I think we need to know how cross-linked you're going to make English and History. Because, for my money, many of the best stories, many of the stories you Need To Know to understand the world at large, are ... just that, stories. Joan of Arc is a myth, reinterpreted again and again. So is King Arthur (check out Fate Stay Night, for a fantastic take). The Bible, as a whole, is far more important than... say, the story of Jesus. And yet, if you have 100 stories, and you leave Jesus (and Mohammed) out, have you not shed large portions of our social fabric? Then there are the greek myths, and to a lesser extent, the Norse and the British myths... these aren't just things that one group believed, but they are Large Myths that span Cultures and Centuries.
That said: you could do worse than the Brothers Grimm. A unique approach to nation-building.
Or Galileo, which is a tantalizing look into what scholasticism was like in the age of Real Popes.
And I do believe you fail if you do not include Hitler, who is the foundational myth of the modern age.
This is a far less exhuberant and silly response than I gave over on ACT, but I think it's a bit better thought out too.
>> "I think we need to know how cross-linked you're going to make English and History."
You're entirely correct — and (as you intuit) World Religions, too. The short answer is "quite", and the longer answer is "look forward to those posts!" ;)
In general, one distinction we're trying to make is to have History include rather less myth than one might expect, precisely because we want to make the difference clear. Obviously in practice this is full of complex decisions (I've written hundreds of pages about the historical Jesus, and even I shudder at the question of trying to discern what's historical from what's added on), but that's the basic gist.
So, you aren't actually just getting 100 stories, you're getting probably closer to 10,000 stories (I don't know how many you can actually cram into K-8, but that seems more likely. Greek myths are short, man, so is David versus Goliath).
I charge that the answers you've put above are both... "world-focused" and "girl-powered"*, and I'd like to ask that you actually tell history that is actually Girl Powered instead. If you don't tell the story of the Amazons, and why they were exterminated, you've done some serious wrongs to pre-history. That's one hell of a tale, requires a lot of historical interpolation (as nobody kept the Amazon's own stories), and is a great read. It also goes pretty far away from "women are better than men, and always were, and all the great ills of the world occurred because men oppressed women."
*Aka flattering to people who believe in modern mythology, like "All People are Fundamentally Similar" (and not, say, Han Supremacy, which is a feuding ideology at the moment).
2. Year: 1517 (the year of the 95 Theses) though things happen before and after.
3. What basically happens (in your memory): A Roman Catholic Monk/Priest had issues with the church, wrote and talked about it, and started the Reformation. He tried to change things from within, but ultimately it led to the Protestant division of Christianity. He wasn't the first person to want to reform the church, but he was the most impactful, largely because the timing was right - he had political support, he had the printing press, people were itching to push back against the church.
4. Why you love it: Besides the simple historical and theoretical context, Luther's life is full of interesting and exciting moments. He was meant to become a lawyer, but was almost struck by lightning and supposedly called out, "Help me Saint Anne, I will become a monk!" The indulgences he opposed involved funding St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. After nailing the 95 Theses to the Church door and being threatened with excommunication, he was taken to the memorably named Diet of Worms, where he refused to recant his beliefs. Afterwards, his supporters essentially fake kidnapped him and he hid out in a castle and translated the New Testament into German, a translation that greatly influences the modern German language. He helped some nuns escape from their convent in herring barrels, and then married one of them!
I was raised Lutheran, so I learned all of this every year in a growing sort of way - the fun basics in first grade, then more details every year, including nuances about Luther's antisemitism and how mental illness and anxiety potentially impacted his theology. As well discussing how in many ways his views were used in ways he disavowed, or how he inspired other contemporaneous reformers.
I know my thoughts on him are influenced by my religious upbringing, but I think even from a secular perspective, there are so many interesting stories and discussions and perspectives that can come from his life!
Touching Martin Luther means you need to decide whether to include his story of throwing sh*t at the Devil. It's probably hilarious for small children.
