History Literature / HorribleHistories

-->"I say, I say; what did they do when the Forth Bridge collapsed?"
-->"They built a fifth."

-->''In 1622 Turkish Sultan Osman was strangled by his own bodyguards. They led the rebels.''
-->'''Sultan Osman:''' "My own bodyguards ...''Choke!''"
-->''In India the mighty emperor Akbar died in 1605 - he was probably poisoned by his relatives. You couldn't trust anyone.''
-->'''Emperor Akbar:''' "My own family ...''Ckkk!''"
-->''In England in 1649 the English chopped King Charles I. It was his parliament who signed the death warrant.''
-->'''King Charles:''' "My own [[UsefulNotes/BritishPoliticalSystem MPs]] ...''Chop!''"

* [[PrecisionFStrike Precision B Strike]]: ''The USA'' has two utterances of "son of a bitch" (in a [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids childrens' history book]], mind you), though in both cases the "i" either obscured or censored.

* RunningGag: "[gruesome historical fact]. You wouldn't [gruesome historical fact] to [your parent/teacher/friend] over [incredibly petty reason]? ([[SchmuckBait Don't answer that!]])"

-->"Yes, Caesarion was strangled by his own teacher. Would you believe it?"
-->'''Frightened-looking scholar:''' "Er... yes."

--> "The truth is that he escaped to northern England and became a teacher. I know. He taught me."

* AMillionIsAStatistic: A consistent theme of the books is attempting to avert this trope. It gets explicitly criticised in a passage in ''The Frightful First World War'', which notes all the flowers left at the Grantchester memorial for the local casualties of the war by poetry lovers in tribute to Rupert Brooke's death, and bluntly asks "Is that fair? What about the other brave men who died?".

* BlackHumor: Oh yeah. The books are made entirely of BlackHumor. See also WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids.

* TheAbridgedHistory: Pretty much what the books and series provide.
* TheCaligula: Beside the actual Caligula, there are many more examples in ''Rotten Rulers''.

** Martin Brown even pulls off a dark joke about the {{Armenia}}n Genocide in ''The Frightful First World War'', illustrating it with an Armenian amid a pile of corpses asking "What did we do to deserve this?", and another replying, "We were here."

* HumansAreBastards: Some of the horrible facts given are about dastardly rulers. The Roman Emperor Tiberius, for example, rubbed the skin off a fisherman's face with a fish--the very one that the fisherman had wanted to bring him as a present--and then proceeded to do the same again with a ''crab''. Or Gen. Sherman: "The more I see of these Indians, the more sure I am they all have to be killed."
** Many of the books present competing civilisations as NotSoDifferent, pointing out that they were equally ruthless and nasty. (''The Ruthless Romans''' introduction mentions that Aztecs conducted {{Human Sacrifice}}s and the Spanish Inquisition tortured people but both believed they had good reasons to do so, but the Romans killed people for ''fun'' and made murder into a ''sport''.)

* ChildHater: In ''Measly Middle Ages'', during the section on the Black Death, we are treated to a SinisterMinister who claims that KidsAreCruel and therefore [[KarmicDeath are dying of the plague]]. Terry Deary proceeds to compare him to a SadistTeacher with a skeletal face who shouts, "Do as I say or die!"

* ChildHater: In ''Measly Middle Ages'', during the section on the Black Death, we are treated to a SinisterMinister who claims that KidsAreCruel and are dying of the plague because [[KarmicDeath God is punishing them]]. Terry Deary proceeds to compare him to a SadistTeacher with a skeletal face who shouts, "Do as I say or die!"

** A number of books, most notably ''Measly Middle Ages'' repeats the myth that most people [[YoungerThanTheyLook got old by age 25]] and died at age 35 or 40. One book takes this myth UpToEleven by showing an illustration of a (supposedly) eleven-year-old kid who looks more like an eighty-year-old man than a sixth grader of any kind. You'd be surprised at the ''plenty'' of people who lived to be well into their 70's and 80's at that time, even without modern medicine and whatnot.

* {{Eagleland}}: ''The USA'', Flavour 2, all the way. Seeing how Deary likes pull any culture he happens to be focusing on to pieces, this is not surprising. However, it is still quite unique to see a humorist children's book on the history of the USA to not be entirely americentric.

** The live-action TV series itself got this treatment when it when they won a National Television Award for Best Documentary Series. "I bet we all saw this coming", indeed.

* OhWaitThisIsMyGroceryList: A cartoon in the Horrible Histories book of the 20th Century parodies the infamous "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranberry_sauce cranberry sauce]]" lyric of "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Fields_Forever Strawberry Fields Forever]]", with JohnLennon reading "Cranberry sauce, strawberry jam, milk and a packet of biscuits. Wait, these aren't me lyrics...".

