Sunday 19 September 2010

History Fact or Fiction

When you look back on the whole of history, you have to ask yourself, was it actually like that? We all know the age old saying history is written by the winners, but it’s more than that. History was written by no one, it was passed on by word of mouth and you know how quickly humans embellish stories. We should be wary of ancient wisdom, and I am not just talking about the Bible, I mean anything from longer than about 400 years ago. I expect that most of the events we cherish throughout the vast history of humanity or at least civilised humanity actually happened. Though I expect most of it was nothing like it is portrayed, I find it amusing how certain documentary channels seem to love to recreate events as if they were fact and definite in history. Nearly all of these tales are stories, myths, legends, with probably a tiny element of truth in them. I saw a program that tried to say David and Goliath was a real event. They also did a tall tale about Joshua and the fall of Jericho, and they mix these tales in with Caesar’s battles and Alexander’s fooling people into believing there is some truth in them. I think it is bad television. The nonsense about Nostradamus, and his supposed fortune telling and prophesising, also aired as if it was a fact. No wonder there are so many people out there, dumbed down so far they will believe anything. The Atlantis myth is another favourite, which deceitful people use to exploit the dumb and the stupid.


I wrote a story about a man who invents a time machine, but not like the ones you see on films, this one was more like a fancy version of Google Earth. Using the memory of atoms, he found away to trace back history and show it on a computer screen. You just picked the date, time, and place and off it went just like Google Earth to find what happened, you then see a virtual creation of the past. After marvelling at his creation he is faced with a dilemma, if he allowed people to use his time machine, they might go back and see things that are best left in the past. Crimes of the past could be solved; secret packs between countries alliances, and betrayal, wives checking to see if their husbands were unfaithful, etc. He decides he has to destroy his creation, for he sees things from the distant past that would change the very fabric of society. Changes of power, the rise of religions and deities, mass genocide by supposed peaceful nations. He had opened Pandora’s Box, he now knew the truth about history and what scared him the most is nearly all of it was wrong.

It would be cool to see though wouldn’t it?

No comments:

Post a Comment