Yes, but, you need to come down on whether you want to be telling stories for children, or telling stories for children that parents will not yell at you for. If you're doing the former, all to the good, methinks (along with, perhaps, a nice discussion on "when/what it is appropriate to discuss at the dinner table" -- yes, I was that kid)
I'm a HUGE fan (I marked the 500th anniversary of the Wittenberg Door by dressing as a monk and walking around my neighborhood pounding on doors, a scroll and a mallet in hand) (I'm not making that up, by the way), and you capture the layers of understanding that should be built on top of that story — including his helping give birth to modern anti-Semitism (which before had been more focused on Judaism as a religion).
I'm wondering how you plan to approach pre-historic events? I was thinking about people crossing the Bering strait or the Austronesian expansion and they seem really important but we don't have firm historical evidence on the individual level. (Or maybe something could be reconstructed using archaeological evidence, as in Jacobo's example?). Stories make a lot of sense for relating these events, but they'd have to be fictionalized.
I assume that since we're working on the level of mythic understanding at first we care more about stories with powerful themes that relate important events rather than making sure everything has perfect historical accuracy. Also, are we looking for non-human stories - like the formation of the earth or key points in evolution?
This is, indeed, a decision we have to make! Since the history memory palace focuses in so much more granular detail at history post-the-invention-of-writing (which I still remember was how my first grade teacher Mrs. Collins defined "history" vs. "prehistory"), we don't have oh-so-many decisions to make with this... but we still have some.
For the human ones after the Ice Age, our plan is to create a fictionalized story set in a particular ancient society (e.g. Babylon, China...) that brings in a lot of what archaeologists think they know about the culture.
For the animal-related ones, ONE thought is to create a fictionalized story of one animal, based on what paleontologists think they know about its social structure.
For the astronomical ones... not sure, but presumably there's some cool way we could personify, I don't know, leptons or something! Good to think about...
One you get to life, the struggle for survival can be pretty dramatic and I think animal (or even cell / plant) behavior will be interesting to a lot of kids.
I think the fictionalized story is a good idea. If you try to do anything more abstract for most kids of that age it just falls apart.
Unfortunately, the people crossing the Bering strait were just walkers. They kept walking, travelling, the whole way to the tip of South America. That's not a story, that's the circle of "we do this and everything is mostly okay."
This is a valid point. You'd need a story in order to make it interesting. New types of animals and flora and fauna, perhaps, but it might be a bit difficult to work into something story-shaped.
"Stole" her husband's car and took her kids to see her mother, making the first long car trip ever.
What if two very compelling and important stories are in the same time slot. Are you really going to skip one of them?
I think people should learn something about "famous" people since they will hear about them randomly throughout their lifetime and it is good to have some idea what others are talking/writing about e.g. Cleopatra, da Vinci, Shakespeare, Columbus, Mozart, Einstein etc. A list that probably has all of them (and more) would be the 100 people listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/3#People
Same with other stories that are famous, even if they aren't necessarily important, e.g. Titanic, Apollo 13. Most historical stories that have been made into famous movies or picture books probably fit the bill (with the advantage of picture books being engaging for kids).
3. What basically happens (in your memory): Genghis Khan’s fearless and kickass grandaughter
4. Why you love it: because it’s not taught in school and would have probably been my hero if i would have diacovered her as a kid. Because more female historical figures should be given importance! Specially this far back when it was a male dominated history.
AND
1. Story/person: Leonardo Da Vinci
2. Year: Mid 1400s
3. What basically happens (in your memory): he was a poli genius
4. Why you love it: he has always fascinated me and would love to delve deeper into his lesser known genius facets: cooking and inventions.
What about boring (for lack of a better word) but important stories? Johannes Gutenberg inventing the printing press comes to mind. As a kid, I just remember a “you need to know this because it’s on every single standardized test ever” line from my teacher. I understand now how much of a game-changer this was, but for elementary school students it seems like Gutenberg’s invention would be hard to compete with stories of war heroes and explorers. Or maybe there is actually a compelling story there than I can’t imagine?
Hitler's complaints about the "nazi font" were hilarious, contextualized. How Germany remained stuck in Gutenberg's day, print wise while the Romance countries moved ahead...
