History has never been my strongest subject because memorizing dates and events seems very boring to me. Although it’s pretty interesting to learn all about these timelines, I just find it difficult to grasp and learn all these information pressed into my brain. For the next two years of my life history class was 60 minutes of daily agony. I didn’t like learning about the revolution timeline.
That one afternoon changed the whole way I thought about history. Although it was an uneventful day with loads of paper works and readings to accomplish, our professor perhaps came that day with something interesting enough to tickle and challenge our brain cells. “Is there a chance that history can repeats itself”? He then asked, yet expectant that his class would respond in usual silence. As one would expect all we gave was a blank stare back at the prof, but at least we looked interested. But it was only then that I began to question myself, “Does history really repeat itself”? I took a look at the holocaust timeline and saw a pattern, it was eerily similar to that of the revolution timeline.
Our teacher gave us something to think about. The social issues that we’ve discussed in the former days of our history class up to the latest topics were weaved together for us to come up with our answers. He took one particular example of presidents of the United States of America. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States had been elected for Congress in the year 1846. On the other hand, John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States had his position in the Congress in the year 1946 exactly 100 years ago when Lincoln was elected. Those little facts do not discredit the parallels that can drawn between these two pats presidents. Abraham Lincoln was finally elected President in the year1860 which was again an approximate of 100 years when John F. When Kennedy took power as the new president it was 1960. Apart from these facts, these two presidents encountered the same major crisis in Civil Rights and finally, both were assassinated in their terms of service as president and both on a Friday.
Now, do I think all of these were just mere coincidences and twists of fate? My prof made me look even more scrupulously at past events and do my own in depth analysis. He then asked the question once more, “Class, do you think history repeats itself”? I had an answer ingrained in my brain that history does not repeat itself. There were some things similar between these two, but it is likely most of them are just coincidence as opposed to some alignment of the stars. This compelling information may have been a great controversy in the past that continues to haunt the present, but I’d like to think that coincidences happen all because of people’s imperfection and their susceptibility to commit the same mistakes over again”.
I knew at the second that what I said was at least partially correct. I saw my professor’s face lit up and that’s enough for me to know that my wild guess is acceptable and that he might as well believed in my viewpoint. That experience made me more interested in the subject as I am now able to understand that I’m one of those silent beings taking part in the history of the world, the history of our lives and existence.
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