Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0501: Memorize essential English history

Episode Date: February 8, 2016

Keely asks about memorizing essential English history. I present a simple timeline with sample mnemonics. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit:��Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Master of Memory 501. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Keely asked a question in an email about memorizing essential English history. As I did in the episode about Swiss history, I'm just going to present sort of a smattering of dates to be used as landmarks. So we'll create a small memory palace of essential years in English history,

and then you'll have space in between those landmarks to place extra dates and to learn other things about English history as you go along and study this more deeply. Our memory palace is going to be the outside of a house, so it'll proceed from the top of the chimney down along the ridge pole and then down the wall, including a window. So to start at the beginning, we're going to start at the point in English history where Rome begins to conquer Britain. So eventually Rome gains control and then eventually, of course, loses control of Britain. But the year where they started working on conquering it was the year 43. So AD 43. Now, my own mnemonic for 43 is rum or a sort of cup of rum.

And so I would put the rum on the top of the chimney and kind of spilling into the fireplace to represent Rome coming and kind of spilling into the culture of the British Isle. The next major event that I have is when Anglo-Saxon rule was established and supposedly that was about 577, although there aren't too many sources on that. So 577 would be a whistle and a cake. And so I would just imagine that this whistle and this cake are at the base of the chimney. And so this whistle is just kind of being blown, I guess, by the cake to establish that the Saxons or the Anglo-Saxons have taken over the island. You might enhance the cake in some way to represent Anglo-Saxons, whatever that means to you. Our next year is 1066, which is when England is conquered by the Normans. So the Normans come in and our objects are going to be a pair of dice and then also a judge's wig for 66 because that's judge.

So a pair of dice and a judge's wig for 66, because that's judge. So a pair of dice and a judge's wig. And since they were coming directly from France, even though they were, you know, originally from further north, Denmark and so on, these Normans are going to be represented culturally by the dice and the wig. So the wig represents maybe the high culture of the French, but the dice represent the fact that these people are kind of mixed up in that culture.

They aren't really from it. So they're taking over England now, and that's 1066 for the dice and the judge's wig. To remember that that's on the ridge pole of the house, you might imagine what it would look like for the wig to be balancing there on the ridge pole with the two dice on either side of the wig kind of drooping down as if they're almost going to fall down and roll down the two sides of the roof. Next we have 1154 which is when Henry II took the throne initiating the edge of the roof of the house.

So dangling down from the edge of the roof of the house, we have a lure like what you fish with, but it's baited with teeth. So there's a tooth on the end of the, maybe it's, there's a hook around that tooth. Now to associate with this, you might create an image for the House of Plantagenet, but that might be not worth it if you just want to remember Henry II ascending the throne. And so whichever one works for you, tie that to the lure and the teeth. Next, the Hundred Years' War begins between England and France in 1337. Now, 1337, the objects for that are a dime for 13 and a hammock for 37. So I'm going to stretch the hammock from this edge of the house just under where the roof

is sticking out and where we have that lure and that tooth. Now there's a hammock sticking out from the side of the house, and it's hooked into a tree on the other end or something. But at any rate, we have a little coin that's rolling along the hammock and just kind of trying to roll down the hammock and bouncing around. And it does that a long time, because if you imagine how rough a hammock is for a little coin to try going down, that's a pretty rough ride, and it would take a long time.

So that's the Hundred Years' War in 1337. Next, going further down the wall, at the top of the window, we have the Tudor dynasty beginning. Now the objects for that are a tire and a viola for 1485. And so I'm going to imagine that the tire is squeezed into the top window pane, and there's a viola inside the tire. A viola, for those who don't know, is an instrument like a violin, but a little bit bigger. For me, this represents the House of Tudors pretty well, because one of the prominent Tudors in my mind is Henry VIII, who was kind of fat and funny, but he was also a composer and an author. So if you put the fat tire around the viola, for me that sort of represents the character of Henry

VIII, and he's a prominent Tudor. Now maybe he's not the number one best-known Tudor because we also have Queen Elizabeth, and she dies in 1603, ending the Tudor dynasty. So we're putting her death at the bottom of the window, and our two images are a Kleenex and a semi-truck, so that's 1603. So I'm imagining that a semi-truck ran into a Kleenex, and that kills Elizabeth and ends the Tudor dynasty there at the bottom of the window. And what also happens this year, if you want to represent this, is that King James, who was the king of Scotland, became double king of both kingdoms. So he was king of Scotland, but he became king of England at this time when the Tudor dynasty ended. Then the last date that I'll give you for English history is 1707, which is when Great Britain was formed, because England united with Scotland.

So in some ways, you may argue that English history ends in 1707, because England is not the country anymore. The country is Great Britain. And so 1707 is a twig and a sock. And so I would just have the twig falling to the ground. So we're at the ground now below the window and it falls into the sock. And that just kind of represents that England is over, which is why the twig disappears. And what we're left with is the entire island, which is Great Britain. And that's represented by the sock that the twig has fallen into, because the island sort of, if you use your imagination, looks like a loose sock. And if you prefer, you might just have a rabbit sniffing that sock, because to be fair, the island looks most like a rabbit. So there you go, a brief history of England. Now, obviously, there are a lot more names and such that we could put in here, a lot more important dates, but you can always stick those in between these places.

I would just recommend emphasizing the dates that I've put in here, these primary years, making sure that they're really solid first, and then it'll be easier to store the other dates in between because you have this strong framework to base that on. Thanks for the question, Keeley. In our next episode, we're going to talk about how to master a language using a very small amount of vocabulary, and I'm going to present English, actually, as an example of that. Meanwhile, what do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com slash question and I'll talk to you again soon.