The solution to the longitude problem in the 18th century. Dava Sobel's book is an excellent starting place, but besides the connections to science and engineering nerdity and the generally inspiring mythic/heroic tale of progress through ingenuity, it connects to so many other rich historical questions (why was it Britain that particularly focused on solving the problem? why couldn't it have been done a century or two earlier?) that it could profitably take up as much curricular space as you want to devote to it.
What do you want to teach children? Do you want to teach them how to be heros, and stand up to bullies? (The Song that was played the most on Radio is part of that tale, in Finland -- it's a polka) Or maybe, not to be such self-entitled dicks? (1795, The rather unplanned removal of Poland from the map.)
One idea that could be very powerful from the standpoint of thematic binaries could be to certain stories as a cycle. As I type this out I'm realizing it probably doesn't fit within the 100 stories frame, but might fit within a philosophic framework.
For example, the Opium wars in 1839 to introduces concepts of colonialism, nationalism vs internationalism, even stasis vs technological progress. You could jump to the Long March or Mao biding time in Yenan 100 years later, looking at how oppression has bred perseverance, nationalism and now change & resourcefulness. You could then jump forward to the cultural revolution and see how the response to that nationalism overshot Mao's earlier goals and led to new problems.
The French Revolution seems like it could use an entry:
Either:
1. Napoleon
2. 1815
3. Busting out of Elba to get the band back together and almost retake Europe
4. Highlighting the incredible tumult in Europe following the French Revolution and the power of liberal values to topple old hierarchies
1. Louis 16th and Marie Antoinette
2. 1791-1793
3. Either the flight from France or the Reign of Terror
4. Again, the power of enlightenment liberal values when applied to politics - you could frame this almost as a villain's standpoint, showing incredulity at how the French people could be so angry, or you could present the rulers with more empathy.
Alternatively, you could present from the point of view of the people storming the Bastille for a simpler, more cathartic framing or for maximal nuance and complexity the story of Robespierre.
Cheng He (Gung Ho) the Chinese eunuch explorer. I think you may have mentioned him before.
It was possibly prior to the Europeans age of exploration. Chinese exploration is such a fascinating counterfactual to Colonization , and I would argue reveals why Nordic culture is actually the driver of why Europeans rule(d) the world.
This feels like an under appreciated and fertile story.
It stuck in my mind because, for a work project, I was looking for the “most famous UNIX” in history :-)
Charles Henry Turner, a Black American zoologist, entomologist, and high‑school science teacher who pioneered the study of insect learning and behavior.
2. Year:
1910-11
3. What basically happens (in your memory):
Turner was a true pioneer in insect behaviour and learning, doing careful experiments that reshaped how scientists think about supposedly simple minds/creatures. And he did it all at home while being actively blocked from employment in major university positions. He was largely published in lesser‑known or education‑focused journals, and spent his career as a high‑school teacher, so his name rarely appears in mainstream science history. In 1910-11 published dozens of papers demonstrating that insects like bees, ants, and cockroaches can learn by trial and error, distinguish colours and patterns, and even change their behaviour based on experience. He proved that insects are not mindless!
4. Why you love it:
His not just performing but also publishing cutting edge research that transformed what we know and how we think about insects and intelligence is both intellectually thrilling and deeply human - he’s a hidden gem that should never have been hidden.
I think we need to know how cross-linked you're going to make English and History. Because, for my money, many of the best stories, many of the stories you Need To Know to understand the world at large, are ... just that, stories. Joan of Arc is a myth, reinterpreted again and again. So is King Arthur (check out Fate Stay Night, for a fantastic take). The Bible, as a whole, is far more important than... say, the story of Jesus. And yet, if you have 100 stories, and you leave Jesus (and Mohammed) out, have you not shed large portions of our social fabric? Then there are the greek myths, and to a lesser extent, the Norse and the British myths... these aren't just things that one group believed, but they are Large Myths that span Cultures and Centuries.
