History As Important Events example essay topic

698 words
I define history as important events that have happened in the past, and the ones that are presently happening. At some time or another everything will be considered history. History tells a story, whether it's written, painted, carved, or sung; a collection of events that someone explains to you that is usually important. When most people think about history they remember a boring class they took in school a long time ago, they recall memorizing important dates, taking map tests, and falling asleep while listening to a lecture. The truth is that history really is an important subject to be teaching students. History is more than just some lecture you receive in class, history lets us look back, see the good things and the bad things, it allows us to learn from our mistakes and prevent such mistakes from happening in the future.

Things that happened in the past are still changing things that are happening today. History is needed for everyone, from government leaders down to individuals; everyone has learned one thing or another from history at some point in their life. History is everywhere today. I don't think some people really realize how broad the word history really is.

Basically when someone hears the word history they automatically think of some sort of culture like the ancient Egyptians, or some important date like December 7, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor, when the United States officially entered the Second World War. But people don't really realize there are so many other types of history. World leaders are making history with wars, conflicts, and new laws; movies are making history by selling outrageous numbers of tickets, athletes are making history by setting records everyday, and students are making history by graduating college. Every part of what you do is some type of history As corny as this sounds, history really does have a way of repeating itself. It's up to the people like us, the future leaders of the country to decide if the good things or the bad things are the ones that will repeat themselves. Events that lead to the stock market crash, which lead to the great depression are being avoided, things that lead countries to war are being dealt with today in a different manner because no one wants another world war, Democracy, the longest standing form of government in the United States, is being spread around the world to avoid such conflicts that occurred with dictatorships in the past, and the newest problem, terrorism, that is occurring in today's world, will be and is being looked at.

You can bet that a few years down the road these problems will be dealt with accordingly and hopefully reduced to a minimum. You have to look back on these things, see how they were handled, and analyze the outcome to determine how to deal with some of today's issues. If history wasn't documented, wrote in books for people to read and learn then many people would not know of past issues, and we would probably be seeing a lot of the same problems today as they had in the past. When I was younger I never was a really big fan of history, and I really can't remember many kids that were.

It always seemed so boring, and you had the class year after year after year. There may have been one or two topics that interested you, but for the most part when everyone is young they found history boring. I hated trying to memorize important dates, events, and world leaders. But since those times I've grown up and I'm sure most others have as well. Of course there still are parts of history I like more than others, and there are even some parts of history I really dislike, but I've learned to take the good with the bad, suck it up, pay attention and try to learn something because its up to the people who are learning the history now to make the changes in the future.