But I very much doubt that there was much more to it than Revolutionary War, slavery situation leading up to Civil War, then US participation in the world wars with the Great Depression inbetween, and then some more detail about the civil rights movement and the social changes of the 1960s. But about what life was like in the US pre-20th century outside the wars and slavery... yeah, little or nothing. I'm fairly confident in saying that Belgian history classes are probably less inwardly-focused than those in most other countries - but in the end it was still mostly European history and then some outside it, but the importance of the US in world history is mostly a post-1900 or post-WW1 thing.

Of course, I learned far more about American history from other sources than from school - including plenty from movies, books, pop culture in general.

Yeah, safe to say almost none of that in school, nor much from other sources unless you'd really seek them out...

Of course, viewing the Natives as more noble or innocent than Europeans is misguided and arguably racist in a different way. Although I should mention, in this context, that as a child my view of Native Americans in the US (and that of many European children in the 20th century, although probably not so much anymore now) was greatly influenced by the books of Karl May - I'm sure I've mentioned him before, though I can't remember now if you knew him or not. Anyway, he was definitely a great believer in the 'noble savage' view, with most of the Native American peoples described either very positively, or more negatively but then often under influence of evil whites. That was one way to learn about 19th century American history, though I dare say it was a very different view from what you'd get in the US... to this day, I can't read about the Apache, Comanche, Shoshone, Oglala Lakota, etc. peoples without thinking of their respective depictions in May's books.

I did also read 1491 some years ago - during a holiday in Guatemala and Mexico, my only visit to Latin America so far. 1493 not yet, should get to that too.