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. . . HISTORIANS see "WORK" for related links see "HISTORY" (below) I once had occasion to tell a group of graduate students that any of them would be lucky to achieve the fifth or sixth rank among historians. The remark was prompted by their dissatisfaction with all they knew: Gibbon was a bore, Macaulay a stuffed shirt, Hegel and Michelet were fools, Carlyle and Buckle frauds -- this from students who could not write ten pages of readable and properly documented narrative. Pointing out that even second-and third-rate men, such as Milman, Bancroft, or Grote, were the superiors of these students' own instructors, who were by definition superior to the students themselves, was a sobering thought quite foreign to their experience. --Jacques Barzun (1907- ) American writer, educator, and cultural historian, _The House of Intellect_ [1959] Th' further ye get away fr'm anny peeryod the' betther ye can write about it. Ye are not subjict to interruptions by people that were there. --Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American journalist and humorist. _Mr. Dooley on Making a Will_ [1919] History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other. --Philip Guedalla (1889-1944) British barrister and author. "Some Historians" in _Supers and Supermen_ [1920] The challenge [in writing history] is to get the reader beyond thinking that things had to be the way they turned out and to see the range of possibilities of how it could have been otherwise. --David McCullough (1933- ) American historian. What his imagination is to the poet, facts are to the historian. His exercise of judgment comes in their selection, his art in their arrangement. His method is narrative. His subject is the story of man's past. His function is to make it known. --Barbara Tuchman {nθe Wertheim} (1912-1989) American historian and author. "When Does History Happen?" In the _New York Times Book Review_ [8 March 1964]. History is more robust than poetry because it is more truthful ... The discourse of historians exhibits more substance, more practical knowledge, more political wisdom ... and more learning of every sort than the precepts of any philosophers ... Without history one remains always a child. --Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457) Italian humanist historian and philosopher, _Opera Omnia_ [1962 ed.] v.1 ![]() . . see "KNOWLEDGE" for related links see "TIME" for related links Histories make men wise. --Francis Bacon (15611626) English philosopher and essayist. "Of Studies" in _The Works af Francis Bacon_, [1825], v. 1, p.168 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. --Bible "Ecclesiastes" 1:9 - 22nd Dec., 1900. The old century is very nearly out, and leaves the world in a pretty pass, and the British Empire is playing the devil in it as never an empire before on so large a scale. We may live to see its fall. All the nations of Europe are making the same hell upon earth in China, massacring and pillaging and raping in the captured cities as outrageously as in the Middle Ages. The Emperor of Germany gives the word for slaughter and the Pope looks on and approves. In South Africa our troops are burning farms under Kitchener's command, and the Queen and the two houses of Parliament, and the bench of bishops thank God publicly and vote money for the work. The Americans are spending fifty millions a year on slaughtering the Filipinos; the King of the Belgians has invested his whole fortune on the Congo, where he is brutalizing the Negroes to fill his pockets. The French and Italians for the moment are playing a less prominent part in the slaughter, but their inactivity grieves them. The whole white race is reveling openly in violence, as though it had never pretended to be Christian. God's equal curse be on them all! So ends the famous nineteenth century into which we were so proud to have been born.... 31st Dec., 1900. I bid good-bye to the old century, may it rest in peace as it has lived in war. Of the new century I prophesy nothing except that it will see the decline of the British Empire. Other worse empires will rise perhaps in its place, but I shall not live to see the day. It all seems a very little matter here in Egypt, with the pyramids watching us as they watched Joseph, when, as a young man four thousand years ago, perhaps in this very garden, he walked and gazed at the sunset behind them, wondering about the future just as I did this evening. And so, poor wicked nineteenth century, farewell! --Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (18401922) English poet and publicist. _My Diaries, 1888-1914_ [1921]. - History is the torch that is meant to illuminate the past to guard us against the repetition of our mistakes of other days. We cannot join in the rewriting of history to make it conform to our comfort and convenience. --Claude G[ernade] Bowers (18781958) American jounalist, diplomat, and historian. In the introduction to F. Jay Taylor _The United States and the Spanish Civil War_ [1956]. For if old men are considered wise because they have seen more than others, how much more wisdom can history lend us if it be written correctly. For it contains the deeds of many ages and their reasons, so that one may easily find what to imitate and what to avoid, and be spurred on to great deeds by emulation of outstanding men. --Leonardo Bruni (also called Leonardo Aretino) (c.13701444) Italian humanist scholar of the Renaissance. _Historiarum Florentini populi libri XII_ [1610] (Twelve Books of Histories of the Florentine People) History selects its heroes and its villains, and few of us resist participation at the parade or at the guillotine. --William F. Buckley Jr. (19252008) American author and journalist. _The Jeweler's Eye_ [1968] The farther backwards you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [19401945, 19511955]. Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes; and the light which experience gives us a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind us. --Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834) English poet, critic, and philosopher. _Table Talk_ [1835] (18 December 1831) History is a vast early warning system. --Norman Cousins (19151990) American publisher. "Editor's Odyssey: Gleanings from Articles and Editorials by N.C.," 1973, ed. Susan Schiefelbein _Saturday Review_ [15 April 1978]. Never mind about 1066 William the Conqueror, 1087 William the Second. Such things are not going to affect one's life...but 1932 the Mars Bar and 1936 Maltesers and 1937 the Kit Kat these dates are milestones in history and should be seared into the memory of every child in the country. --Roald Dahl (19161990) British author of short-stories and books for children. History is philosophy teaching by examples. --Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1st century B.C.) Greek historian and literary critic. _Ars rhetorica_, ch. 11 The more extensive a man's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do. --Benjamin Disraeli (18041881) British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 18741880]. Most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. "Considerations, By the Way" in _The Conduct of Life_ [1860]. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today. --Henry Ford (18631947) American car manufacturer. Charles N. Wheeler interview _Chicago Tribune_ [25 May 1916]. The Golden Age never was the present Age. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. _Poor Richard's Almanack_ [1750] - William the Bastard invades, wins Tapestry at eleven for more. Mother and father, siblings perish overnight in the great plague. Rats! Bad King John is crowned. Bad, bad, bad! Magna Carta will straighten him out. --Nick Friend - History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable. --John W. Gardner (19122002) American administrator. History. . . is, indeed, little more than the register of crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind. --Edward Gibbon (17371794) English historian. _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire _ [17761788], ch. 3 The illusion that the times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages. --Horace Greeley (18111872) American newspaper editor. _The American Conflict_ [18641866] Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone. --Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (17701831) German philosopher. _Lectures on the Philosophy of World History_, vol. 10 Introduction [1830], translated by H. B. Nisbet, [1975]. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging the future but by the past. --Patrick Henry (17361799) American statesman, instrumental in the adoption of The Bill of Rights. Speech to Virginia Convention, Richmond, Virginia [23 March 1775]. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history. --Aldous Huxley (18941963) English novelist (grandson of T.H. Huxley.) History fades into fable, facts become clouded with doubt and controversy, the inscription moulders from the tablet, the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids what are they but heaps of sand? and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? --Washington Irving (17831859) American author, essayist, and travel book writer. "Westminster Abbey" in _The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent_ [1819-1820]. - History, by apprizing [men] of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. _Notes on the State of Virginia_ [1784] I am captivated more by dreams of the future than by the history of the past. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. - History is made out of the failures and heroism of each insignificant moment. If one throws a stone into a river, it produces a succession of ripples. But most men live without being conscious of a responsibility which extends beyond themselves. And that is at the root of our misery. --Franz Kafka (18831924) Czech novelist. In Gustav Janouch _Conversations with Kafka_, tr. Goronwy Rees [1953]. - Democracy requires the intelligent participation of people who know something about the issues, who can place facts in historical context and make sense of them. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to do that, nor have a Ph.D. in history. But you do have to know a little bit about how we got where we are. At least that. The fact that we seem to be turning out a generation of youngsters who lack even that little bit is a national scandal and tragedy. --Don Kaul - A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind. --John Maynard Keynes (18831946) English economist. _The End of Laissez-Faire_ ch. 1 [1926] History is a better guide than good intentions. --Jeane Kirkpatrick (19262006) American Conservative political scientist, professor, author, and the first woman to serve as the American Ambassador to the United Nations. "Dictatorship and Double Standards" _Commentary_ {magazine} [November 1979] History is not, of course, a cookbook offering pretested recipes. It teaches by analogy, not by maxims. It can illuminate the consequences of actions in comparable situations, yet each generation must discover for itself what situations are in fact comparable. --Henry Alfred Kissinger (1923 ) German-born American diplomat. _White House Years_ [1979] The time is not come for impartial history. If the truth were told just now it would not be credited. --Robert E. Lee (18071870) American Confederate general. [c. 1868], in David McCrae _The Americans at Home_ [1870]. Nor deem the irrevocable Past As wholly wasted, wholly vain, If, rising on its wrecks, at last To something nobler we attain. