My birthday was great…lunch with a friend–lovely jewelry from her sister and another dear friend—cupcake and card from my roomie and brownies (with peanut butter–thanks Mike) with two other friends….Picked up 4 Rivers cause didn’t want to cook and then home were I re-watched some last season Outlander….I wasn’t alone I was with Claire and Jamie.
Writers are historians, too. It is in literature that the greater truths about a people and their past are found. F. Sionil Jose
THE TEN MOST SIGNIFICANT FIGURES IN HUMAN HISTORY
1. Jesus
2. Napoleon Bonaparte
3. William Shakespeare
4. Muhammad
5. Abraham Lincoln
6. George Washington
7. Adolf Hitler
8. Aristotle
9. Alexander the Great
10. Thomas Jefferson
While I can understand Jesus & Mohamad being on the list, where’s Buddha—how does Napoleon rate 2nd. We have one playwright who may or may not have really exisited, 2 American Presidents (with a 3rd bringing up the final place–two founders of the county and one who held it together and died in office), then a dictator that shall live in infamy and a Greek philosopher as well as a second Greek, who was conquer and ruler. That’s 1 Frenchman, 1 Brit, 1 German, 2 Religious figures, 2 Greeks and 3 Americans—me thinks that list was developed by someone in the good ole USA and completely ignores women, ethnics and Eurasians to name just a few.
Well goodness knows, goodness knows what historians will write. Alexander Downer
So I decided to look to the Brits for their historicai ideas:
100 women in last century who changed the world….it took me to 4 before I recognized one–Julie Andrews….Mary Poppins to a lot of us. Or the one in the alps with all the kids and Germans…
Then 6 more till I reached Agatha Christie–who is noted for mystery writing and a little disappearing act of her own, and then moving on to 12th Joan Collins—who writes less classic but just as well selling tomes.
Also included Judi Densh–a classic actress and Diana a princess and a major shake up to the Royal Family.
And I think this all goes to show that Historical importance like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Which in itself shows us a lot about the beholder me thinks.
History is more or less bunk. Henry Ford
Then we must take responsibility for a disruption, re-interpretation what ever you want to call it–
Take Davey Crocket—-this is how we remember (well we never saw, or met or anything else him…but) him…mostly based on
In truth of fact that hat is even questionable–check out his hat in the first picture. Also according to factual sources he preferred David not Davey (it fit better in the songs I guess). Also much of his life was spent dressed like this:
For his job title: Politician. It all goes to show how the TV, movies and internet have so much assorted information on so many, that few ever glimpse more than a sliver of truth—and as I indicated in a previous article he probably didn’t die fighting the Mexicans at the Alamo, but after surrender when the survivors were executed and their bodies burned. Wander why Hollywood changed that—DUHHHHH,
The first duty of an historian is to be on guard against his own sympathies. James Anthony Froude
AND SOMETIMES THEY GET IT WRONG ALL TOGETHER
For instance while Marie Antoinette did loose her head in the French Revolution she never said “Let them eat Cake.”
The most famous Irishman of them all wasn’t, Irish that is--St. Patrick was of a Roman/British family who was captured in an Irish raid and sold into servitude where he worked for his Irish masters, he eventually escaped, went into service with the Catholic Church as a cleric, returning as a missionary to the Irish isle where he eventually became bishop and then saint, and while clearing out the snakes (but I think that’s another bit of history that might be called into question.)
and it could go on and on…….
So like everything—more than one source should be looked given most facts, unless you have first hand knowledge.
History books that contain no lies are extremely dull. Anatole France
