Santayana said it: Those who don’t remember history, yada, yada, yada.
It almost turned Dada-esque over the weekend, when a Syrian television editor mistook a “history-as-it-happened” Twitter feed for actual events.
One reason to learn history, I tell students, is so that you cannot be jived by politicians and others who wish to persuade you falsely. Add to that: So you won’t be suckered by false news reports when you’re at the editor’s desk.
I wonder how many hoaxes get started this way?
Is that today’s newspaper? Toronto Daily Star, June 29, 1914. Not today’s edition.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
On more than one occasion Fox News has cited The Onion as a source of news.
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Not as much learning history as learning basic knowledge of other countries. How many Americans know that WWI just about depleted Europe of its monarchs – The Russian Tsar, Austria-Hungarian Empire, the Sultan of Istanbul, all lost their positions to that upheaval, and the Husseins – Jordan and Arabia gained them as a result. Yeah we just don’t know much of the political infrastructures of other countries, but then again, we don’t know much of our own do we?
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