How has history changed for you?

As I have got older history seems shorter. When I was at school the mid 19th century seemed a very long time ago, now I realise my grandfather would have known people who were alive at that time.

History at school was pretty dry as I remember it. We were taught about the Crimean War in secondary school but it made little impact on me until I borrowed a book from the library that was well researched and went into a lot of detail about the campaign, the disorganisation and the hellish conditions the soldiers had to endure. This book was fascinating and brought history to life.

There is a huge amount of history on the Internet including digital copies of original documents and photographs and you now have the ability to research topics of interest at your desktop. Despite this I find that the greatest interest and the deepest understanding of history still comes from books.

You mean the Mid 20th Century or you are about 170. lol

@thekoukoureport Take someone 20 years old in 1850. He or she could easily have lived until 1910 and my grandfather was born in 1897. My grandfather at the age of 13 could then have spoken with this 80 year old man. I know I am getting on a bit but I am not quite 170 yet. :-)

@flutherother has that right. When I was in elementary school, talking about the founding of the country seemed so long ago. Now, in my 50’s, I realize this is indeed a young country.

For me, a big change came when I read a history book that compared Columbus going from court to court, trying to find a country that would sponser his voyage, to a vaccum cleaner salesman. I also read that when George Washington got in the boat to cross the Delaware (visual image of a stuffy old man), he told one of his more portly generals: “Move your fat ass over, George, but be careful you don’t swamp the boat!”. Seems much more human, and tells me more about the man than the dates and battles we were taught.

I love history and I’m happy that the history education I had in school didn’t kill that love. For obvious reasons history lessons in school are sanitized. But I don’t think they are doing kids any favours by doing so (within reason).

Once I left school and started reading history texts on my own I was hooked. When people tell me that history is boring I shake my head. I can’t think of anything more interesting. Power, intrigued, deception, murder, honour, peace, unlikely alliances….they are all there.

@tranquilsea I feel the same way about what was offered in schools vs. being able to learn about historical aspects outside of the classroom. I’d love to hear your answer to the question:what facts or beliefs have changed for you between what you were taught and what you have learned since then?

Well I certainly realize that ‘Americans’ had no right to this country now.

I wasn’t really that into history in highschool. Anyone who knows me now knows that I have probably the biggest boner for history of anyone they will ever meet.

It wasn’t until I started collecting antiques, specifically military antiques, that I became interested in researching the fantastic and sometimes larger-than-life human element of history. The unfurling of human existence reads like one big epic adventure story, and that is why I think that history is the sexiest of the humanities.

It’s interesting that it didn’t take a good teacher to inspire my interest, like what happens with most people. It was material objects that did it for me.

As a very young bookworm, I feel like I got the basics of history much more than school ever did. it’s really no wonder most people hate history, school sucks at inspiration in any field. Maybe it was just my education. Of course by now my view of history has broadened and complexified . . .

The longer I live, the more it happens.

ok history buffs a couple good non fiction books if you can get ahold of them.
Guns Germs and steel (fantastic)
What the German generals knew. Probably out of print but if you can, a great military read @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard
Mysteries of the Mexican Pyrimids

My history teacher was different than alot of the ones I hear about. He taught us things that were off the book for example; Ceasar Rodney was the first man to ratify the constitution of the United States thereby making Delaware the First State. Did you also know that on his famous ride to Philadelphia he wore a mask to hide the syphilus that was eating away at his face.
That was cool to me because history likes to sanitize and he brought a little realism to the printed word.

@thekoukoureport, cool, I’ll check it out. Sounds interesting.

@Pied_Pfeffer I learned that war is much more nuanced than you read about in school. Sometimes there is no clear good side or bad side or right or wrong.

I’ve learned much more about the First Nations. Just how pivotal they were in many battles. I had no idea that the reason why some natives scalped people was because they were paid by the French per scalp. They were pretty much betrayed time and again as new politicians tore up treatise and re-wrote them to suit the white man’s needs. They really didn’t go into much of any of that in school.

I learned that most of history is much deeper than you learn in school.

Well, history has gotten tougher for me for two reasons. I started learning it in 1950, so now there is an extra 60 years of it to commit to memory. Then too, my memory isn’t quite what it was 60 years ago.

But to directly tackle your question, I was watching a History Channel special today on the temples and towns the ancient Mayans built. It was truly astonishing. While the American Indians of North America even in the 17th century were little evolved from their Clovis culture roots, still using the tools and technology they brought with them from the Russian steeps 13,000 years ago, the Mayans suddenly erupted with a culture as advanced in engineering as the Greeks and Romans, and even beyond them in math. Unlike the Greeks and Romans, they came up with the concept of zero, and concocted a number system that allowed multiplication so that they could work with large calculations. Their understanding of astronomy was unparalleled in the ancient world.

What propelled them so far ahead of their cousins in North America. It almost gives creedence to the wild speculations of Erich von Däniken those crazy lines in the Nazca Desert of Peru really are there for ET. South America was a paragon of culture thousands of years ago. I’d loove to know before my study of history has to end what those lines were built for, and how the Maya became so advanced.

@ETpro I saw a documentary regarding the Nasca lines that was wonderful. An Acheologist theroized that the lines where there because, during different fesitvals thoughout the year the nazcans walked the line and left offerings on the side. He found a temple not far from the lines that had the same pottery as the shards found along the lines.

It was on the history channel last year.

The Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids (great book for you @ETpro) blew me away when I saw the Mathmatics built RIGHT into the structure.

@thekoukoureport Yes, the documentary I watched covered that mathematical precision. If seems they knew the method to extract the square root of a right triangle. They also made an incredibly accurate calendar-click that had a long toothed rack, a large pinion moving along it, and a smaller pinion turning inside it on its inner teeth.