War and Morality. Al Qaeda v USA

I remember two pieces of ugliness from our past being taught at school. One was the slave trade, but we then covered the abolitionist movement and the fact that the British Empire abolished slavery relatively early. The other was the history of Anglo-Irish relations, which was one of the modules our school chose for our GCSE course (ages 15-16) - this was a fairly even handed treatment of the topic, if I remember rightly. We were also given fairly unflattering accounts of Cromwell in Ireland as part of 17th century British history at A-level (ages 17-18). I imagine everywhere teaches history at least to some extent as part of their nationalist narrative, though.

The British Empire wasn't really covered in my school history course at all (course contents differs depending on examination board, school and time of education - explaining the different answers from other Brits). Time of education's probably the most significant there, since the national curriculum is like the health service. It's reformed every couple of years without ever waiting to see the effects of the previous reforms by governments eager to be seen to be doing something.