However, they had to add "--often including, an explanation or commentary of those events." .
Sadly, it is in that last bit that the subject of History becomes sticky, confusing and as controversial as it can become sometimes. .
But before we get to that, there are some features to History I'd like to take the time to consider. .
Number One. History Doesn't Change.
No matter how hard you wish it. No matter how tight you close your eyes and ball up your fists as you mouth the magic words. No matter how many times you click your heels together. You can not change the past. .
I once wrote a screenplay, and I still haven't sold it in case anyone here wants to become a Hollywood movie producer, in which a character said of the past. "Here's this moment in time. Ops, it's been, now it's gone, off to be with all the others never to be seen again. Wait a second, here comes another one. Maybe you can grab and hold onto it. Too bad. It's gone as well. " .
What has happened. Has happened.
Mark Twain's take on it was that "there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering and that was the fact that it is past and can't be restored.".
I can not go back and change what I have said in this room so far this morning. I can't go back and correct my mispronunciations, errors of fact or other mistakes. My past, your past, our past is literally carved in stone, or in some other medium, behind me somewhere back there that I can't get to. .
The Soviets and Communists were often accused of rewriting History. However, even after issuing thousands of new versions of official publications that reflected the latest versions of the "truth," in the end those people who publicly ceased to exist, famines that never occurred or a million other acts ignored or forgotten are still with our collective memory. The past cannot be changed. .
Remember that as you deal with history. No matter what you read, hear or believe, events only happened one way, one time.