This is how I think most people understand all of human history:
God makes the Earth (or the big bang happens and the Earth pops out of it, I think to even most non-religious people the formation of the planet is still pretty mysterious)
There are cave men.
There are the Romans or Greeks or something.
There are a bunch of knights with swords and they all are dumb and can't read or brush their teeth.
Shakespeare happens. Some people probably imagine this was at the same time as the knights and the castles.
America happens and everyone is introduced to democracy for the first time.
The Americans save the world from Germany in some black and white (I mean like the pictures are in black and white, not like there was an obviously good side and an obviously bad side because whichever side the US is on must be the good one. Or the bad one, depending on if you vote democrat or republican) war.
Vietnam and hippies happen.
Then you're in modern times. Or possibly if you're a young teenager then after the Vietnam thing some big buildings in New York got destroyed by some middle eastern people (or the president depending on how much internet you read.)
This incredibly simplistic view of history is compounded by an intimidatingly massive amount of shitty movies, books, comcis, ect... all based on various "historical" stories or whatever they want to call the fiction they create to frame human history and it makes me really sad. I don't have time to come up with a cogent argument about why history matters (I'm already going over my lunch break,) but I really wish more people would the the incredibly complex and involved series of events that link humans and our modern day society all the way back to pre-history. We don't exist in a vacuum, everything about the way the world is right now happened for a reason. I think if more people could see and understand where we've come from, we might have a better idea of where we're going, and how to get there.
Or at least I'd spend less time being annoyed at people's weird understanding of history.
