Relearning History All Over Again With New Information
Why I am relearning?
Being just over fifty, I am finding that a lot of the information that I learned in school was incomplete, slighted towards one group of people or train of thought, and in a lot of cased down right wrong. I found this also in high school and college due to the fact that history books were old and not updated or summarized to be easily digested by the general student body with little depth to them. I found that it did not change with my children as they had the same book with sometime an updated version and I was called in because my child corrected the teacher. That was fun, lol.
The teacher got egg on their face with not only the knowledge that my child had but that I had as I taught my children about history and science outside of the classroom. My child was correct and the teacher tried to argue that he was and the child needed to learn some respect. Yeah, I asked about the topic and he tried to teach me what little he know. After which, it was my turn to teach him all about the subject that he clearly didn’t know about in depth. We agreed that he would be more respectful to my child knowledge and that he might want to do some research of his own outside the dated school and text book that he was teaching from. (Moving on!)
Where am I starting?
I am starting at the beginning of known history to review things that I thought that I know and I am finding that new discoveries, DNA, and advance technologies are rewriting history. For example, I thought a lot of things about Neanderthals but in a very short time, new research has changed history.
It was believed that they died out because they didn’t care about their young as much as humans as their infant modality rate was believed to be high, humans may have killed them off when they moved into Europe, or a few other reasons. But recently, they have discovered the cause which was a volcano which killed off most of the population and those that were left, couldn’t come back from the decline leading to their overall extinction.
But wait, they may not be completely gone. Recently, DNA testing has shown that Neanderthals and Humans interbreed and that Humans may have up to 2 percent of a Neanderthal DNA. This would explain why women issue with child birth. The heads of Neanderthals are bigger then Human heads with a larger cranial capacity. Therefore, Human women might not have the correct openings to get out a baby with to big of a head. This is just how I am thinking about things.
In recent years, there is also a growing group of women, blacks, other minorities, LGBTQ members, etc. who have gone into researching more extensively not just the side of White Christian Males and the way they see the world but into Women’s, African American, Native American, LGBTQ, etc. historical rules, accomplishments, and their side of history which were glossed over, ignored, or in a lot of cases, completely destroyed by White Christian Males.
We have already had a Gay United States Vice President William Rufus DeVane King and President James Buchanan. Both were the only bachelor Vice President or President in our history. They lived together in a rooming house for over 10 years. They are called “the Siamese Twins” which was slang in the day for a gay couple. Andrew Jackson called them Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy.
Vice President William Rufus DeVane King was the 13th VP and the highest ranking U.S. public official to be swear into office overseas. He was sick with tuberculosis and was in Cuba when he was took the oath of office. He died less then a month later which left Buchanan heart broken.
President Buchanan was considered the lame duck President. He took office just before Lincoln. But I think that history overlooked that he did exactly what he said he would do. Nothing. He did not help the Southern or the Northern States. It gave both 4 years to get it together and come to terms or start a Civil War. They choose to start a Civil War. I would argue that he was not a lame duck but rather he was the perfect President for that moment in history.
What am I looking at?
I am a generalist. I am not into learning one subject, ie Civil War History or the Elizabethan Age, but rather an overall view of history. I will be picking at different subjects, time frames, personalities, global connections, weather which changed the world, etc. I will also be adding subjects from my travels as I do a lot of different places which have interesting information on how we became us.
Currently, I looking at the world from weather patterns and volcanos that changed the picture of the world. As I was traveling around the US, I found at a certain time period the Native Americans had a large decline in population, politician issues, and more. I started looking at history from around the world and they were having the same issues. I started to see a pattern and it seems that a volcano may have shaped this change in the Americas and the World.
I am also looking at both Native American History and Women’s History as both are having Supreme Court hearings that are effecting them. Therefore, I like to comment on the current issue and research the background on them.
Note: I am always all over the map on a subject that get my interest but then I move on because I like learning new things.
Why Do I Do This?
The simple answer is because things get my interest and I want to know why things are the way they are. The more complexed answer is that I don’t need a lot of sleep from birth so I found as early as 10 year old that I like to read and I liked reading about historical people and the reason that they became important. About places that I would one day want to visit and their place in our past and current society. In addition, the effects of weather, volcanos, and other natural disaster shaped our world.
For example, Marie Antoinette was living the life that she was born into and doing very little different from those before her. But she and her family lost their head due to weather conditions which caused poor grain harvest, a warmer spring which withered the grain, a hot summer with thunderstorms with hail which killed the livestock, an extreme cold winter which froze seeds and killed fruit trees and other vegetation, and a warm spring that melted the snow and creased massive flooding. These conditions in the weather caused a economic hardship and a famine across France. She was blamed.
These are the things that get me. Why was she to blame and not her husband the King? I mean he also lost his head but some how history blamed the Woman. I like going into depth about things like this because history book leave out the good parts.
Join me while I relearn history and go into depth about it, the causes, the great and not so great personalities, the weather conditions, and the technologies that changed our world.