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882) American poet. "The Ladder of St. Augustine" [1858] Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present. --Thomas Babington Macaulay (18001859) English politician and historian. _History of England_ [18491861] , vol. I, ch. 1 Wise men say, and not without reason, that whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who have been, and ever will be, animated by the same passions, and thus they must necessarily have the same results. --Niccolς Machiavelli (14691527) Florentine statesman and political philosopher. Hegel says somewhere that all great events and personalities in world history reappear in one fashion or another. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. --Karl Marx (18181883) German political philosopher. _The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte_ [1852], pt. 1 A nation that forgets its past can function no better than an individual with amnesia. --David McCullough (1933 ) American historian. We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror. --H. (Herbert) Marshall McLuhan (19111980) Canadian professor and author. Few learn much from history who do not bring much with them to its study. --John Stuart Mill (18061873) English philosopher and social reformer. _The Subjection of Women_ [1869], ch. 1 An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted. --Arthur Miller (19152005) American dramatist. America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy. --Samuel Eliot Morison (18871976) American historian, author and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. _The Oxford History of the American People_ [1965], ch. 2 The history of the world and its peoples in three words 'Born, troubled, died.' --Carl Sandburg (18781967) American poet. _The People, Yes_ [1936] Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it....This is the condition of children and barbarians, in whom instinct has learned nothing from experience. --George Santayana (18631952) Spanish-born philosopher and critic. _Life of Reason_, vol. 1, chap. 12, p. 284 (1905) History, by putting crisis in perspective, supplies the antidote to every generation's illusion that its own problems are uniquely oppressive. --Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (19172007) American historian. "The Challenge of Change" in _New York Times Magazine_ [27 July 1986]. If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past. --Benedict de Spinoza (16321677) Dutch-Jewish philosopher, the foremost exponent of 17th century Rationalism. Neglect of historical knowledge is to a nation what the loss of memory is to a man. --William Stubbs (18251901) English historian. Like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones. --A.J.P. Taylor (19061990) British historian. On Napolean III, in "Mistaken Lessons from the Past" _Listener_ [6 June 1963]. History and philosophy are the two eyes of wisdom, and if one is missing, then one has only half vision. --Christian Thomasius (16551728) German law professor at Halle University. In Donald R. Kelley _Faces of History_ [1998], p.244. I take delight in history, even its most prosaic details, because they become poetical as they recede into the past. The poetry of history lies in the quasimiraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing after another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cock- crow. --G. M. Trevelyan (18761962) English historian. _Clio, A Muse_ [1913] History can be well written only in a free country. --Voltaire to Frederick II [27 May 1773] in M.J. Cohan and John Major {ed.} _History in Quotations_ [2004]. It is not how much you know about life but how you live your life that counts. Those who can avoid mistakes by observing the mistakes of others are most apt to keep free from sorrow. In a world full of uncertainties, the record of what has gone before human experience is as sure and reliable as anything of which we know. --Ray Lyman Wilbur (18751949) Medical doctor and president of Stanford University. ----- The history of the world, as found in Richard Lederer's _Anguished English_ as written by students 8th grade through college: Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intollerable. Achilles appears in The Iliad, by Homer. Homer also wrote The Oddity, in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline. In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. Julius Caesar extinquished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out the words "Tee hee, Brutus." Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them. King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery with brave knights on prancing horses and beautiful women. King Harold mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings. Joan of Arc was cannonized by Bernard Shaw. And victims of the Bluebonnet plague grew boobs on their necks. Another story was about Willian Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained. One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. During the War, the Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two signers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing two cats backwards. Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career. Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy. Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees. Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between, he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large. Napoleon wanted a heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't have any children. The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by an anahist, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history. - A Condensed Version of History For those who slept through World History 101...... here is a condensed version. Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter. The two most important events in all of history were: 1. The invention of beer, and 2. The invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer, and the beer to the man. These facts formed the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups: 1. Liberals 2. Conservatives. Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed. Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BB Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement. Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly BBQ's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men. Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs, the evolution of the Hollywood actor, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide all the meat and beer that conservatives provided. Over the years, Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass. Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of liberal women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists' are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat. Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living. Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America . They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing. Here ends today's lesson in world history....... ||| TOPICAL [The] American Council of Trustees and Alumni commissioned the Roper organization The Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut to survey college seniors from the nations best colleges and universities as identified by the U.S. News & World Reports annual college rankings. The top 55 liberal arts colleges and research universities were sampled during December 1999. The questions were drawn from a basic high school curriculum. In fact, many of the questions had been used in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests given to high school students. How did seniors from our nations top colleges and universities do? They flunked. Four out of five 81% of seniors from the top 55 colleges and universities in the United States received a grade of D or F. They could not identify Valley Forge, or words from the Gettysburg Address, or even the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution. Scarcely more than half knew general information about American democracy and the Constitution. Only 34% of the students surveyed could identify George Washington as an American general at the battle of Yorktown, the culminating battle of the American Revolution. Only 42% were able to identify George Washington as First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen. Less than one quarter (23%) correctly identified James Madison as the father of the Constitution. Even fewer 22% of the college seniors were able to identify Government of the people, by the people, for the people as a line from the Gettysburg Address arguably one of the three most important documents underlying the American system of government. Over one-third were unable to identify the U.S. Constitution as establishing the division of power in American government. Little more than half (52%) knew George Washingtons Farewell Address warned against permanent alliances with foreign governments. What do they know? They get an A+ in contemporary popular culture. 99% know who the cartoon characters Beavis and Butthead are. 98% can identify the rap singer Snoop Doggy Dogg. Beavis and Butthead instead of Washington and Madison; Snoop Doggy Dogg instead of Lincoln? How did it come to this? Students and parents are paying $30,000 a year at elite institutions. For what? http://www.4truth.net/atf/cf/%7B0AA41589-FF9B-4057-8DD8-4C34D14E6387%7D/acta_american_memory[1].pdf - SOME GOOD SITES: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/topics/index.shtml MIDDLE AGES: http://www.byu.edu/ipt/projects/middleages/index.html#index DOCUMENTS: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/21st.htm OTHER WORTHWHILE SITES: http://www.historyplace.com/ TIMELINES http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/History_n2/a.html AMERICAN: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html http://www.authentichistory.com/1960s.html ----- anachronism (noun) [κ-'nζ-krκ-ni-zκm] A person or thing chronologically misplaced, especially something or someone in a modern setting that belongs in a historically older one. end page | HABIT - HANGOVER | HAPPINESS | HAPPY BIRTHDAY - HATE | HATS - HEAT | HEALTH | HEAVEN - HIPPOS | HISTORIANS & HISTORY | HITCHCOCK - HOLOCAUST | HOME - HOMETOWNS | HONESTY & HONOR | HOOVER - HOTELS | HOUSE - HUMAN NATURE | HUMAN RACE - HUMANITY | HUMILIATION - HURT | HUMOR | HURTING (SOMEONE) | HUSBANDS - HYPOCRISY | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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