Current Events > Did anyone else grow up with Spain basically never doing stuff in History class?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like, you hear about Britain, Germany, France, maybe the Ottomon Empire, a little Russia here and there, you know basically the powers that involved themselves in either world war to a notable degree. Which is probably part of it, to be fair.

But like, aside from having a civil war for a bit at one point (something I mostly learned from aviation channels covering old aircraft), I basically know nothing about what Spain really did the last century.

What is up with Spain?

Nah, grew up in SoCal.

Got it all: Conquistadors, Missions, colonization, slavery of indigenous peoples all the way up to the Libertadores. Can't really understand the development of CA ( a fictional locale in a Spanish novel) without understanding the Spanish.

Spanish American War came later as part of US History.

Nobody expects the Conquistadors.

I know they did some early exploring of the americas and that's about it. I mostly remember learning about usa, canada, britain, france, germany, russia, and then greece/rome back in like primary school

They conquered Mexico
They were one of the Axis Powers

brestugo posted...

Nah, grew up in SoCal.

Got it all: Conquistadors, Missions, colonization, slavery of indigenous peoples all the way up to the Libertadores. Can't really understand the development of CA ( a fictional locale in a Spanish novel) without understanding the Spanish.

Pretty much. I think what nations "do stuff" in history class has a lot to do with what state you were attending those history classes.

Not at all in Central Illinois.

Early exploration and the Spanish Empire in the Americas were big topics in grade school, they got a little mention in the Revolutionary War and in the Florida purchase and Adams-Onis Treaty, and we also covered the Spanish-American War.

Didn't really study reconquista or modern Spanish history until much later, though.

After the Napoleonic wars and the independence of its American colonies, Spain had lost most of its influence and was way too politically unstable to do much of anything besides try to get its domestic situation under control.

Basically, the Peninsular War ruined the country, then its colonies declared independence, then it spent the better part of fifty years in a series of civil wars between liberals and reactionaries fighting over the throne, then it lost its last colonies in the Spanish-American War, then there was a series of conflicts between the government and the socialist/anarchist labor groups leading up to the Civil War, and then Franco took over and installed a pseudo-fascist dictatorship. It wasn't until the tail-end of the Franco regime that Spain began to recover economically.

Spanish history from Napoleon until the death of Franco generally isn't all that happy a story.

CoyoteTheGreat posted...

Pretty much. I think what nations "do stuff" in history class has a lot to do with what state you were attending those history classes.

Yeah.

The Spanish were at it way before the British too. Lost as he was, Columbus sailed for Spain.

Leave out the Spanish and you leave out a lot of shit. The Spanish hit CA almost 100 years before Plymouth Rock.