Quotes About History

The fact is that no clear international ban against crimes against humanity existed prior to 1945, due in large part to U.S. opposition.

Hitler repeatedly pointed to the Turkish race-murder of Armenians as an example for his own thinking.

Soon U.S. corporate investment was expanding more rapidly in Hitler's Germany than in any other country in Europe, despite the worldwide economic depression.

The many vanished books on these forbidden subjects (among others) altogether constitute a shadow history of America—a history that We the People need to know at last, our country having now become a land with billionaires in charge, and millions not allowed to vote, and everybody under full surveillance.

The radio announced that western Poland would be "Jew free" by December 1942. The occupation government in Holland pledged to deport all Jews by June of the following year.

He would come to feel that history, even more than memory, distorts the present of the past by focusing on big events and making one forget that most people living in the present are otherwise preoccupied, that for them omens often don't exist.

Thus, when we read Genesis we are reading an ancient document and should begin by using only the assumptions that would be appropriate for the ancient world. We must understand how the ancients thought and what ideas underlay their communication

The study of history is part of man's awareness of himself and the nature and place of his society in the world at large; it is valuable not so much because he can find in the past rough parallels to the present, but because he can find societies and events and ides that are sharply

Beginning in the early 1960's, history began to rhyme once again when the Department of Energy and the military began setting off nuclear weapons in the desert. Mushroom clouds lit the skies, and fallout fell like snow. The explosions were called tests, but were nonetheless full-fledged dress rehearsals for Armageddon, perhaps more. Among the desert's longtime residents, the difference between nuclear testing and nuclear war was far from self-evident.

Pike County, which now has Pittsfield as its seat, was once so large that it included Chicago, which was then a tiny settlement on Lake Michigan.

Even in the era that we think of as the "good old days" children were never truly safe. Monsters walked among us, even then. In this case, though, the monster in question was not an adult that preyed on a child, it was what the

He said the Iroquois was "completed and OK." Neither of those things were true.

We often fool ourselves into believing that the "good old days" were actually good, but this is far from the truth.

It was a day-by-day record of a Guild much younger and smaller than the current one. After several pages, she had grown fond of the record-keeper, who clearly admired the people he was writing about.

It always seems easier to do nothing, when the harm is don elsewhere," Dakon said. "They know their young ones will either learn a lesson and limp home – or die and stop being a problem – or prove successful. The worst that could happen is a bit of a diplomatic hiccup in history.

with the center of Stonehenge. It shines through

It's bad enough . . . when a country gets colonized, but when the people do as well! That's the end, really, that's the end.

This is not a small thing. You may not realize this, but the majority of the tacit knowledge that builds civilizations, the stuff that maybe isn't sexy but is foundational knowledge, has actually been lost. Why? Because no one wrote it down. They just passed it on by word of mouth.

Therefore, I wish to say it again: The biggest story of the last fifteen years, both nationally and globally, is the growing likelihood that a cyclical model of history will be a better predictor than a model of ongoing progress.

the past is redefined by the arrow of its future.

The darkest day of my life was the day I heard of Lincoln's assassination. I did not know what it meant. Here was the rebellion put down in the field, and staring up in the gutters...

can understand how a kindly, patriotic man like Hayes would be charmed by the prospect. I was as anxious for such a policy as Mr. Hayes. There has never been a moment since Lee surrendered that I would not have gone more than halfway to meet the Southern people in a spirit of conciliation. But they have never responded to it. They have not forgotten the war.

The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status will have to be attributed to slavery.

I would not have the anniversaries of our victories celebrated, nor those of our defeats made fast days and spent in humiliation and prayer; but I would like to see truthful history written. Such history will do full credit to the courage, endurance and soldierly ability of the American citizen, no matter what section of the country he hailed from, or in what ranks he fought. The justice of the cause which in the end prevailed, will, I doubt not, come