I noticed something there, you, like myself, never got past the Civil War. As important as that was for us they just talked about it happening with very little time spent on why it happened. We never got to WW1, WW2 or the Korean War. I took two semester of US History, Evening Division at the University of Vermont and barely got into WW2 and that was after Vietnam was over. Not a peep about that one.
Many took History just for the credits and concentrated only on the parts that were needed to get those credits. A lot of it was that I only had one teacher/professor that had the skill to teach history. Most would just drone on in monotone reading from notes while putting the class to sleep. Part of the problems we are having today are because of the lack of knowledge about what has happened in the past. They don't understand government and listen only to sound bites that are not always true and are not in their best interest. To clarify, that isn't every single area, but it is obvious that a whole lot of important information was never taught or taught in a way that didn't really make it clear about the what's, the where's and more importantly the why's!
