Published: November 07, 2008 06:59 pm      

History can be fun, or at least interesting

Sometimes it seems to me that I am caught up in a continuous argument about history.

I like history.

Hardly anybody else does.

This is something I do not understand.

I think there’s a great argument in favor of the fact that, if you don’t know history, you don’t understand anything that’s happening in your own time. Or as somebody or other once said, “ He who doesn’t know history is doomed to repeat it.” (Fortunately he was born before political correctness or he would certainly have said “He or she,” which would have made the comment much less pithy.)

Besides that, history is made up of a heck of a lot of good stories. Some people who don’t like history love to read novels. How they fail to see history as a collection of fabulous short stories, I don’t get. A brief history of renaissance England alone would match any selection of fiction by Nora Roberts, or, for that matter, John Updike.

Recently I’ve come across a couple little historical items that I’d love to use here, except I’m afraid I will turn off my dear but history-hating friends. Oh, well — column ideas are hard to find.

We have movies these days and we think they are unique, but did you know that, by 1859 (one year before Lincoln was elected president) people used to go to shows of moving pictures? Not the kind we’re familiar with, but continuously painted dioramas featuring 10 wide strips of canvas thousands of feet long. These were rolled by hand from one spindle to another past spectators while they listened to the narrative of a lecturer. (I don’t think they had popcorn. Only nowadays do we believe that one must eat through all the experiences of our lives.)

One popular production was a Battle of Bunker Hill, complete with sound effects, though I’m not quite sure how they did them. Apparently firecrackers were involved. (Technology, it seems, had already begun to rear its ugly head by then.) One poor soul named John B. Gough, presumably the later temperance champion, blighted his career in this profession when he got so drunk he couldn’t keep the crank turning to match the cues when the firecrackers went off. It’s a sad story, almost worthy of its very own Shakespearean tragedy.

And here’s another interesting historical story, with some meaning even for us in our very own time. (Source: John Kelly’s Washington, in the 9/7/08 Washington Post.) Have you ever thought what a strange name “Washington” is? How in the world did George’s family acquire it? Thanks for asking.

It’s a complicated tale. It seems that around 1180 (that’s 12th century) a certain bishop wanted some land belonging to a Norman knight named William de Hertbern. (Properly pronounced in the English way, “heartburn.”) For his land, Sir Bill accepted in exchange some lands known as “Wessynton” and took on the name of William de Wessynton. As time passed, this evolved through Wassington and Whessingtun to become Washington.

One of these descendants got in trouble with the authorities in the 17th century by championing kings and things instead of the anti-royalty movement, which was winning at the time. (Eventually the royals came roaring back, which just goes to show that timing is everything.)

His son solved the ensuing unpleasantness by immigrating to Virginia. However, his English estates still exist as tourist attractions. And they celebrate the 4th of July by raising the American flag and telling old stories about American George, right there in the heart of Ye Olde England.

Various authorities like to point out that, if the bishop had not been so greedy for land, William’s descendants might have kept the name Hertbern. In which case, our great country’s capitol city might well have been named “Hertbern, D.C.” (Pronounced, of course, “heartburn.”)

There, now. Isn’t history fun, after all?

Maude McDaniel is a Cumberland freelance writer. Her column appears on alternate Sundays in the Times-News.