There is a radio programme on the BBC which is the Museum of Everything. This is a virtual museum and so has infinite space and time. Despite the BBC's desperate need to make anything vaguely interesting also amusing it is worth listening to.

Hmm, yes jokiness can get tedious. I'm glad to see i can listen to BBC Radio on my phone, bilbob. (Billy Bob in my home town.) I appreciate the tip. Might be podcasts good to download, but might need to catch that one live.

Does every UK schoolchild learn all the interesting parts gradually, then, and so such a museum would be old hat? There seem to be so much that's inherently amusing, without needing a comedy overlay. We in the US never had head of state hiding in a mill or a tree, or losing crown jewels in a swamp (allegedly.) Or maybe I was in school way back before they thought to make it fun.

Goodness knows how kids are taught today and in the state system. In the private system, 40 years ago they did an overview with key focus on certain areas, like Roman invasion, Pre and Post Norman invasion, The hundred years wars, The Plantagenents, Henry 7, 8 and Elizabeth. James 1/V1 and then nothing until you hit Napolean.

My mandatory history classes got about sketchily halfway through our Civil War, plus I suppose mention of Lincoln being shot.

I attended grammar school (UK state-run selective secondary school, ages 11-12 and up) in the late 50s - early 60s. We started with the Hittites etc. in Mesopotamia and kept going with European and English/Scottish etc history up through the Stuarts, then we did Revolutions - French, American, Russian, Industrial - and then we skipped the Victorians for some reason, presumably the curriculum for that year's GCE O Level. Then I did History A Level and it was back to the Tudors and Stuarts. I finally did a lecture series from Great Courses on the Victorian era last year, which was quite interesting, although it turned out I knew a fair amount without having formally studied the period.

Of course, if you really want just the interesting bits you should read "1066 and All That" -

Thanks, thursdays. The museum, if only I had generous billionaires among my acquaintance, would be the one full of interesting bits. Ideally, I got to decide what those bits were.