That said: you could do worse than the Brothers Grimm. A unique approach to nation-building.
Or Galileo, which is a tantalizing look into what scholasticism was like in the age of Real Popes.
And I do believe you fail if you do not include Hitler, who is the foundational myth of the modern age.
This is a far less exhuberant and silly response than I gave over on ACT, but I think it's a bit better thought out too.
Welcome to the party!
>> "I think we need to know how cross-linked you're going to make English and History."
You're entirely correct — and (as you intuit) World Religions, too. The short answer is "quite", and the longer answer is "look forward to those posts!" ;)
In general, one distinction we're trying to make is to have History include rather less myth than one might expect, precisely because we want to make the difference clear. Obviously in practice this is full of complex decisions (I've written hundreds of pages about the historical Jesus, and even I shudder at the question of trying to discern what's historical from what's added on), but that's the basic gist.
So, you aren't actually just getting 100 stories, you're getting probably closer to 10,000 stories (I don't know how many you can actually cram into K-8, but that seems more likely. Greek myths are short, man, so is David versus Goliath).
I charge that the answers you've put above are both... "world-focused" and "girl-powered"*, and I'd like to ask that you actually tell history that is actually Girl Powered instead. If you don't tell the story of the Amazons, and why they were exterminated, you've done some serious wrongs to pre-history. That's one hell of a tale, requires a lot of historical interpolation (as nobody kept the Amazon's own stories), and is a great read. It also goes pretty far away from "women are better than men, and always were, and all the great ills of the world occurred because men oppressed women."
*Aka flattering to people who believe in modern mythology, like "All People are Fundamentally Similar" (and not, say, Han Supremacy, which is a feuding ideology at the moment).
1. Story/person: Martin Luther
2. Year: 1517 (the year of the 95 Theses) though things happen before and after.
3. What basically happens (in your memory): A Roman Catholic Monk/Priest had issues with the church, wrote and talked about it, and started the Reformation. He tried to change things from within, but ultimately it led to the Protestant division of Christianity. He wasn't the first person to want to reform the church, but he was the most impactful, largely because the timing was right - he had political support, he had the printing press, people were itching to push back against the church.
4. Why you love it: Besides the simple historical and theoretical context, Luther's life is full of interesting and exciting moments. He was meant to become a lawyer, but was almost struck by lightning and supposedly called out, "Help me Saint Anne, I will become a monk!" The indulgences he opposed involved funding St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. After nailing the 95 Theses to the Church door and being threatened with excommunication, he was taken to the memorably named Diet of Worms, where he refused to recant his beliefs. Afterwards, his supporters essentially fake kidnapped him and he hid out in a castle and translated the New Testament into German, a translation that greatly influences the modern German language. He helped some nuns escape from their convent in herring barrels, and then married one of them!
I was raised Lutheran, so I learned all of this every year in a growing sort of way - the fun basics in first grade, then more details every year, including nuances about Luther's antisemitism and how mental illness and anxiety potentially impacted his theology. As well discussing how in many ways his views were used in ways he disavowed, or how he inspired other contemporaneous reformers.
I know my thoughts on him are influenced by my religious upbringing, but I think even from a secular perspective, there are so many interesting stories and discussions and perspectives that can come from his life!
Touching Martin Luther means you need to decide whether to include his story of throwing sh*t at the Devil. It's probably hilarious for small children.
Oh, there's no "probably" about it...!
Yes, but, you need to come down on whether you want to be telling stories for children, or telling stories for children that parents will not yell at you for. If you're doing the former, all to the good, methinks (along with, perhaps, a nice discussion on "when/what it is appropriate to discuss at the dinner table" -- yes, I was that kid)
What a wonderful summary of Luther!
I'm a HUGE fan (I marked the 500th anniversary of the Wittenberg Door by dressing as a monk and walking around my neighborhood pounding on doors, a scroll and a mallet in hand) (I'm not making that up, by the way), and you capture the layers of understanding that should be built on top of that story — including his helping give birth to modern anti-Semitism (which before had been more focused on Judaism as a religion).
