.
Deary may not have intended it, but the enjoyment I got out of horrible histories is a large reason for me choosing a history GCSE. And it was really fun. Perhaps because I have never met a non-fun history teacher (I once played ultimate Frisbee with a history teacher from Australia who played Pokémon). But it was just really fun.
Igniting fun in an academic subject is something I think is really important. Now, even as I’m not in education, I consume a lot of fun educational media because, thanks to horrible histories, I know educational things can be fun. Honestly, aside from English, I enjoyed every subject I did in school, to varying degrees (My computer science teacher was a colossal arsehole).
Simon Whistler is a particular favourite of mine when it comes to educational media. I think across his RUclips channels he’s my most watched RUclipsr.
Terry Deary is responsible for creating more than a few history lovers, for sure!
I loved the video! In Spain we had some of these books translated. It was really nice remembering those and their anti-establishment undertones
yes they’ve been translated into languages from all over the world 🌍😁 thank you for watching and I’m happy you liked reminiscing about the series!
@@MimiMortmain good luke with your channel! I will watch more of your videos :D
As a Horrible Histories mega fan, I'm so happy it's not just me that gives this show such high praise. It's a children's show like no other and we were so lucky to grow up with it
History teacher here - though not from the UK. I love using Horrible Histories at school exactly because of those undertones and I don‘t think I‘m alone in this! Getting children to think critically about the past is exactly what history lessons should be there for (and to some extent are, depending on your country’s curriculum). I can only use it with older students, because the language is a bit difficult for non-natives but I wish there was something similar in my native language to work with.
I think there are a lot of adults and teachers who know exactly what Horrible Histories is doing and like it because of it, not in spite of it ;)
"Getting children to think critically about the past is exactly what history lessons should be there for"
How about giving them as accurate an image of historical facts and the link between them instead ? That seems like it should come first before "teaching them to think criticially".
That‘s a fun question! Of course you‘re right. History lessons obviously also need to give you an understanding of what we know about the past and how we know it. If you think about History like any other social or natural science, of course we need to have the tools and base knowledge to work in that area. If I know nothing about Romans or the sources we have telling us about Romans, I can‘t really think about why I hear more about Roman generals than other people living and working during the same era.
However, in History, we have so much material to work with, that we‘re kind of reliant on teaching kids how to engage with areas of history not covered in lessons - why they weren‘t taught them and which sources and portrayals are reliable.
@ Sure but again, that should come after you've told them what we know.
What we know
How we know
How you can know more
And that's before even talking about whether or not (in public schools and early educations, not university and above) we should even teach history neutrally to begin with, instead of focusing on the parts that relate to one's nation's personal history and how it relates to current values and attitudes, to fostering a sense of fellowship between compatriots, and a healthy sense of pride about one's predecessors.
I think you‘re assuming that this process is one in which only one thing can happen at the time. That‘s not how education happens. If you just get told facts all day every day, you‘re much less likely to remember everything rather than, for instance, mixing it up and letting someone figure the how what and why out themselves by studying sources. Yes, that is something you can already do with 10-year-olds.
Now the second aspect I find very funny, because that is something that is done already. If you haven‘t realised maybe it‘s time to critically think back to your history lessons: what kind of history did you get taught in school? Was it the history of your country, something people who do educational plans think is important for you as a citizen to know, or was it a general overview of all the ‚most important bits‘ that only included your country when necessary?
This is why it‘s important to start thinking critically about history early, btw. So that no one believes that any school is teaching history „neutrally“. Now, I‘m not saying selecting what to teach is wrong. But it is sensible to know that whatever you‘re being taught in school can never be the whole (his)tory and how to start learning more from reputable sources from a young age. Because some people will maybe not go to university. But - at least in my opinion, and my country‘s education system agrees with me there - they still deserve to have the ability to learn more if they want to and realise when they‘re being told nonsense.
@@caseusbelli "I think you‘re assuming that this process is one in which only one thing can happen at the time"
I moreso see it as a pyramid where everything will eventually happen at the same time but the very basics will be only or almost entirely only one thing, namely the facts, then as you learn more it'll be the facts + the sources, then facts + sources + historiographic methods, etc.
" That‘s not how education happens. "
I mean in my country that's exactly how it happens. Well... No, actually unfortunately in my country it's just the facts, and a narrative to go with them, maybe some comments about how different people at the time perceived things differently, quite late generally, and maybe on top of that you'll have your teacher not being able to hold off his tongue about his own politics.
