Quotes About History

The lifelong health problems of John F. Kennedy constitute one of the best-kept secrets of recent U.S. history - no surprise, because if the extent of those problems had been revealed while he was alive, his presidential ambitions would likely have been dashed.

I was never particularly academic, so it was no great surprise when I failed my 11-plus and consequently went to Wibsey Secondary Modern. I did all right in English, history and music, which were the subjects that most interested me.

When I started running for Congress, it actually took me by surprise that so many people were fascinated with me being the first Muslim in Congress.

I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn that I kept a diary - actually, quite a number of them over the years.

We are constantly being surprised that people did things well before we were born.

I keep being surprised by the amount of archaeological sites and features that are left to find all over the world.

I think airports are places of huge human drama. The more I see of it, the more I am convinced that Heathrow is a secret city, with its own history, folklore and mythology. But what has surprised me is the love the people who work there feel for the place. Everyone seems to think they are plugged into something majestic.

You think, 'Musicals, they must always be romantic' - You'd be surprised how few of them historically have ever been romantic.

It's amazing to me that some kids are surprised to find out Indians are still alive.

In all my childhood, I never heard my grandparents say that anything shocked or surprised them. They knew what their country was capable of.

Nothing surprises me about the Lords.

Nixon was always willing to be bipartisan, so there are a lot of surprises in the man.

So much had already been done in space before that, it had all been documented and there were no real surprises in store for us.

By 3000 B.C. the art of Egypt was so ripe and so far advanced that it is surprising to find any student of early culture proposing that the crude contemporary art of the early Babylonians is the product of a civilization earlier than that of the Nile.

When I began we did not really have a lot of First Amendment law. It is really surprising to think of it this way, but a lot of the law - most of the law that relates to the First Amendment freedom of the press in America - is really within living memory.

As a reporter in Israel, I have interviewed hundreds of people in its intelligence and defense establishments and studied thousands of classified documents that revealed a hidden history, surprising even in the context of Israel's already fierce reputation.

It's a little surprising to me that I'm the first Houstonian to be an astronaut.

The Great British Dig' is a fantastic format which combines finding out about the history of where you live and the surprising things that lie under your own back garden. Its kind of a community archaeology project.

For 'The Grace of Kings,' I read Han Dynasty historical records in Classical Chinese, which allowed me to get a sense of the complexity of the politics and the 'surprisingly modern' reactions of the historical figures to recurrent problems of state administration.

Surprisingly, it was not an American but a British company that opened an amusement park in 2007 called Dickens World, located in the English county of Kent, complete with an Ebenezer Scrooge Haunted House, a Great Expectations Boat Ride and the as-advertised 'costumed Dickensian characters.'

In 1961, an official U.S. commission oversaw thousands of events to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the American Civil War. All 50 states joined in, but not surprisingly, the biggest events took place in the 11 southern states that made up the defeated Confederacy.

When I got the call that the Patriots were interested, it was a very surreal feeling. I've always looked up to watching them play. They've been a team that has a long history of winning. Just to be considered to be a part of this team is a great honor.

I find the past so fascinating. Photographs are strange, almost surreal, almost here yet gone. I slip into thinking what the past must have been like and I enjoy creating that ambience and atmosphere - 1730 to around 1870 is the most interesting period.

It's just surreal that I was the first Ms. Money in the Bank.