History Literature / HorribleHistories

* The Gorgeous Georgians (Georgian era)

* The Rotten Romans (Ancient Rome)

* The Slimy Stuarts (House of Stuart)

* The Terrible Tudors (Tudor dynasty)

* The Awesome Egyptians (Ancient Egypt)

* The Barmy British Empire (British Empire)

* The Groovy Greeks (Ancient Greece)

* The Vile Victorians (Victorian era)

-->''In 1622 Turkish Sultan Osman was strangled by his own bodyguards. They led the rebels.''\\

--> '''Judge:''' I now sentence you to twenty years in prison.
--> '''Defendant:''' Flippin' 'eck!
--> '''Judge:''' Make that forty years.

* {{Eagleland}}: ''The USA'', Flavour 2, all the way. Seeing how Deary likes to 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.

** ''Even More Terrible Tudors'' does this to John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, who served as Lord Protector during the reign of King Edward VI. While he was certainly a shady character who illegally interfered with the succession of the monarch to keep Mary I out, there is no evidence that he deliberately poisoned Edward to get him to sign off on it, or that he ever had anyone killed, much less that he had a child murdered to cover up the date of Edward's death.

* ItAmusedMe: ''The Ruthless Romans''' introduction mentions that Aztecs conducted {{Human Sacrifice}}s and the Spanish Inquisition tortured people but [[BlueAndOrangeMorality both believed they had good reasons to do so]], but it also insists the Romans built arenas where gladiators fought to the death for ''entertainment''.

* HitlerAteSugar: As if playing the Hitler card regarding King Henry VIII (who had been deceased for nearly four centuries before Hitler rose to power) wasn't bad enough, Terry Deary also plays the Hitler card regarding the Neolithic perpetrators behind the Talheim Death Pit (which contained only 34 skeletons, a small percentage of the millions of civilians who were deported to concentration camps under Hitler). Oddly, Terry Deary doesn't think that smoking or animal abuse are okay even though Hitler also hated both.

* ShapedLikeItself: As pointed out in ''The Frightful First World War'', there is a WWI-era song to the tune of Auld Lang Syne where the lyrics are "We're here because we're here because we're here because...". This was a bit of gallows humour over the fact that most of the troops had no idea why they were there due to the incredibly complex arrangement of alliances and pacts that led to WWI.

* HumansAreBastards: ''The Ruthless Romans''' introduction mentions that Aztecs conducted {{Human Sacrifice}}s and the Spanish Inquisition tortured people but [[BlueAndOrangeMorality both believed they had good reasons to do so]], but it also insists the Romans built arenas where gladiators fought to the death for ''entertainment''.

* HumansAreBastards: Many of the books present competing civilisations as MirroringFactions, claiming 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 [[BlueAndOrangeMorality both believed they had good reasons to do so]], but it also insists the Romans built arenas where gladiators fought to the death for ''entertainment''.)

* TheAbridgedHistory: Pretty much what the books and series provide.

* SpeechbubblesInterruption: In the book ''The Awful Egyptians'', the narrator refers to the fact that at times, after great military victories, ancient Egyptians would gather the genitals from dead enemy soldiers and pile them up in public. In a caricature illustrating such a pile, a son says to his father, Look at this huge pile of '''That's enough, son!'''
** It should be pointed out that this is a children's history book, so the mere presence of this trope shows just how dark Terry Deary's sense of humour is.

** A number of books, most notably ''Measly Middle Ages'', repeat 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.

The Polish published released [[RegionalBonus several additional books]], covering this history of Poland. [[NoExportForYou These are only available in Polish]]:

The series proved hugely influential during the nineties and zeros, unleashing a raft of spin-offs and ripoffs, including ''Horrible Science'', ''Horrible Geography'', ''Literature/MurderousMaths'', ''Foul Football'', ''The Knowledge'',[[note]]As the name suggests, a "general knowledge" series which covered a different subject in each book -- ''Murderous Maths'' and ''Foul Football'' both started off in this series before being spun off into their own ranges[[/note]] ''Dead Famous'',[[note]]Biographies of deceased famous people, principally scientists and leaders with the odd wildcard[[/note]] ''What They Don't Tell You About...'', and various other series of diminishing success.

!!The Books show examples of following tropes:

** 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 to 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.

** All the books' epilogues end on a considerably more downbeat note than the preceding text, describing how the civilization 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 civilizations came along. Usually there's some kind of aesop directed towards the young reader.