I'm wondering how you plan to approach pre-historic events? I was thinking about people crossing the Bering strait or the Austronesian expansion and they seem really important but we don't have firm historical evidence on the individual level. (Or maybe something could be reconstructed using archaeological evidence, as in Jacobo's example?). Stories make a lot of sense for relating these events, but they'd have to be fictionalized.
I assume that since we're working on the level of mythic understanding at first we care more about stories with powerful themes that relate important events rather than making sure everything has perfect historical accuracy. Also, are we looking for non-human stories - like the formation of the earth or key points in evolution?
This is, indeed, a decision we have to make! Since the history memory palace focuses in so much more granular detail at history post-the-invention-of-writing (which I still remember was how my first grade teacher Mrs. Collins defined "history" vs. "prehistory"), we don't have oh-so-many decisions to make with this... but we still have some.
For the human ones after the Ice Age, our plan is to create a fictionalized story set in a particular ancient society (e.g. Babylon, China...) that brings in a lot of what archaeologists think they know about the culture.
For the animal-related ones, ONE thought is to create a fictionalized story of one animal, based on what paleontologists think they know about its social structure.
For the astronomical ones... not sure, but presumably there's some cool way we could personify, I don't know, leptons or something! Good to think about...
One you get to life, the struggle for survival can be pretty dramatic and I think animal (or even cell / plant) behavior will be interesting to a lot of kids.
I think the fictionalized story is a good idea. If you try to do anything more abstract for most kids of that age it just falls apart.
Unfortunately, the people crossing the Bering strait were just walkers. They kept walking, travelling, the whole way to the tip of South America. That's not a story, that's the circle of "we do this and everything is mostly okay."
This is a valid point. You'd need a story in order to make it interesting. New types of animals and flora and fauna, perhaps, but it might be a bit difficult to work into something story-shaped.
Bertha Benz
1888
"Stole" her husband's car and took her kids to see her mother, making the first long car trip ever.
What if two very compelling and important stories are in the same time slot. Are you really going to skip one of them?
I think people should learn something about "famous" people since they will hear about them randomly throughout their lifetime and it is good to have some idea what others are talking/writing about e.g. Cleopatra, da Vinci, Shakespeare, Columbus, Mozart, Einstein etc. A list that probably has all of them (and more) would be the 100 people listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/3#People
Same with other stories that are famous, even if they aren't necessarily important, e.g. Titanic, Apollo 13. Most historical stories that have been made into famous movies or picture books probably fit the bill (with the advantage of picture books being engaging for kids).
Ooh, I'm loving that link, too!
This one might be obvious, but I thought I'd add it anyway.
1. Story/person: Christopher Columbus
2. Year: 1492
3. What basically happens (in your memory): Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean hoping to reach the East Indies and stumbled across America.
4. Why you love it:
For younger ages, this is a fun adventure story, and fits in well with learning basic geography.
For high schoolers, it's an opportunity to investigate the geopolitical situation at the time, through questions like:
- Why did Columbus want to reach the East Indies anyway?
- Why were Ferdinand and Isabella willing to fund him?
1. Story/person: Khutulun
2. Year: mid 1200’s
3. What basically happens (in your memory): Genghis Khan’s fearless and kickass grandaughter
4. Why you love it: because it’s not taught in school and would have probably been my hero if i would have diacovered her as a kid. Because more female historical figures should be given importance! Specially this far back when it was a male dominated history.
AND
1. Story/person: Leonardo Da Vinci
2. Year: Mid 1400s
3. What basically happens (in your memory): he was a poli genius
4. Why you love it: he has always fascinated me and would love to delve deeper into his lesser known genius facets: cooking and inventions.
What about boring (for lack of a better word) but important stories? Johannes Gutenberg inventing the printing press comes to mind. As a kid, I just remember a “you need to know this because it’s on every single standardized test ever” line from my teacher. I understand now how much of a game-changer this was, but for elementary school students it seems like Gutenberg’s invention would be hard to compete with stories of war heroes and explorers. Or maybe there is actually a compelling story there than I can’t imagine?
