How History Changes Things History is an ever evolving thing. Just when you think you know something about it, you find something which changes your ideas about it. For example, we thought for many years Neanderthals were dumb muscular brutes who were mute. Lately we started to find out more about them. Examination of their anatomy revealed they were capable of speech. We also found they made stone tools just as early modern humans did who might have learned this from them. Then we found Neanderthal drawings which shocked us. They were not only far more like us than we thought but there were signs they may have lived with some Homo sapiens. This changed their history and we might even find out more in the future. Today I witnessed a history changing event. I watched the launch of the SpaceX Starship. It was incredible and met most of its goals but was only the second try for this the biggest rocket ever launched. It didn’t get into orbit but it improved from the first try and had a few firsts such as all the 36 engines firing and a hot separation. The second stage blew up but the flight kept going and only missed orbit by a very small bit of speed. I am sure SpaceX will be quite proud. This will change the history of our space program even more when the Starship is completely ready to go to the moon and then Mars. History is being changed by what we find out about our ancient relatives. When archaeologists found the temple complex in Turkey called Gobekli Tepe it changed our history. The ruins of the temples were said to be 12,000 years old and some experts say even older. This has completely changed what we believed was the history of the human race, because all the experts have said we were hunter gathers at the time and never settled down. The temple complex would have taken many years and many people to build. Hunter gathers would have exhausted the prey in the area and had to have to move on. Could it be these people knew how to grow crops? They must have had some steady way of supplying food. Our ancient history was changed with the discovery of one ancient Greek device. The device proved at least some people were far more advanced than we thought. The mystery is not only how were the principles of the Antikythera mechanism known so early in our history, but how come they weren’t adopted and improved upon, which was true for so many ancient Greek inventions. We no long had to look upon the ancient Greeks as being a primitive race because they were already using 16th century knowledge in the 1st century A.D. and before. This changed their history. Sometimes a discovery is made which changes history and in our case it was the discovery of America. It was discovered by mistake and we give Columbus the credit for it, but we know others were here before him, but he seems to be the match that lit the way for settlement. Think about this, if he would never have come here and there was no America, Germany might be ruling the world. If the Germans did not have to defend against us in World War 2, they would have had millions of more troops to fight the allies. Another thing that changed the outcome of that war was Hitler not waiting a few more years to attack. By then he would have had more of everything including more wonder weapons and won the war. Each step we take has the option of changing the future which would be the history of our descendants. The are many stories about time travelers going into the past and making the tiniest of changes, like stepping on a bug for example. When the bug is no more it couldn’t bite and poison the person it did and kill them. This leads to a completely different history in the future. I think there could be some truth to this. Others say you can’t change history even if you were a time traveler, which as I have said before, I do not believe in time travel. There is plenty of changes to history. Rulers of all types always wanted to make themselves look good, so when they would talk about battles they would claim victory at times, even when they lost the battle. There was also a lot of exaggeration about battles which were written down. Therefore, many times, throughout the ages and even currently, history is not the true history of an event. Sometimes a historical book comes out. I am including biographies. When they do, sometimes another book will come out with different facts about the first book which do not agree. A biography is the history of a person so it can be very important. I don’t know how many times I have read something about someone which was later said to be false. One historical fact which had led us into the Vietnam War was the statement that we had been attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin. This was admitted to by Robert S. McNamara who was the Secretary of Defense at the time of the war. He admitted in a documentary called The Fog of War in 2003 it was not true. I am sure all the military people that died because of this didn’t appreciate the lie. The war was said to last 8 years with 58,220 American deaths. That doesn’t include all the other deaths on both sides of allies and enemies. One event which changed history happened during the Greek and Trojan War. Many historians said this was only a myth and there was never a Troy. Troy was discovered in 1868 by Heinrich Schliemann thus lending credence to the story and changing history. The Greeks fought for 10 years and couldn’t breach the wall of Troy. Finally, they hit upon an idea. They made a hollow giant wooden horse, filled it with soldiers and took their ships away. The Trojans thought they all left an took the horse inside the walls. When the Trojans were all tired from celebrating and it was late at night, the Greeks came out of the horse and opened the gate to the city allowing the Greek army to rush in. If the Trojans weren’t fooled, Troy might still exist today. The wooden horse changed history. There are just so many events which were instrumental in making the world into what it is today. Maybe one of our biggest problems is it seems the world didn’t all advance to the same level. In some places people are still living the way they did thousands of years ago.
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