The Truth Came Out When People Starting Pressing For Details

Today in class my son learned an important lesson about how bias (and arrogance) can influence how one interprets data. Put another way, one person’s religious megalith is another person’s olive press.

I Do, And She Has A Point

Do you know what they did in Rome?

– L’s Mother’s horrified response to being advised to “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

I Think We Might Be Getting Jaded

My son and I continue to study the history of the Roman Empire, and after class I triggered a fit of laughter from him when I said, “I’m going to the bathroom now. Don’t stab me.”

Funny How Often People In Power Become “Ill” When They Have Ambitious Family Members Waiting In The Wings

Recently my son and I started studying the history of the Roman Empire, and it’s already become a running joke between us how often the phrase, “and then they promptly fell ill and died” has shown up, and we’re only to the Flavians.

This Knowledge Is Also Helping Him To Understand Current Events As Well

One thing my son is starting to learn from history is how often it has been said, “How dare somebody do to us what we did to other people!”.

A LOT More

The world needs more cranky historians saying things like, “No, they didn’t kill the king, they killed his brother, and this did not end the monarchy; it actually made things worse. Furthermore they didn’t kill the king’s brother in the name of democracy, they killed him because he made a pass at someone and they objected to that. Get your facts straight!”

Because Understanding That Is The Only Way To Make Sense Of Some Things

If there can be only one thing my son learns from studying history, I hope that he learns how strongly the past can resonate into the present and future.

“Ramesses SMASH!”

While it turns out that I already knew that the mummy of Ramesses II was taken to Paris at one point for some restoration work, today I learned that to kill a variety of fungi that had taken up residence, they actually bombarded the ancient preserved corpse with gamma radiation to sterilize it.

Why has nobody made a comic book out of this yet?

Something Inspired By Today’s History Lesson

One person’s “I invaded this country annually for eighteen years until they learned to give me the respect (i.e., tribute) I feel is my due,” is another person’s “For eighteen years this idiot told us he had ‘conquered’ us and that we ‘owed’ him something, and for eighteen years we disagreed.”

What A Concept!

Today I learned the secret of how Flinders Petrie discovered so many small artifacts at his archeological digs when many of his contemporaries were only finding large statues and the like.

Petrie actually paid his workers a fair market value for what they found if they brought it to him.