If we're talking education from 3 to 18.
"what kind of history did you get taught in school?"
I know it is being done already, I'm saying that it is good that it is being done, not that it's not being done.
"Was it the history of your country, something people who do educational plans think is important for you as a citizen to know, or was it a general overview of all the ‚most important bits‘ that only included your country when necessary?"
Well, kinda both, it wasn't strictly one or the other, there were definitely "most important bits" that didn't include my country (although it's arguable whether or not those weren't things that teachers and statesmen thought was important for civic education), like learning about prehistory, bronze age, development of agriculture, writing, math, democracy, monarchy, etc, then also stuff like the US, USSR and china, that kinda stuff, but we have a strong and explicit tradition in my country of what we call the "roman national", or "national story" if you will, which is explicitly and self admittedly about trying to foster a sense of identity and historic grounding to students, to give them an idea of the legacy they are a prolongation of.
" So that no one believes that any school is teaching history „neutrally“ "
See that sounds a bit contradictory to me given the comparison you've made to the natural sciences.
If history is just a science, then we don't need to teach kids about history critically we can just teach them neutrally, if we agree that it isn't being taught neutrally and that it shouldn't be taught neutrally, then it's unclear why we should teach them critically in some senses of the word.
"But - at least in my opinion, and my country‘s education system agrees with me there - they still deserve to have the ability to learn more if they want to and realise when they‘re being told nonsense."
Well... I'll hold off on getting too deep on that point here, I have very mixed feelings about the state of my education system. Or our buraucracy in general.
6:00 this is the reason why my dad loved this show so much- he really wanted me to grow up with a deep understanding of capitalism and the poverty that is always bestowed on the poorest in the country and whenever someone tries to stand up for a change the show always shows it in a funny/good light and I find that fascinating when a lot of documentaries would take a less strong stance on such matters of revolution/strong figures fighting for equality and fairness.
This is the best thing you've ever done and an absolute triumph. Not least for the return of the proverbial Timmy!
sweet Timmy 🥲 thank you loads!!
I think this series takes a Brilliant and fun approach. I love history but a lot of people find it boring. Horrible histories makes it fun for everyone
I knew the chocolate businessman from Wonka who became nauseous at the word "poor" looked familiar.
And the guard at the zoo
@@Fishtacofriday Fun fact: that guard (Simon Farnaby) co-wrote the screenplay for Wonka
I loved this video essay! Liked and subscribed. Great analysis of the anti-establishment undertones in Horrible Histories. I loved the TV show! I always appreciated how it was critical of the higher-ups and did a lot of stories around the exploitation of the working class. You're right that the shows are not elitist about what part of history you can enjoy. It's not snobby about liking historical poo facts. Schools really are so rigid and untailored around learning. I love how Horrible Histories makes history exciting and criticises colonisation and exploitation. Also, I like your analysis of how Horrible Histories translated the medium of books to tv shows. Great editing! Love the visuals. They’re super aesthetic and engaging. You match visuals to lyrics well. It’s lovely to watch. And love you adding in dialogue, like King Charles at the end. Fun to find another Breadtube channel! Liked and Subscribed!!!
Thank you, that means a lot to me 😊 And your channel is off to a fantastic start already! Looking forward to more!!
I think the fact that the horrible histories tv show depicts basically every monarch and coloniser as stupid, insane, violent or crazy is why im anti monarchy
I’m sure Terry Deary would approve
That's a pretty stupid reason to think that, honestly. It's like saying of corse the Earth isn't flat. Otherwise, the cheese on The Moon would spoil.
You're right, but just making fun of another person is not a valid argument. What are you 12?
@@myself2noonenot really, given its accuracy
I'm a french republican and even I can tell how silly that kind of depiction is -_-
It's also a very bad reason to be anti monarchist.
@ThoseOtherJeremysLie Yeah except it's not accurate, kings and colonisers were by and large neither stupid, nor insane, nor "violent" any more than anyone else in their era. They had their ups and downs, obviously, but it's so very far from "every" that it's not even funny.
This show got away with a lot. I remember they had some wacky sketches with literal Nazi characters, including Hitler himself. Kind of demystifies the Nazis and reveals how ridiculous they actually were, while still taking them seriously as a threat.
"Hey Kids, Adults Suck" was also the takeaway of that Teen Titans cartoon.
This show is what cemented my stick-up-for-the-little-guy approach to life, especially when my mum would go "oh, ew, why a rat?" and I'd go "he's the smart one!"
this approach fell through when I grew up to be queer, trans, and autistic. Turns out I /am/ the little guy. I should've seen this coming.
