[ben_w]

Anecdotally, I was taught much more about the Industrial Revolution than the French Revolution; and plenty of the musical names from 200-300 years ago — Bethoven, Schubert, Bach, Mozart — were ones I listened to on Classic FM in my school years[0].

Certainly most culture will be forgotten (the Wikipedia list of 18th and 19th C. classical composers are 676 and 1620 long respectively)… but I can say much the same of their timeline of the 18th century[1], including a famine that killed 10%-20% of Ireland[2], and the 7 years war[3].

[0] I blame the “Mozart effect” getting in the news at the time, but still.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_18th_century

[2] I’m embarrassed but not surprised this wasn’t part of my British education

[3] If anything, I’m confused this wasn’t part of my British education

[toyg]

The 7 years war was just that, a war over territories - as such, it's fundamentally forgotten. The French Revolution, on the other hand, was a cultural upheaval that affected society everywhere, so it's still mentioned. Obviously the British have an interest in downplaying it, like the Irish famine, but still it cannot be ignored.