A while back, I picked up a reprint of an EC comic from the 1950s, before I was born. “Frontline Combat” was on the same level as Batman or Wonder Woman; it wasn’t trying to educate, it was pure entertainment. The issue I read was a Civil War Special. That children’s comic had a biography of Lincoln; a discussion of the blockade to strangle the South’s economy; a quick nod to the physics of skipping a cannonball over water; and enough solid information for an AP history class.
Bugs Bunny cartoons introduced millions of kids to opera and classical music. Rocky and Bullwinkle met Cleopatra and Julius Cesar.
Most parents don’t sit their kids down and talk about world history, unless it applies directly to them. Kids learn passively by absorbing what they are presented with.
Before ‘Star Wars’ the biggest, most lavish movies were historical. You went to see “Lawrence of Arabia” for the action, and got bits of history sprinkled in.
These days, you almost never see anything like that. “Napoleon” didn’t make much of a splash, and “Oppenheimer” isn’t exactly getting the grade school crowd.
You can also add the Right Wing anti-education push, but mostly I blame the entertainment industry. There was a short lived attempt to correct this; Stephen Spielberg made the same arguments I just did, and came up with a show “Hysteria” that tried to be fun and educational.