If you asked an American to name a battle in the civil war, they would almost always say the battle of Gettysburg. Gettysburg is a town that still exists today….and it’s a small middle of nowhere rural town of around 7000 people. Nothing important has happened there except the battle and the main industry there currently is tourism.

I’m curious what similar or more isolated/forgotten places there are in your country that are known by name for historical reasons but are otherwise unimportant.

For Denmark, I’d say it was when Danish politicians and Norwegian politicians discussed the oil resources in the Nordic sea. Our foreign affair minister, Per Hækkerup, got drunk and then basically gave Norway all of it.

Today's vote in Iceland is not a final decision on joining the European Union, but specifically on whether to resume accession negotiations. We are already in the European Economic Area (EES/EEA), we already have access to the single market, freedom of movement.

So should Iceland join EU?

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In 2007 I was an exchange student in Germany for a few months and there was one day a class I was in was discussing some book. I don't for the life of me remember what book it was but the section they were discussing involved the bombing of German cities during WWII. A few students offered their personal stories about their grandparents being injured in Berlin, or their Grandma's sister being killed in the bombing of such-and-such city. Then the teacher jokingly asked me if I had any stories and the mood in the room turned a little akward (or maybe it was just my perception as a half-rate German speaker) when I told her my Grandpa was a crewman on an American bomber so.....kinda.

Does that kind of thing ever happen between Europeans from countries that were historic enemies?

While reading the thread on this sub about chapters of history that were not taught in various countries I saw some comments of Swedes who said they learned about Deluge from reddit (a giant invasion of Swedes on Poland in 17th century).

So it made me wonder - how does your school system take on topics where you were "the bad guys"? Almost all countries in Europe have atleast one war/conflict where they were the aggressors so I wonder how it looks in your country.

When it comes to people's names, I know that a large proportion of Europeans today have non-biblical names. However, Europe today is also far less religious than it was in the past.

What was the scenario like when Europe was very religious years ago?

In France, it would probably be Phillipe Pétain or Pierre Laval, both collaborated during the occupation in WW2 and are seen as traitors

PTSD was not a formal diagnosis given until the 1980s and that generation were raised to have a stiff upper lip, but did theh ever experience any symptoms?

For the Dutch the list would look something like this

1. Belgium/Southern Netherlands
2. Germany/HRE
3. France
4. England/Great Britain
5. Spain or Indonesia

Always when I fly to Europe. I am impressed by the amount of buildings decorated with old designs and architectural sculptures. I always wonder what it is like for the people who live here? Are they also impressed by it? What do they think of the grandeur it brings to the streets.

Sometimes it also feels like one crazy scene to me, walking down the street with hundreds of details on each building and dozens of statues looking down on the street from the tops of the buildings.

(I'm talking about classical European architecture, Renaissance, etc. Not new buildings)

Australia had what's now called the stolen generation. The government used to kidnap aboriginal children from their families and take them to "missions" where they would be taught how to live and act as white people did in an attempt to assimilate them into European society.

I'm Italian, and in Italy we consider everything that is related to WW2 (such as the invasion of Poland, the attack on Pearl Harbour, the D-Day, the Hiroshima bombing,the story of Anne Frank,...) as "our history", even if these events didn't involve Italy. But maybe that's just because those things fall into a category that is called "WW2", which is a category in which we were involved.

How is WW2 perceived in countries that were neutral? Are the same things seen as something "separate from you"?

P.s. from the answers that I'm receiving I understand that I didn't explain myself well: I'm not asking what was the role of neutral countries in WW2. I'm asking "how are things like the attack on Pearl Harbour, operation Barbarossa, ... perceived in countries that didn't take part in the war. In Italy we tend to perceive these events as "our history" even if we didn't take part in them.

For example, I'd like to thank France for giving us all their trade/military support every time we went to war with England, because if not for that there probably wouldn't even be a Scotland in the modern day.

I'd also like to thank France for putting up with us when we went through our weird anti-catholic phase, because I bet we were really annoying about it during the Reformation lol

What photo do you think is recognized by everyone in your country as being really important and having a significant historical value?

For example, i find that Portugal's is the one of Salgueiro Maia making the peace sign with is hand during the April 25th revolution.

Edit: here's the one is was talking about

As a frenchman, I would argue ours is to this day the Algerian war of independence.

No judgements!

I’ll start: The Spanish Civil War. I don’t think I ever heard about it during my years in school and only now when I’m reading a book do I find myself thinking, what really happened?

What are yours?

Above

I really curious about this topic.

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For me (United Kingdom) it’s most likely Manchester and Liverpool

Why?

During the industrial revolution Manchester and Liverpool shared a close relationship. The countless mills and factories of Manchester would produce mass amounts of goods and the merchants of Liverpool would sell it all over the world. The two also share common interests in passion for music, football and both are very socialist cities, so why the rivalry?

It started when the Mancunians built the Manchester Shipping Canal, a 26 mile long canal, the size of a river to cut the Liverpudlians out of the trade as they believed that they were taking too large of a cut. This is where the stereotype of petty theft being a common pastime for Liverpudlians originated.

The rivalry was then reignited with the rise of Liverpool and Manchester United in not just English, but European football. United dominated the 60s, Liverpool the 70s and 80s then United once again in the 90s and 2000s.

If the question's wording is as bad as I think it is, here's an example:

In the U.S, a lot of people think the 13 colonies were all united and supported each other. In reality, the 13 colonies hated each other and they all just happened to share the belief that the British monarchy was bad. Hell, before the war, some colonies were massing armies to invade each other.

When I was in Europe, I visited museums, and found that there are subtle dissimilarity on explaining the same historic periods or events in each museum. Actually it could be obvious thing, as Chinese and us and Japanese describes the same events differently, but this made me interested. So, would you tell me your own stories?