* HitlerAteSugar: As if playing the Hitler card regarding King Henry VIII (who had been deceased for nearly four centuries before Hitler rose to power) wasn't bad enough, Terry Deary also plays the Hitler card regarding the Neolithic perpetrators behind the Talheim Death Pit (which contained only 34 skeletons, a small percentage of the millions of civilians who were deported to concentration camps under Hitler). Oddly, Terry Deary doesn't think that smoking or animal abuse are okay even though [[NotSoDifferent Hitler also hated both]].

* HumansAreBastards: Many of the books present competing civilisations as NotSoDifferent, claiming 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 [[BlueAndOrangeMorality both believed they had good reasons to do so]], but it also insists the Romans built arenas where gladiators fought to the death for ''entertainment''.)

** Additionally, simply from looking at the list of titles, it's clear that a large number of them deal with the history of Britain. Only one book was written covering the United States specifically.

* Wicked Words (The History of Linguistics)

* AssholeVictim: On several occasions, Terry Deary makes out certain historical figures as {{Asshole Victim}}s, but not until ''after'' he has already discussed their tragic fates... [[FridgeLogic which makes just about as much sense as a movie that shows a villain's]] KarmicDeath and ''then'' shows the evil things he did previously.

* AssholeVictim: On several occasions, Terry Deary makes out certain historical figures as {{Asshole Victim}}s, but not until ''after'' he has already discussed their tragic fates... [[FridgeLogic which makes just about as much sense as a movie that shows a villain's]] KarmicDeath and ''then'' showing the evil things he did previously.

* AssholeVictim: On several occasions, Terry Deary makes out certain historical figures as {{Asshole Victims}}s, but not until ''after'' he has already discussed their tragic fates... [[FridgeLogic which makes just about as much sense as a movie that shows a villain's]] KarmicDeath and ''then'' showing the evil things he did previously.

* HitlerAteSugar: As if playing the Hitler card regarding King Henry VIII (who had been deceased for nearly four centuries before Hitler rose to power) wasn't bad enough, Terry Deary also plays the Hitler card regarding the Neolithic perpetrators behind the Talheim Death Pit (which contained only 34 skeletons, a small percentage of the millions of civilians who were deported to concentration camps under Hitler).

* EverythingsLouderWithBagpipes: In ''Gorgeous Georgians'', Deary lists a variety of ways in which 18th-century county fairs would [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals abuse animals in front of large crowds]]. [[MoodWhiplash Then, he goes on to describe "a player of bagpipes" as "cruelty to]] ''[[MoodWhiplash humans]]''!

* HumansAreBastards: Many of the books present competing civilisations as NotSoDifferent, claiming 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 it also insists the Romans built arenas where gladiators fought to the death for ''entertainment''.)

The series proved hugely influential during the nineties and zeros, unleashing a raft of spin-offs and ripoffs, including Horrible Science, Horrible Geography, Murderous Maths, The Knowledge, Dead Famous, What They Don't Tell You About, and various other series of diminishing success.

* The Angry Aztecs - (Aztecs)

* The Awful Egyptians - (Ancient Egypt)
* The Barmy British Empire - (British Empire)
* The Blitzed Brits - (The Blitz)
* Bloody Scotland - (History of Scotland)
* Cruel Kings and Mean Queens - (The Kings and Queens of England, Britain, and the United Kingdom)
* The Cut Throat Celts - (Celts)
* Dark Knights and Dingy Castles - (The history of Knights and Castles)

* The Frightful First World War - (UsefulNotes/WorldWarI)
* The Gorgeous Georgians - (Georgian era)
* The Groovy Greeks - (Ancient Greece)
* The Incredible Incas - (Tahuantinsuyu - The Inca Empire)

* The Measly Middle Ages - (Middle Ages)
* The Rotten Romans - (Ancient Rome)
* The Ruthless Romans - (Ancient Rome)
* Rotten Rulers - (Rulers in general)
* Rowdy Revolutions - (Revolutions)
* The Savage Stone Age - (Stone age)
* The Slimy Stuarts - (House of Stuart)
* The Smashing Saxons - (Saxons)
* The Stormin' Normans - (Normans)
* The Terrible Tudors - (Tudor dynasty)
* Terrifying Tudors (formerly Even More Terrible Tudors) - (Tudor dynasty)
* The Twentieth (20th) Century - (20th century)
* The USA - (The United States of America)
* The Vicious Vikings - (Vikings)
* The Vile Victorians - (Victorian era)
* The Villainous Victorians - (Victorian era)
* The Wicked History of the World - (Basic history of the world)
* Wales - (Wales)
* Wicked Words - (The History of Linguistics)
* The Woeful Second World War - (UsefulNotes/WorldWarII)