History Can Be Fun

I know some people will stop reading as soon as I say this, but history can be fun.  Bear with me on this while I build my case for this outrageous statement.  History is actually the greatest soap opera ever written and it’s being written (and sometimes rewritten) every single day.  The reason people have trouble accepting this is why marketing and the presentation of ideas that go with it is a billion-dollar industry.  The stories that are being made into movies like Lord of the Rings actually are works of fiction that seem mundane compared to some of the things that happened in real life.  The wars of ancient Greece are far more fascinating and when they’re told in the right way, you can find yourself on the edge of your seat while you’re reading or watching the story unfold right before your eyes.

Our vacations "almost" convinced our children that History can be fun.

War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells has gripped the public’s attention for decades.  But when you read about the devastation of World War II and the Atomic Bomb or the eruption of Pompeii, you realize that real life is at least as interesting as fiction.  If you give it half a chance, history can be fun.  Traveling to Boston to walk the Freedom Trail and visiting Colonial Williamsburg were “vacations” that I insisted on taking our children on because I wanted them to know that this country’s history wasn’t just something you read about.  These things happened and the events of hundreds of years ago still shape our world today.  Many jokes came out of trips to places like Monticello and Mount Vernon, but you know what happened?  Our children learned to appreciate what they were seeing and have gone back to these places on their own.  Even better, my daughter calls me to tell me about how a particular news item of the day links back to one of our trips.  History can be fun and learning about the people who made history will lead you down a path that is not only educational, but inspiring at the same time.

We live in turbulent times and people can get so frustrated with the news they just turn it off because it’s so depressing.  I will never turn the news off because we are watching history being written every day but I do understand how someone can get depressed by watching it.  Here’s another way history can be fun (at least to me).  Anyone who has reached retirement age has lived through a bit of history and sometimes we forget how much turmoil there was during our own lifetime.  Everyone speaks of the division in our country today and there is some evidence of that. Go back to the protests during the Vietnam War and you realize we’ve seen this before.  Listen to some the interviews of politicians and government officials about whether the President (either Johnson or Nixon) had the power to do what they were doing, and you realize this was precisely what the Founding Fathers debated when they wrote the Constitution.  The resources and guides of Montpelier will provide fascinating stories about these debates and reference how James Madison, who lived in this beautifully restored home and is called the Father of the Constitution, carefully designed a system of checks and balances so no branch of our government would become too powerful.  These were remarkable people who played major roles in the soap opera we call America.  History can be fun when you make it come alive just the way science can be fun when you bring it to life with experiments and demonstrations.  Astronomy as a subject can be rather dry and, if you don’t like math, you get lost very quickly sitting through a lecture in college.  I know that from experience.  I was fairly good at math, and I still could not comprehend some of the calculations and concepts that were presented.  But, when you actually look through a telescope or view the pictures from outer space of galaxies that are millions of light years away, you can’t help but be captivated by what you are seeing and the vastness of the universe.  In a similar way, history can be fun when you take the effort to learn it bite sized chunks.  Little stories and experiences about different events that shape our world today just might make you want to know more. 

I think of history as a hobby, and it has helped make more sense of the world that we live in today.  Part of the experience of travel is to learn about the history of the place you’re visiting.  It makes a lot more sense when you realize how geography plays such a vital role and why the countries that ruled the world centuries ago were the ones with great navies.  You start to see how Great Britain, which is just a small island on the globe, came to dominate the world to the point where it was said the sun never set on the British Empire.  We’ve been fortunate enough to take some ocean cruises and anyone who does will come across the name of James Cook, a British explorer and naval officer.  Read just a little about this man and you want to know more.  That’s why I say history can be fun.  For those with a curious mind, there is an endless source of exciting stories about new places to go and some of the most fascinating people who ever lived.  This is a wonderful world with an incredible history.  Why not go out and explore it and learn about it?  It’s time to Enjoy Retired Life!

Thanks for visiting.  If you like what you see here, please tell your friends.

If you think it might be fun to start your own website (it is!) please look here.

If you’d like to learn about earning a steady online income, please check out this possibility.