It’s 4:48 AM and still dark. Not even a blue gel yet.
I love history and read history books all the time. I have an insatiable interest in what preceded us. And history, precedent, what’s already occurred is our only clue as to what will happen next.
As an example, let’s look at the U.S. presidential election of 1972. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes ran against Democrat Samuel Tilden. In an election rather similar to recent elections, Hayes lost both the popular vote and the electoral college, but the Republican held Senate gave to Hayes anywway.
If in fact there was a fellow named Jesus Christ, which is a Greek name given to him when the Bible was translated to Greek, and I think there was, his name was actually Joshua Ben Joseph, and he spoke Aramaic. Given that, his last words would have been these, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” meaning, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Reading history gives you this wonderful perspective called “historical context;” how events fit in and compare with earlier events. For instance, the first patent for an actual automobile, as opposed to a wagon with a crude engine on it, was in 1878 to Karl Benz in Germany. His first car had three wheels. On it’s first several mile test run, Karl was too frightened to drive and had his wife do it. History condenses in the public memory. Cars are invented; cars are everywhere. No. Between 1878 when the car was invented, and 1908 when the first Ford Model-T rolled off the line, is 30 years. The earliest movies of big cities from 1890 to at least 1910 have no cars in them. Until the Model-T there were almost no cars in the world. David Buick would sell ten cars a year, then not be able to fulfill his orders.
Airplanes were the exact opposite. The Wright Bros. invented the motorized airplane in 1903, but didn’t get the bugs worked out until nearly 1910. Four years later, in 1914 when World War I began, every major country had an air force. Airplanes proliferiated much faster than the internet.
Finally, and this is possibly provacative, but doesn’t mean to be. The common condensation of history has us believing that white people from Europe arrived in America and immediately began mistreating the Native Americans. Not exactly. In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered North America. In the 1500s white people began trickling in, starting with the Dutch, then the Jews, then many others. In the 1600s persecuted religious sects started arriving, like Puritans and Quakers. In the 1700s American history really begins with Benjamin Franklin. It’s not until about 1800 when the first communities were established west of the Ohio River. Not the Mississippi. For 300 years white people stayed almost within eyesight of the Atlantic Ocean because they were so afraid of Indians, and they had every right to be. If white people ventured 100 miles into the interior, they were invariably tortured, scalped, and brutally killed. Lewis and Clark didn’t set out for the west, meaning across the Mississippi River, until 1804. That is over 300 years before white people developed enough guts to to even look. Then yes, in the 1800s and the westward movement, “The only good Indian was a dead Indian.” But 300 years is longer than America has existed.
It’s 5:55, the sky is blue, but no sun has appeared. Well, there’s always tomorrow.