History is History…but is It?

The Vagabond Journey website takes a different approach to reporting news than traditional news sites.  It can be compared more to “community history” than “traditional history.” So what is the difference between the two?

In the traditional study of history, a student would learn that Thunderbolt Online Casino went online in August 2018. It is a fact. There can be no arguments, and no disputes. In the study of “community history,” a student would learn how society has been affected by the creation of websites like Thunderbolt Online Casino. Some may claim that the site’s creation has made society better, while others may claim that the site’s creation has not. But, at the end of the day, in the study of “community history” the study of the creation of this site goes beyond the date of its creation and goes into the area of its impact on society.

When I was in elementary school and high school, I hated studying history.  It was just the memorization of boring facts. All of that changed in college when I took a course called “US Community History.” Instead of just memorizing a bunch of dates and other facts, we studied how society recorded history and how society was affected by events in history, both big and small.  This approach to the study of history changed me from hating history to loving history to a point where history became my Liberal Arts concentration in college.

Here is an example that I learned in this class:  Everybody learns in elementary school that the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620. But what most people don’t learn is that Plymouth Rock is not currently where the Pilgrims landed. It was moved to a museum, but in the process of moving Plymouth Rock to a museum, it had to be cut.  So although it is still technically Plymouth Rock, it is not the same exact Plymouth Rock that the Pilgrims saw in 1620.

But it is not just the individual items in a museum that have changed over time.  The actual museums themselves have changed. In the 1800s, museums were very visual. Visitors would look, but they would not touch.  Teachers tried to make these museums interactive by having children draw pictures of what they saw.

The children’s book “Madeline” talks about that, but today’s museums are much different. There is a lot more interaction. Go to any current science or history museum and students are encouraged to use all of their senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and even, in some exhibits, taste.

Go to any museum and the level of interaction will give you an indication of when the museum was created. The more the interaction, the more recent the museum was created or refurbished.

On the one hand, this interaction makes kids more engaged in the museum and make the children want to go to the museum more. But on the other hand, at some point, the exhibit changes from teaching to just playing.

One time I went to the science museum looking for a 3D display of our solar system to demonstrate to my kids how the planets revolve around the sun and how this affects the seasons. There was a huge interactive display on the Mars exhibition including remote-controlled Mars Rovers, but the display of the planets revolving around the sun was not there. In the process of adding the WOW! to museums, the core education was lost.

But museums are not the only place where we can see changes in our society and how our society interacts with changes. Take for example the gambling industry. In the 1980s, if a person wanted to gamble, they would have to go to Atlantic City on the East Coast or Las Vegas out west.  For the most part, it is a tightly controlled industry. Although gambling places have always been associated with crime and money laundering, there are oversight and certain safety practices in place.

But today, there is online gambling.  Some of these online gambling sites are backed by physical gambling sites in the US and have the same oversight as the physical gambling locations.  Other online gambling sites are backed by reputable companies who follow the same standards as the physical gambling sites. But then there are others who don’t follow any standards, and just logging into the sites is a gamble in and of itself.

So how did society react to the creation of online gambling sites?  Did you ever watch a Newton Ball Cradle Toy with the balls swinging back and forth – action, reaction? Events in history are the same. The US reacted to the lack of oversight in the online gambling industry by making traditional online gambling sites. The online gambling establishment reacted by creating social gambling sites.

Society then reacted to the creation of social gambling sites with a change in the customer base of social gambling sites vs. the customer base of traditional gambling establishments. As the customer base (society) changes, the social gambling sites will change again as a reaction.

Action, reaction — the cycle of history.  This then moves into the cycle of current events, which then moves into the future and people trying to predict and control the future — which means trying to predict and control how society changes due to events that have not yet happened. And it just got interesting…