History has never been my strongest subject because memorizing dates and events seems very boring to me. Although looking at such timelines can be a tiny interesting, I can’t grasp all the info being forced 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.
However, it was at this one particular afternoon that changed my whole perception of a boring history class. Even though it was a bit of a slow day our prof had come to class armed with a question that tickled our brains. “Do you think history repeat 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. It was then I thought to myself maybe history really does repeat itself? I took a look at the holocaust and saw a pattern, it was eerily similar to that of the russian revolution.
Our teacher gave us something to consider. 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 Says had been elected for Congress in the year 1846. Alternatively John F. Kennedy was in Congress in 1946, exactly 100 years after Lincon was elected. These facts don’t stop the similarities and likeness of paths these two presidents led. Abraham Lincoln was finally elected President in the year1860 which was again an approximate of 100 years when John F. Kennedy took the authority in the White Home to sit as the newly elected President in 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 came with an answer I think will forever be etched in my mind, “History doesn’t repeat itself. There may have some flukes of nature and happenstance in the lives of the two presidents that were parallel with each other, but I strongly believe that it was just a product of human’s capability to over generalize. 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. My teacher had a look that immediately told me that I had a valid point that he might concur with. What happened that day sparked a tiny bit of interest in the subject, and now I see that I’m just a small blip in history.