The more one reads about history, the more we realize that things have not changed much.  Oh, I'm sure right now you are thinking I'm a few sandwiches short of a picnic.... but my statement is true.

Over time our clothes and culture may seem to be drastically different than 300 years ago, and yet what history really shows us is that human nature has not changed much at all.  The best that we can hope is to learn from history, so that we do not repeat its mistakes.

Some of the recent blog articles I've read that remind me of this....

Tim Abbott at -Walking the Berkshires- discusses Connecticut Witchcraft, (and the trials and the first recorded hanging that occurred in CT 50 years before the folks in Massachusetts thought about it). Today we use the term "witch-hunt" to mean "mass hysteria" and the persecution of people with little regard to their guilt or innocence. I'm not quite sure we've learned this lesson.

Terry Thornton at Hill Country of Monroe County Mississippi talks about irradiated materials in "Hot Dimes?" What seems safe today, may not be considered so tomorrow. It is a wonder more of us don't glow in the dark.

Jasia at Creative Gene muses on learning history. For several hundred years the teaching of history has remained pretty much the same. (Oh sure, the technology has changed, but really how much else?)  Our several-great-grandparents had to memorize names, places and dates by rote.  How is that different than today?

Denise Olson at Family Matters-Moutrie Creek discusses how her love of books drew her into history.  Perhaps our school systems could learn a great deal from this thread....

Schelly Talalay Dardashti at -Tracing the Tribe- presented several recent articles on projects that are documenting the victims of the Holocaust through various methods. Let us not forget!

Ascender at -Ascender Rises Above- is technically not a history blog, and yet in addition to the eye candy found there, the links lead you to learn a great deal about creative people in history. Visit and learn whether our idea of beauty and creativity has changed over time.

Dave Brooks and Earle Rich at the Granite Geek cover the cool, the great, and the obscure in geekiness--past, present, and future. Are reading chicken guts truly as effective as Astrology in predicting the future?

And finally.... if you are seeking the strange and the unusual... Chris Dunham at -The Genealogue- covers the genealogy news that no one can possibly use, yesterday, today or tomorrow :D

Janice

P.S. The day I posted this article another blog called Infotainment Rules, came to my attention with a link back to my post about punishment in colonial America.  Indeed, one must wonder whether the old-fashioned type of punishment, where the individual was publicly shamed, had the same, greater, or lesser effect on behavior than today.  Feel free to comment.