Things that Happened on January 24th in History (Today!)

• After launching in mid-2003, the Opportunity rover landed on Mars on this day. This six-wheeled robot, along with its twin, Spirit, which landed on January 3rd, has been analyzing rocks and soils on Mars and has been sending that data back to NASA, and subsequently Earth, since!

• Born on November 30th, 1874 in Blenheim Palace, England, Winston Churchill died on this day in 1965, living to be 90 years old.

• On this day in 1848, James W. Marshall found a gold nugget at Sutter’s Mill in Northern California. This discovery would spark the California gold rush.

• In 2006 Disney announced it would be purchasing Pixar for 7.4 billion dollars. 

A Critique of How We View History

From a very young age, the subject of history has been thrust upon us. I doubt many of you even remember the first history lesson you were taught, for many in America it was most likely the history of the country or state you lived in, and for others, it could be similar to that but for their own unique circumstance. I want to examine this word, “circumstance,” a rather innocuous word in and of itself, but this word shapes the way we view history. We may laugh and make fun of all these historical people being awful to others for no reason, and you may just think of this as a social separation of the past and the present, but even today we mock people or ourselves from simply a few years ago. Time is in a constant state of flux, and on a human level that is a part of our nature. It makes sense to criticize a past version of yourself, because thats not you anymore, and it hasn't been in who knows how long. A lot of the time when I read about the past for my history class a thought crosses my mind, a thought that many of you may share, the thought of “Who would I be if I lived in this time period?” A question so innocent, so subtle, yet its depth is striking. Every single generation of humanity has led up to you, every choice and every thought has somehow made it into who you are today. And here, you sit back, peering into the void of the vast expanse of human history, tracing back thousands of years, and nothing stares back but the void of what once was. The void is both you and not you, a part of the void is you, and soon enough, with every waking moment, the void grows a little more full with you. History is based on this circumstance, we may not like the circumstance, but can we truly hold the entire course of history up to the standards of today? You peer at the void with a microscope and you see reflections of everything that ever has been; can you even fathom how long it would take to determine if every single aspect or feature of time on earth is good or bad? To understand and know history is to know who you are, but also to know what you are not. 

-Austin

 Why hello you beautiful beans :D

 I think it’s time to share the most random memory I have of my fifth grade class, specifically; my history class (cause that’s the topic hehe).  Now, everyone knows memories can get quite strange and cursed, but I specifically remember this one detail of my fifth grade history class- which I don’t remember much about since it was nearly  years ago (I’m so OLD)

 Now, we were talking about one of the several wars America has been in, and this one was specifically about the one war in which George Washington was a solider- not a general- a soldier. The entire point of this battle was to take over this fort- right? But this is where my memory seems to get quite odd as I remember distinctly… that the fort was made of dirt.

 I shared this with my mother and sister once and they seemed to be confused over the origin of the memory and what battle I had strangely remembered from this odd history class. So hey, maybe you enjoyed that random battle memory that now seems incredibly bland reading it out. 

 Enjoy your weekends you dudes and dudettes.

-Charlotte