My school library put horrible histories in the fiction section. They didn’t believe what they were saying was correct.
The one thing i will never agree with terry deary on is his anti-library stance. For someone whos very anti capitalist and anti authority he seems determined to make as much money as possible at the expense of education
You have a point! For me, I’m not keen on his dismissal of teaching assistants and their work supporting special needs kids
well, you know, the gears of society are greased with hypocrisy
It broke my little teenage heart when that interview came out.
I'm with him that the cap is not high enough (maybe shouldn't even exist), but most of what he's complaining about (people not buying physical books in physical book stores) has nothing to do with libraries and everything to do with Amazon. That he refuses (refused?) to see that and favours ladder pulling is just... it's so disappointing
And there's no reason to be surprised. "Anti-capitalist" folk are the most capitalist you could ever find if you look at their actual behaviour instead of their words. In fact, it seems they only have their ideology to profit from it.
First time viewer of your content here. I’m absolutely hooked. Well done. This was a great watch on my break!
All this show taught me is that my ancestors were weird.
For me learn we were less weird. I’m Icelandic. Also just so people know they didn’t get 100% correct and definitely pronounced the name wrong but I love we are included ❤ so I take what I get. I was literally so excited when they did the Icelandic Alþingi skit cus its really accurate to our culture:)
I love this show but i love the way you talk about it more, your voice and editing style are so relaxing
I used to be OBSESSED with this show. I would watch it every single day and I have a framed collage of Mathew Baynton on my dresser at this current moment. I am currently wrapped in a Pachacuti blanket. So HH combined with a video essay is like perfect
love this for you!
Such a thoughtful video, thoroughly enjoyed it as someone who was brought up on this program - bravo!!!!
During lockdown me and my housemates binged all of Horrible Histories. Absolute elite televison.
To be fair, if you've studied history and still have pro-establishment views, you haven't really studied history.
Brilliant video
Stuff like this is passing under the radar and influencing us all the time
I know it definetly shaped me in some small way
I think it's super important to consider the underlying stances behind all types of media. HH is a fun example here but sometimes the subtle messages can be nefarious 😰 nothing is purely a simple fact, HH included!
These books Shaped my childhood, raised in a very conservative family, i used to borrow them from the school library. Read them at home, during primary school. By the time i was a teenager and the show started i was already addicted and by the time i was 15, id volunteered in my local Labour party and became a Socialist. Its didn't quite click for me at the time but these books turned my into a Socialist and now i am a High School teacher. I try to take what ive learned from these books and pass on the knowledge to my students.
Nice story. These books also played a role in feeding my enthusiasm for history. I did some teaching, like you, and am now on to a PhD. I hope you aren't one of teachers that impose their opinions on their students though. I've some teacher like that and absolutely hated it. When I am teaching I always tell me students that I teach them how to think, not what to think.
I think two of the actors in Horrible Histories were also in Peep Show: one who played Gerard (the man with a tube up his nose) and Simon (Dobby’s ex boyfriend who also teased Mark when he couldn’t answer the music question).
The actors have definitely been in a lot of things 😁
To be fair to the British empire, it has never barbequed a dog then put it into a plastic bag.
As far as I'm aware.
Alice Lowe was also in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace
One of them has been in the Mighty Boosh too
using the theme song as a way to structure the video was genius
Lol 😂 Charles Ii was such a frat boy in this series
I love these. They made learning random facts (I forcibly educate people when I hear/see something remotely related) super easy, and all without the illusion of ‘Britain = 100% good’.
I still watch horrible histories at 24 years old tbh, it’s so good idec haha. Great vid!
Yaaaay discovering a new youtuber who is very thoughtful and chooses interesting topics with a lovely voice as well !! Yippeee :3
The second last cast shot was from that Shakespeare movie they made, not from HH. (Not that I care, you could've included a pic from Ghosts and I'd still be happy- they're such an awesome troop)
good spot 😉 I have a video about Bill too!
I loved Bill, went to see it with my HH loving mate when it came out and had an absolute blast
Needed a video to listen to while cooking, saw that the one I wanted was not uploaded yet. Clicked this. Definitely no regrets. Very interesting stuff! 10/10
Love horrible histories and you've just made it better, cleaver and a huge fan of the writer. Great channel
My parents bought me a Horrible Histories book about all of the British monarchs (Cruel Kings and Mean Queens I think?) when we had a vacation in London, and I ate it up when we got back to my cousin’s house every night. It was bizarre to see the glorification of all things monarchy while doing all the usual tourist stuff during the day, and then reading a book that was equal parts unserious and scathing about said monarchy in the evening. It was formative in a way I don’t think I’ll ever fully articulate, but I’m thankful for it.
