Everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to

ask.

History:  gossip well told.  ~Elbert Hubbard

Historians are gossips who tease the dead.  ~Voltaire

The past actually happened but history is only what someone wrote down.  ~A. Whitney Brown

History is indeed little more

than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind. Edward Gibbon (1737 - 1794)

To many of the modern generations, history, like God, is dead.  ~Derek Heather

History is who we are and why we are the way we are.  ~David McCullough

I don't know much about history, and I wouldn't give a nickel for all the history in the world.  History is more or less bunk.  It is a tradition.  We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.  ~Henry Ford

Ford could have made even one car without a good understanding of history? Explain your answer.

"History is for human self-knowledge. Knowing yourself means knowing, first, what it is to be a person; secondly, knowing what it is to be the kind of person you are; and thirdly, knowing what it is to be the person you are and nobody else is.

Knowing yourself means knowing what you can do; and since nobody knows what they can do until they try, the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is."

R. G. Collingwood

Do you think it is important to know who you are? Explain

Do you think it is important to know who we are as a country? Explain

Why are you here? How will you use history

today and in the future? What use is history in

today’s age? Don’t we live in the

present…. So why study the past?

What use are old facts and dates that really don’t mean anything anyway?

So that we can learn from the experience of others without paying the price it cost them

List 3 examples where someone did something in the past that made your life safer, easier or better today.

What did it cost them?

Write your answers, then “pair-share”

In order to improve ourselves by following the examples of great men and women of the past.

Who do you admire?

Who is your hero? Why?

What traits of your hero do you try to emulate?

To learn the constant and universal principles of human nature by seeing men reacting in different kinds of situations and circumstances.

(Ex. Humans still love, hate, hope, and need friends.)

What is “human nature” ?

Can we control human nature?

How do you think human nature helps or hurts mankind.

In order to understand, live, and exist in our present world.

What are some problems we face in today’s world?

What does it take to “live” in the world today?

How do you plan on surviving in the next 10 years? Give examples how you will achieve this.

In order to learn the truth of the past which still applies to our present world.

Who do you think lies to you the most?

Why do you think people lie?

Do you think America or “Americans” are lied to? Explain

Why does truth have value?

So that our nation can learn from the experience of nations in the past.

(Ex. Reasons the Roman Empire fell and how to avoid it from happening to our own nation.)

What lessons do you think America has learned from other countries?

What lessons do you think America needs to learn?

In order to judge our own customs and actions better by examining the customs of different peoples.

What customs define America?

Do you have personal customs that define who you are.

To insure order in society by having an informed, educated people.

(Voting, participating, caring etc.)

How much education do you think one person needs?

How should “the people” be informed?

How important is an education?

It teaches us to put things in perspective.

Life….. Events… Problems…. Environment… Wars….. Economics…. Governments Cultures Sci/tech….. More……?

In order to preserve discoveries and inventions.

What is the greatest invention ever? Why?

What invention do you think has had the greatest effect on mankind in the last 100 years?

…………….in the last 50 years? …………… in the last 10 years?

In order to develop new inventions and make new discoveries which are based on knowledge of the old ones.

(Ex. The gasoline engine made the car and airplane

possible.)

What invention(s) need to be discovered to help the world?

To help solve our problems by defining the problem and showing us what has

and has not worked in the past.

To avoid the errors of past people and to profit from their good ideas.

In order to remove prejudices and increase understanding.

To learn from our own past mistakes.

To praise the worthy acts of the past and

KEEP MEN FROM DOING EVIL FOR FEAR OF HOW THEY WILL BE VIEWED BY HISTORY.

Do you think the record of history will keep men or women from doing certain things…..?

Would you not do something, if you knew History would record your actions?

Would you do something if you knew History would not record your actions?

In order to “travel” to another place and time by “listening” to people describe their time and country.

(We can “talk” to the great and heroic men of

the past.)

In order to see which laws help to preserve our country,

…which ones are useful and good,…. and which ones are no longer useful. To help us in making laws.

In order to keep our principles alive by keeping those thoughts alive.

(Freedom, honor, trust, loyalty, respect, dedication, fairness, selfless, forgiving, …..)

What makes an American, an American?

What defines the United States of America?

What makes us different than other countries in the world?

In order to judge what can be done by what has been done.

To help (to some extent) predict the future.

In order to advance man’s knowledge.

How do we make the world a better place using our knowledge?

If you could change something, what would you change and how?

To LEARN CITIZENSHIP.

What does citizenship mean to you?

Why is citizenship important?

To LEARN PATRIOTISM.

What is patriotism to you?

How do you show patriotism?

Why is patriotism important to a country?

What is wrong with patriotism?

IT’S FUN!

History is the MOTHER OF TRUTH, RIVAL OF TIME , STOREHOUSE OF DEEDS, WITNESS FOR THE PAST, EXAMPLE AND COUNCIL FOR THE

PRESENT, AND THE WARNING FOR THE FUTURE.

IT’S THE ______. Our government has realized the importance of the above reasons for studying history. There are some things in life that we must do. (Work to eat, etc.)