Betty Mundy
His 103
Professor Dr. Loveland
June 2, 2015

History we make every day, unaware that we are even doing so. Some people feel that history is not an important, but where would we be if not for history? Would we be living in poverty in a shack, or would our society be ruled by one and not the majority. Could you imagine being told what job you would perform due to your social class? Another thought, would we know our heritage, or perhaps what our ancestor’s went through. I fear a world where history is not important. I personally feel that we need to remember history, learn from it and improve ourselves along with society. To have family history is a blessing in my eyes. So many adopted individuals have no information on their true heritage. To truly know the whole story of your great grand parents and their struggles, or to be able to say I am seventy five percent German and a mix of Irish and Native American, is special. History can be seen on so many different levels of our everyday lives. On a broader scope of the picture, history we can learn from it. There is no need to keep repeating the mistakes of the past. For example, Hilter as a leader. To try and remove one section of society due to religious beliefs, making everyone live in fear of having to face the gas chambers. Not accepting humans if they were not blonde and blue eyed. This was the earlier form of being a racist and stereotyping, which in today’s society it would be frowned upon and even criminal. Another great example of history is Martin Luther King, the history this man made set the direction of human rights and equality of all. We have even evolved in our criminal justice system, now instead of the hanging at the nearest tree we face a jury of our peers. History has allowed this to happen. A day in history that a large majority will remember is the stock market crashing. I have to believe that these people will no longer have all of their funds invested in just one avenue again, if they had any funds left to move around. Many people were depending on the stock market for retirement, this was their nest egg. I wonder, how many more years of service do they have to give now to make up the difference? This was a huge learning experience with a large cost to the average man where many will never be able to make up the loss. Look at the medical field, so many advances have been made. We no longer treat the sick with just a few medications and procedures, the choices are now numerous and can be customized for the patient. We now can see the DNA of a person and know how to cure or treat the patient. The advances alone in the field of research are astounding, but remember history helped achieve this feat. If not for the documented failures we would always be starting at the beginning. Just spinning our wheels to achieve something great but never reaching that level of success. Our workplace environments have improved due to history. There are no longer sweatshops, child labor in the United States and cleaner air from factories inside and out. Coal miner conditions have improved with the ability to shore up their tunnels in a more secure way. Learning first from the gold miners and advancing and learning from their history. The quality of the air they breathe has also improved due to better ventilation. The no longer rely on the bird in the cage to see if any gas is present. As you can see through my examples of history it touches us every day. Most of time I bet no one thinks about history and how it has played a part in our daily life or how important it is. History can touch each one of us as an individual or as a society. History will tell the so called winners and the ones who were not as successful stories, but really there are no losers. History is a learning tool, that we would be fools not to take advantage of it. We as a society can build a better place for our generations yet to come. All we need to do is pay attention and learn. Being able to learn from history and can carry it on for generations and generations is why history is so important. It really does not matter if it is your family history or not, but you are a part of it so own it.