Fun fact: my grandma was in the same class as Terry Deary in primary school
actually this is so well put. i think horrible histories radicalized me growing up 😭
Its also more historically accurate then most history or geographic documentaries.
Out of 800+ facts, only about 18 were incorrect, that % is higher then the vast majority of other documentaries.
And yes, it counts a documentary.
I recently took out one of my HH books the other day and was taken aback at how great it was and how amazing it was to grow up with them
Its 2am and im meant to be either writing my dissertation or sleeping.... this is way better, so interesting! Thanks for the hit of nostalgia 😂
good luck with your dissertation!
@@MimiMortmain thank you!
I’m 3 years late but this show was a big part of my childhood and was the beginning of my interest in history now as an adult. Great video!!
It is objectively easy to talk about history in an anti-establishment way because we have already seen the full negative results of their actions. The problem with the current establishment/authority is that they are trying really hard to convince people that they are “not like those terrible people of the past” and even if there is a parallel, it is for some kind of a “greater good” promised in the future.
I love this show. I once contacted the custom designer for Charles II, as I think it's the ultimate halloween custom and they actually replied. PLUS I remember having all the books as a kid ANDDDD the show Bloopers are GOATED. Seeing pages from the book again has me feel insane nostalgia
wow that's amazing!!
@@MimiMortmain inittttt
These books are incredibly ADHD-friendly. You learn so much in the margins and footnotes and brackets, where it looks like it isn't important.
Really unsure why I have been recommended this video since it’s 3 yrs old with 4k views but whatever have a new subscriber and I hope you choose to make more :)
Right when I thought I couldn't love horrible histories more...
Also, did you stop making videos? Because I've just had a quick glance at your page and if the content of this video, and the subjects of the others, is anything to go by, this is an incredible channel!
I was already planning to return to RUclips this year, but my channel blowing up this week has given me the motivation to actually get back to it 😊 I’m researching a new video as we speak!
I know this is years late, but thank you for this video.
I watched half of it, then told my mum and we watched the whole thing together lol
I saw this series on TV at 19, got obsessed with the songs, and recalled my lil bro having these books so i read those too. And got the rest of my family into it too lol. There we were, technically two boomers, a uni student, and a tough stubborn and cool highschool boy, all watching this series together for fun. my dad can't even watch tv programs and follow them well (he really never moved on from radio), but EVEN HE would watch this with us.
But i felt too comfortable with the underlying anti-establishment tone coz... i was undiagnosed neurodivergent in a different cultural landscape than what my parents grew up in. Something about this series was ... .logical. it made sense in more ways than just historical knowledge...
I think this show encapsulates the difference between British humour and American humor. Especially for children. Disney Channel programming is all about family friendly tasteful content. I remember hearing that for the development of Bear in the Big Blue House, they wanted a program that didn't turn kids against the adults. While I think all these approaches are fine, not sugar coating the truth and making children aware of the nastier side of life better prepares them. Using comedy is a great way to make them aware but not traumatise them. The only thing I wish the tv show did was talk more about what the brits did to Ireland. However there was a cd of it narrated by Terry Derry that I loved listening too.
I closed the app before my brain registered this thumbnail and lost it for a week. Thank goodness youtube recommended it again!
thank goodness hehe
About the “British things” section, I feel like the outrage was because the song blatantly implied that Britain never invented anything, which is a blatant ahistoric claim that could not be further from the truth
"Blatantly implied"
Yeah, I don't think anyone sane was under the delusion that tea, sugar, or the other things mentioned in the song originated in Britain. But the way it was presented was so negative, as though Britain had no right to have acquired, adapted, or adopted them into our culture. Which frankly is something that both left and right should not have been comfortable with, as that perspective means that different cultures should be discouraged from exchanging the best bits of eachother and improving apon those things to suit themselves. That is hardly the message you want to promote if you want cultural cohabitation, integration, and exchange, or even for British people to take pride in accepting their own culture and achievements while welcoming that of others.
@@PrincessNinja007 I listened to the song (which was harder to find than I expected; It's from Series 1 episode 9, originally released in 2009).