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Generally averted, however there are still a few mistakes in the books. Nothing major, generally stuff like widely-accepted historical "facts" that are actually historical legend. They expose a lot of these as well. They're like Snopes for history books sometimes.

* GoshDangUsToHeck: When ''Wicked Words'' claimed that in 1623 the English Parliament made it illegal to swear:

* MoodWhiplash: ''The Woeful Second World War'' was much darker than the other books, with quite a few less humorous moments, and a lot of very grim, confronting stories. The parts on the Holocaust and Dresden, for example are completely devoid of any humor whatsoever, and are written in a very cold, confronting tone (unsurprising given the subject)/

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Happpens frequently. Lord Kelvin was quite good about this, believing that heavier-than-air flight was impossible and X-rays were probably a hoax. (He changed his mind about the second one after he saw the evidence.) In addition, Kelvin insisted that radio had no future in 1897 (he preferred to send messages by pony) and that it would take human beings two hundred years to land on the moon. Horrible Histories put it best when summarising this kind of phenomenon, noting in the section about the predicted short lifespan of talking pictures that "Lord Kelvin was dead by then, so he was not able to tell us that talking films were impossible anyway."
** The live-action TV series itself got this treatment when it when they won a National Televison Award for Best Documentary Series. "I bet we all saw this coming", indeed.

* MoodWhiplash: ''The Woeful Second World War'' was much darker than the other books, with quite a few less humorous moments, and alot of very grim, confronting stories. The parts on the Holocaust and Dresden, for example are completely devoid of any humour whatsoever, and are written in a very cold, confronting tone. (Unsurprising given the subject)
** All the books' epilogues end on a considerably more downbeat note than the preceding text, describing how the civilisation in question's achievements were all for naught in the long run, or how they essentially lived by the sword and died by the sword when more powerful civilisations came along. Usually there's some kind of aesop directed towards the young reader.

* CreatorBreakdown: In February 2013, Deary--whose work has always been subversive in nature, where [[AristocratsAreEvil the people in power are always portrayed as the bad guys]] and the hero is the {{Everyman}}--went on a huge rant about, of all things, how horrible public libraries are because [[{{Hypocrite}} they allow "the common people" to "steal his work"]] (ie. read his work without buying it at a bookstore.) [[InternetCounterattack It's not hard to guess how people reacted...]]

* The Frightful First World War - (World War I)

* The Woeful Second World War - (usefulNotes/WorldWarII)

* The Woeful Second World War - (World War II)

* HowDoIUsedTense: The Vile Victorians includes the line "What did we used to have with our potatoes?"

** All the books' epilogues end on a considerably more downbeat note than the preceding text, describing how the civilisation in question's achievements were all for naught in the long run, or how they essentially lived by the sword and died by the sword when more powerful civilisations came along.

-->In the SecondWorldWar it had become easier to kill someone when all you had to do was push a button and drop a bomb. You'd never see the suffering you caused. But the real horror of the war was that so many people were prepared to kill so many others in cold blood.

The series has been adapted into an animated television series which ran from 2001-2002, a radio series and [[Series/HorribleHistories a live action version]] which finished airing its fifth and final series on Tuesday the 16th of July, 2013.

The series has been adapted into an animated television series which ran from 2001-2002, a radio series and [[Series/HorribleHistories a live action version which finished airing its fifth and final series]] on Tuesday the 16th of July, 2013.

!!The Animated Series shows examples of following tropes:

* BreakingTheFourthWall: From the Lewis and Clark's Expedition episode:
--> '''Random Character:''' You guys must be the new CIT's right
--> '''Mo:''' What's that, Cartoon's in Time
* ElmuhFuddSyndwome: Mo in the UK version.
* FieldTripToThePast: The entire premise of the series
* GirlishPigtails: Mo
* INeedToGoIronMyDog: Chickening-out version: the animated program featured a smart-mouth jerk attempting to get out of Grecian-style wrestling by claiming to have sprained his oesophagus.
* InteractiveNarrator: The narrator constantly talks to the characters, and appears to be responsible for the time travelling.
* LameExcuse: The animated series featured a smart-mouth jerk attempting to get out of Grecian-style wrestling by claiming to have sprained his oesophagus.
* LimitedAnimation
* MeadowRun: Starts when Mo and Stitch are reunited in the American Revolution episode. [[SubvertedTrope They decide against it at the last second.]]
* RedShirt : generic man in the cartoon series always has this happen to him. he's dying in every episode...
* SameLanguageDub: Mo and the narrator were voiced by different actors in the UK, US and Australian versions.
* WheelOFeet: Used in the animated series
* [[WhoNamesTheirKidDude Who Names Their Kid Stitch?]]

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