Yes, there was a lot of publicity last year. I didn't check but being kind I assumed today's Pointless was a repeat and filmed prior to 2015?

Whoops!

To be fair, at least Nelson and Wellington were both against Napoleon, just different battles. And you know, one was Navy and one was Army.

Though, as pointed out above, even somebody with a detailed knowledge of History (like a degree) will know certain eras better than others depending on the syllabus' they studied at School/University as it is impossible to cover everything but i also think most people with enough interest to study to that level will tend to read up on bits they know we're skipped in their formal education.

After the Waterloo round was mentioned on here, I watched it on the iPlayer. Waterloo has been one of my "niche" interests since I was at school, I've got half a dozen books on it and the Napoleonic Wars. So for me the questions were all dead easy. But I was interested to see how the "civilians" got on with it. The two priests had some idea, 1812 was a pretty good effort for the year, only three years out. But the other two, well..fought in England in the year 1500?

Waterloo is probably one of the two or three most famous battles fought in English/British history before the 20th Century. It's up there with Hastings, Trafalgar and Agincourt. Thinking it was fought around 1500 is just not very good. It shows a less than stellar grasp of British history. But I think there are some people, particularly younger people, for whom a lot of things that happened before about 1900 is just "a long time ago". I don't think dates of major events and battles and so on are taught in school the way they used to be, this is seen as old-fashioned. Waterloo around the time of the Wars of the Roses, and thinking it was fought in England. If it had been fought in England it would have been by some distance the largest pitched battle ever fought in Great Britain, not to mention the logistical problems of how the French managed to get about seventy thousand troops over the English Channel without the Royal Navy having some say in the matter.

I agree that dates do not seem to be a feature of modern education.
My friends and I (all pensioners and way, way old) often get a laugh
on quiz shows when the date 1066 apparently means nothing to the
contestant. In our day that would have meant punishment!

There was a lot of advance publicity about the anniversary.

Well, you can sit down again, because is is the Eurovision Song Contest, not "European". As other posters have said quite a few countries outside Europe take the Eurovision transmission.

australia is in this years

Oh yes, my bad One of them being Israel for example.

I just thought it was strange because we're twins and had pretty much the same schooling but I can remember learning about Nelson at school and knew he died before Waterloo but my brother had no idea.

It wasn't your bad - you are absolved.

1066 is surely the most famous and easily remembered year in English history, just because it's just such an odd sounding year. After all the famous parody book on English history was called "1066 and all that."

If there's people voluntarily putting themselves forward for quiz shows who genuinely don't know what happened in 1066 then you do have to wonder.

Pub quiz question: "Which English Premier League ground is also the name of a battle?"

The answer is Chelsea's ground, Stamford Bridge, the second most famous battle fought in 1066, which far less people know about. Although the battle wasn't fought anywhere near the football ground, it was fought in Yorkshire.

There was a story about a the wife of a very rich person in London booking a minicab to take them to "Stamford Bridge" to watch a Chelsea game. After several hours they realised they were not in London, but in North Yorkshire heading for the battle site. The cabbie blamed it on satnav

That story sounds so unlikely, it almost has to be true. A London minicab driver who doesn't know that Chelsea play at Stamford Bridge, and a passenger who doesn't know either.

I certainly hope it's true, anyway.

Edit: I googled "Stamford bridge cabbie story" and apparently this is indeed true, although the starting point was Northampton, not London. It was one of Earl Spencer's daughters.

It happened to a daughter of Earl Spencer in 2008 according to The Guardian.

It wasn't a London taxi though but one from Northampton.

it doesn't sound quite so bad if they started out from Northampton, at least they weren't actually in London. You do wonder though about them sitting in the back of the cab. Didn't they notice all the place names on the road signs? And how they would have been getting more and more "Northern" as they went on? And the fact that London wouldn't have been mentioned on any of them?

And couldn't they have got a train?

Spoilt for choice.

True.

There was also a lot of publicity about the Trafalgar anniversary in 2005 - you'd think they might have remembered that was Nelson and he'd died so was unlikely to also be Waterloo.

But, I suppose it is a pressured environment, time isn't on their side so they just reach for any date or name that rings a bell at all.

History in school these days, from just before GCSE level, is mainly about learning to be a historian.

Rather than, say, students being asked "What year was the Battle of Crecy?" or "Who was on the English throne at the time of the Black Death?" they are more likely to be asked "What can we infer from Source A about x, and what does Source B reveal to us about y?"

Good spot for the link

I live near that area and I recall it being on local radio as the butt of the jokes for quite some time

I thought it was a minicab - it would not be a London cabbie as they have to do "The knowledge" so would know where the footy ground is.

Northampton start point would explain it more

I'm a big fan of quizzes but I'd admit that British war history before 1900 would be a weak point for me.
I have no real interest in it.

I do know where that Waterloo is though. Maybe it's because I prefer geography

Maybe so, but certainly not taking part in it.

Such as Israel and Australia, you mean?

(By the way, my "you can sit down again" comment was in response to "I stand corrected" in case anyone didn't spot the play on words.)

It is run by the European Broadcasting Union which has members from countries outside Europe because it is probably the premium broadcasting organisation in the world. It is nothing to do with the EU even though they like to think they 'own' anything with 'Euro' in its name.

I think some countries don't take part because it is very expensive to host the final - there were many jokes when Ireland won several times. I think they now have a qualification system to keep the numbers down.

Australia have been in it once, on the 60th anniversary edition. I'm not sure when Israel first entered, certainly quite recently, and in any case have been associated with Europe in a sporting sense as many Asian countries won't play them, apart from being on the fringe of geographical Europe anyway.

But generally speaking it has only been traditional European nations that have ever taken part, and to offer Uruguay as an answer is completely ridiculous.

Israel first entered in 1973 and have done so in most years since then