I think the lyric they're referencing would be "British things, I'm afraid there's hardly any" and "British things, British things, there are none we declare. All our favourite British things, seem to all come from elsewhere".
Silly to get worked up over for sure, but it does imply it. The issue is that it's clearly being slightly facetious, given that the rest of the song is pointing to all the things we consider British but aren't, such as tea.
@@Roman_Eagle This seems to be nonsense to me. In fact I'm not sure where in the song you seem to be getting the idea it thinks that it's bad to share ideas or inventions?
It's largely just pointing out things that aren't British, and how many of those things caused conflict and deaths. The slavery in sugar production and trade, and the British conquest of India in relation to tea for example.
@@mrjoe5292 molasses to rum to slaves being the US version
Horrible histories was the sole reason Im such a history nerd today. I picked up one of their books when I was 9, and was immediately enthralled by the past
I misread the title as "The Anti-semitic undertones of Horrible histories" but I was more than glad to realise I was wrong.
Great commentary, I remember the books fondly, I was a bit too old for the tv show, but I grew up with it's equivalents which were Maid Marion and her merry band (Starring Time team's own Tony Robinson as well as a fab cast) and Black adder, both of which I highly suggest folk watch and would make great material for analysis should you wish to continue with this theme.
If Deary is actually upset about his books being used in schools, he might need to re-evaluate his preconceptions about schools. It feels like his image of a classroom includes a rusty battle axe of a teacher, swinging a cane and demanding rote memorisation of dates.
A lot of teachers today, and even back in 2012 when he made those comments, grew up with Horrible Histories. They saw first hand how learning could be fun, and it likely made them want to teach others.
Teachers WANT to teach, and want students to enjoy learning. Good educators can recognise the value in a series like HH.
I would argue putting his books in schools has had a positive effect on how subjects like history are taught. The value of grabbing students’ attention with a funny story is well known by teachers, a tool that HH uses in every book.
I know you can’t tell someone how to feel about any given situation, but I personally would be proud to have my work in schools, promoting discovery and learning. Undermining the status quo, one poop joke at a time.
I started watching this show after I started my history learning at university. It completely reshaped my way of understanding history and totally changed my academic interests ever since.
i don't usually watch yt videos with fewer than 100K views because i worry they'll be low quality but i'm so glad i watched this one; a fantastic explanation of a concept that's been on the tip of my tongue but i hadn't fully realised ever since watching horrible histories 14 years ago as a kid. had no clue who terry deary was; LOVE him now. everything in this video was spot on, great stuff.
Thank you for taking a chance with my video!
I didn't read the books but I've heard most of the songs at least from the earlier seasons and some full episodes. Great stuff
I have a friend who works in a library and says Terry Deary hates libraries, this is seemingly because his books *are* so popular in libraries and obviously he makes less money for them being rented out for free rather than being bought. It feels like the anti-establishment tone of HH would be pro-libraries since it gives everyone more access to public information. However, I guess there is the duality of man when you're thinking about how much money you could be making. Idk I just wanted to point this out.
The other thing is sadly not all of the books are completely historically accurate. Either due to incorrect sources he may have been given or the history being updated since publication. I remember someone taking about Egyptology and someone chiming in saying they were incorrect. The latter person didn't have a source beyond "Horrible Histories said so" while the former person studying multiple sources had never seen anything with the claims talked about.
This is all to say nothing is absolutely perfect. Terry Deary and HH can be wonderfully anti-establishment whilst also trying to undermine access to free literature.
Horrible Histories is a good example of what anarchists like Terry Deary can do to encourage people to think freely
this is awesome!! thank you for making it :D
p.s. uhh sorry if this is inappropriate, but you have a very soothing voice...
Thank you for watching!
so glad this is on my fyp!!! horrible histories inspired me to take history at gcse and if im lucky ill be taking history at uni this year too!! really cool to find an in-depth look into this show!! :D
people saying the show is anti-british when its literally just showing its own history will never not be funny to me
But it's not "literally just showing", it self admittedly has a bias in how it tells it, selecting only the "horrible" parts of history.
If I have a complete recollection of your life in front of me, and I edit out all the parts that make you look good, or always juxtapose them/insist with ones that'd make you look bad, and then told everyone about it, would you say I'm "just" showing your life ?
The entire show is about negative aspects of history. All countries got this treatment. But people were finding an issue with the british colonial and establishment history specifically, which has often been downplayed and untaught by the government. The root problem isn't omitted variable bias, its their inability to handle the unfiltered retelling of the events.
