History is also subject to the another law that applies to fiction novels, too. If two people tell you a story about something that happened to both of them, the details are apt to be wildy different. Even if the two aren't trying to lie, they interpeted something different ways, or even remember it differently. I could tell you that on July 8th, 1945, a B-17 bomber named the Enola Gay dropped Litttle Boy on Nagasaki. Would you believe me? Did you believe it just now? The devil is in the details, as they say. But why bother learning history? Well, why do we bother to read? The first reason most people read is for entertainment. History can be entertaining. I personally love reading a good history book on a rainy day. The second reason we read is for information. If you're going backpacking in Europe, you would probably read guides to backpacking, foreign language books, and the like. If you're a hunter and like to catch on the latest and greatest in rifle technology or the newest techniques for the hunt, you'd probably read something like Field and Stream. If you're a PC gamer, you'd read something like PC Gamer. But why do we need to glean information from history? We all know that quote that says "Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it." The people of France, after a while, gathered from what happened to them in their past that if you don't defend your capital city, someone will take it from you. Because we know what happened to the Challenger space shuttle, the people at NASA know not to take the process of sending men to outerspace and bringing them back again lightly. Because we know of the Great Fire that happened in October 1871 in the city of Chicago, we know that building dense cities of wood is a bad idea- and so now, we buid cities of steel & cement. Steel melts, sure, but it's going to take a lot of heat. Different things in history teach different people different lessons. I can read the story of the Titanic and come way thinking "It doesn't pay to make smart remarks like 'God Himself couldn't sink this ship.'". Someone else could read it and be completely taken away by that story about the band playing on 'til the ship sank. It's not as if they had a choice in the matter, but it's a good story that stirs us.
This section of my website will tell you (tell you, not explain...if I tried to explain all of them, we'd be here a very long time) some of my major interests in the field of history. But at the end are links to brief things I've written about obsecure historical figures - stories in history that I've found to be very interesting, and hope you will, too. Click "Next" from the list of links below or above this introduction. The other links take you directly to the page(s) for historical tidbits I found interesting. For right now, they link to outside resources -the best articles I found online for that particular subject. Later on, I'll compile my own research into articles and link to those.