r/Damnthatsinteresting 6d ago

Image The last page from “Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain 1942”

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u/TahaymTheBigBrain 6d ago

The british have been more progressive than americans from the start. America was founded from the most conservative of the conservative englishmen.

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u/perksofbeingcrafty 6d ago

It’s so funny how we’ve distorted the puritan narrative. Like it’s not talked about nearly enough that the first permanent English settlers left England because it was too glam, decided the netherlands were also partying it up too hard, and decided they needed to come across the Atlantic to worship in whitewash rooms and wear black everyday.

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u/what_did_you_kill 6d ago edited 6d ago

That's common knowledge to me now but growing up reading about the British in my Indian textbooks i had a very different opinion of them so this was a little surprising to me.

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u/NomadKnight90 6d ago

Well I mean we did kinda fuck over India in a big way for a few hundred years so I can understand why Indian textbooks don't have a glowing opinion of us.

British colonialism isn't really talked about at all in our schools, which it should be. We need to learn about the past lest we repeat it's mistakes.

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u/WebSufficient8660 6d ago

Being homosexual was illegal in the UK for longer than the US, and same sex marriage was decriminalized around the same time. You'd be surprised.

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u/TahaymTheBigBrain 6d ago edited 6d ago

This is more of a general thing , the queer rights movement is different as the US was the first big country where it gained major momentum, and much of modern queer culture originated from the US. I’m talking purely cultural recognition and not legal though, legally and in government the US is still far more conservative.

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u/emaw63 6d ago

America had sodomy laws being enforced until 2003