@@pal1379 But it's not unfiltered though.
It's literally filtered to distil the bad part and exagerate (for comedic effect I'll grant you but that doesn't really change the point given that we're talking about kids) the stupidity and malice of people in charge.
@ colonialism and corrupt authority is bad enough that it doesn't need to be selectively shown. An exaggerated comical retelling actually made it look better than it was.
@ unfiltered wasn't the best word choice, so my bad about that. what I meant was that the bad parts weren't deliberately left out or justified like a lot of standardised education did.
Wow, I loved the books and show as a kid but never really considered the possibility of it teaching something as politically important as that! Of course, it makes a lot of sense when you think of it in that way. This is a brilliant video, thanks for creating it!
HH tv show was still very much Anglocentric, but I suppose that was a natural choice to make. What baffled me was that while the Americas were featured quite a bit, there was no Asia, none whatsoever, despite it being the birth of historical (as opposed to prehistoric) age of humanity, the most populous and the most culturally diverse continent.
You’re right and I do think that’s a gap in the show and I hope they work on it for the future. My guess is that the budget, especially in the first episodes, did not stretch to hire lots of different actors to play enough historical people from across the world to properly make sketches about those histories. The choice would be either to have white actors playing POC characters or not to include sketches about those histories at all. As blackface and yellowface are huge issues, I think they chose right in that context. I hope in the future that film and TV casting becomes more and more inclusive so that histories of all cultures can be represented!
@@MimiMortmain but they had no problems with the Incans, the Aztecs or the Egyptians? These are all redfaces and brownfaces.
@@chingizzhylkybayev8575 I’ve just been thinking about that after I sent the reply. My only guess is that the Egyptians and Aztecs often feature in the UK primary school history curriculum so that’s why they made sure to include them. Maybe it took them too long to realise ‘hang on, maybe we should get actors from the correct backgrounds to represent people from outside Europe’. You’re right to point out the contradiction and I think it exposes a lot of flaws with the ways history is taught!
Honestly, I don't know if this is just me, but there seems to be a massive "we don't talk about Asia" vibe in media. Just at large, Asia, Africa, and pre-colonial Australia are super hush hush. Australia I get because of the cultural genocide (I'm Australian), but Asia and Africa are almost entirely neglected in every historical show. If not outright hidden.
It is weird that we get medieval Mexico and Peru and ancient Africa just thrown in with Europe in terms of books. The writers and actors have since gone on to say more diverse casting would have been better- we see this as the series grows on (Dominique Moore isn't just for supportign parts but gets to play Harriet Tubman, Rosa Park and Mary Seacole). The last seasons aren't good, but they do at least show minority actors in the roles. It would have been a great opportunity to showcase Latine and Egyptian comedians.
I believe Rotten Rulers is the only book I recall that gives equal page time to Asian and African kings and queens.
I think the issue is mostly trying to punch up, while viewing Aztec, Inca and ancient Egyptian cultures as "dead" societies. Thing is, it winds up reflecting some colonialist propaganda by accident thanks to the limited sources available.
i’m a massive fan of horrible histories, (you can play basically any scene for me and i can quote it all the way through) and i’ve always liked the way that they portray the monarchs/emperors, like emperor nero is portrayed as an uptight, self centered idiot, henry 8th is portrayed as angry and stupid, george the 4th is just basically like a comic relief character, it just shows all the “important people” the way that their actions show them to be, and it kind of shows kids that people in positions of power are all similar to that, which again shows the anti-establishment undertones of the series, i’ve probably worded this terribly but i just appreciate HH showing all the powerful people in this way
Weird question but has Horrible Histories talked about ‘Tulip Mania’ in one of their episodes: I ask because it’s one of the earliest examples of a financial bubble and it has the potential for a lot of jokes about how silly the concept is.
I don’t think they’ve covered Tulip Mania, but I haven’t seen all the newest episodes so I don’t know for sure. It has a lot of potential for some good jokes!
@@MimiMortmain would you ever consider making a video about it yourself
@@cameronspalding9792 you have me considering it now hahaha
alright, i have to ask, what was tulip mania?
@ It’s the financial bubble when back in the 17th Century: Tulips were seen as being very rare and Valuable so traders tried to buy it in the hope of selling it later, but the value of these Tulips crashed through the floor. One of the reasons why people take an interest in this time period is because it has some similarities between NFTs and
The fact that the reason I get that joke at 8:51 because of horrible histories is very funny