Hitler's complaints about the "nazi font" were hilarious, contextualized. How Germany remained stuck in Gutenberg's day, print wise while the Romance countries moved ahead...
The solution to the longitude problem in the 18th century. Dava Sobel's book is an excellent starting place, but besides the connections to science and engineering nerdity and the generally inspiring mythic/heroic tale of progress through ingenuity, it connects to so many other rich historical questions (why was it Britain that particularly focused on solving the problem? why couldn't it have been done a century or two earlier?) that it could profitably take up as much curricular space as you want to devote to it.
Alan Turing
1941
Inventing computers to crack the Enigma code
It's a simple story with clear roles. Gets way more complex as you grow and learn more about the strategic calls, personalities, biases, etc.
1. Story/person: anonymous.
2. Year: 15,000 BC (approx.).
3. What basically happens (in your memory): community cared for an individual with a fractured femur until it healed.
4. Why you love it: signaled the first sign of civilization in our culture (according to Margaret Mead originally).
What do you want to teach children? Do you want to teach them how to be heros, and stand up to bullies? (The Song that was played the most on Radio is part of that tale, in Finland -- it's a polka) Or maybe, not to be such self-entitled dicks? (1795, The rather unplanned removal of Poland from the map.)
One idea that could be very powerful from the standpoint of thematic binaries could be to certain stories as a cycle. As I type this out I'm realizing it probably doesn't fit within the 100 stories frame, but might fit within a philosophic framework.
For example, the Opium wars in 1839 to introduces concepts of colonialism, nationalism vs internationalism, even stasis vs technological progress. You could jump to the Long March or Mao biding time in Yenan 100 years later, looking at how oppression has bred perseverance, nationalism and now change & resourcefulness. You could then jump forward to the cultural revolution and see how the response to that nationalism overshot Mao's earlier goals and led to new problems.
The French Revolution seems like it could use an entry:
Either:
1. Napoleon
2. 1815
3. Busting out of Elba to get the band back together and almost retake Europe
4. Highlighting the incredible tumult in Europe following the French Revolution and the power of liberal values to topple old hierarchies
1. Louis 16th and Marie Antoinette
2. 1791-1793
3. Either the flight from France or the Reign of Terror
4. Again, the power of enlightenment liberal values when applied to politics - you could frame this almost as a villain's standpoint, showing incredulity at how the French people could be so angry, or you could present the rulers with more empathy.
Alternatively, you could present from the point of view of the people storming the Bastille for a simpler, more cathartic framing or for maximal nuance and complexity the story of Robespierre.
Cheng He (Gung Ho) the Chinese eunuch explorer. I think you may have mentioned him before.
It was possibly prior to the Europeans age of exploration. Chinese exploration is such a fascinating counterfactual to Colonization , and I would argue reveals why Nordic culture is actually the driver of why Europeans rule(d) the world.
This feels like an under appreciated and fertile story.
It stuck in my mind because, for a work project, I was looking for the “most famous UNIX” in history :-)
1. Story/person:
Charles Henry Turner, a Black American zoologist, entomologist, and high‑school science teacher who pioneered the study of insect learning and behavior.
2. Year:
1910-11
3. What basically happens (in your memory):
Turner was a true pioneer in insect behaviour and learning, doing careful experiments that reshaped how scientists think about supposedly simple minds/creatures. And he did it all at home while being actively blocked from employment in major university positions. He was largely published in lesser‑known or education‑focused journals, and spent his career as a high‑school teacher, so his name rarely appears in mainstream science history. In 1910-11 published dozens of papers demonstrating that insects like bees, ants, and cockroaches can learn by trial and error, distinguish colours and patterns, and even change their behaviour based on experience. He proved that insects are not mindless!
4. Why you love it:
His not just performing but also publishing cutting edge research that transformed what we know and how we think about insects and intelligence is both intellectually thrilling and deeply human - he’s a hidden gem that should never have been hidden.
How about the March of the Ten Thousand. Epic Greek survival story.