For some, history is that dreadful class that everyone falls asleep in. It's the class that the teacher seems to talk for hours about how the word "circa" means around, around in time of course if you still did not catch on or were amongst those in sentence one. Or it always seems to be an elderly teacher who interrupts reading the entire chapter of the book aloud in the most monotone voice just to cough or blow his/her nose. But regardless, it is required - and for good reason.
After dreadfully reading a long chapter about Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, which I have only been taught about in every history class since the seventh grade, I finally got to move on to something we are all intrigued by: war. To give you some preface, World War I ended in 1918, though many countries, such as Germany and Russia, were a little crazed for revenge due to the fact that they lost a lot of land, were forced into paying debts they felt they were not responsible for and were on edge due to the Great Depression. Some countries became democracies, while others went into a totalitarian state, a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator. Their leader controls everything including the economical state, the social state and the cultural lives of its people. But it is not Hitler or Joseph Stalin that we all have learned about or have read memes about that caught my attention this particularly rainy night.
Benito Mussolini. Some of you who are history nuts may know that in 1919 he founded the Fascist Party, "a right-wing organization that trumpeted nationalism and promise to make Italy great again. (Lapsanskey-Werner, Emma J., Peter B. Levy, Randy Roberts, and Alan Taylor, 2013.)" Sound familiar? He also had followers called "Black Shirts," who fought in Italy against socialism and communism. Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III feared that there would be a revolution and asked Mussolini to form a government, in which Mussolini ended up taking complete control over. He formed a totalitarian state. Clearly, this does not prove that history repeats itself because after all, that would require predicting the future that our good man Trump will become a complete controller of the world's most powerful nation and start a World War resulting in the death of millions. But even if Trump does not get presidency, history still does repeat itself.
Again, looking back in time, we all know that segregation and the Civil Rights Movement was a big deal and a big part of our American history. Something that runs so deep that protests for African American rights are becoming a common practice once again. African Americans, or people, as I commonly like to refer to them as, were given their right to vote in 1870 with the addition of the 15th Amendment. Women on the other hand were not given their rights to vote until the 19th Amendment in 1920. We made history when Barack Obama became our first African American president in 2008. If Hillary Clinton wins the White House, not only will America have made history once again, but it will have repeated history as well. The history of African Americans breaking the social norm before women.
So maybe you're amongst those who absolutely hated history. You thought to yourself, "When am I ever going to need to know about Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal?" "That New Deal is actually not so new." Or even, "Why are we living in the past, teach me how to live in the present, teach me how to balance my checkbook." Yes it may be history; but as you can see, history always has its way of coming back around to apply itself to our world, and become history once again and a new story to tell.
Resources:
Lapsanskey-Werner, Emma J., Peter B. Levy, Randy Roberts, and Alan Taylor. "Dictators and War." United States History. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2013. 773. Print. Part 2.
