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The Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana wrote the above (our motto) in 1905. The SHRS dedicates itself to creatively re-enacting some of the biggest (and smallest) mistakes in human history in both live and television presentations. The fateful decision process leading up to the critical
event are included in our presentations so that the full lesson might be learned.
Our goal is that these idiotic events of human history will never be repeated.
Some of our past re-enactments have included:
Burning of the Library at Alexandria
Custer’s "Last Stand"
Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster
The 2000 U.S. Presidential Election
We are now soliciting from the public more crucial stupid events in human history that should never be repeated. Please submit them to our web site at www.historicalstupidity.com or by other means.
George Santayana
http://www.iupui.edu/~santedit/
Our hero [krelnik, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
Tacoma Narrows
http://www.enm.bris.../tacoma/tacoma.html
[krelnik, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
Year 2500: Internet Stock Market Bubble Reenactment Society
http://www.halfbake...enactment_20Society
a like minded organization created by [hippo] [krelnik, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
Museum of Mistakes
http://www.halfbake...eum_20of_20Mistakes
mistaken identity? [FarmerJohn, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
History repeats it's elf
http://kalamumagazi...history_repeats.htm
Maybe **it happens regardless [Amos Kito, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
History Channel
http://www.historychannel.com
Baked according to Nick@Nite. [A note re. the web site: if you believe their links, the burning of the Library at Alexandria took place in a suburb of DC - clearly they need to do a little more work...] [krelnik, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
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Annotation:
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Since your solicitation covers the small as well as the epic, I'd like to nominate the time in college when I left my math books in the cafeteria the night before the mid-term exam, whereupon, deciding that I could not study, proceeded to go out and get drunk, causing me to earn a 12 on the test, fail the class, wind up with a sub-optimal grade point average and not be wildly successful thereafter. |
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If future generations want to learn anything about us, they would to well to avoid my example. |
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<obligatory annotation re the value of revising for exams *before* the night before the exam> WTAGIPBAN |
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Learn from your mistakes, don't repeat them. |
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//This differs...only...bad decisions?// |
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No. All historical re-enactment societies I've seen or heard of have the following characteristics in common: |
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1. They specialize in a particular era or milieu. (U.S. Civil War, Renaissance culture, etc). This one crosses all of history. |
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2. They largely re-enact events or situations that people find interesting or laudable--not things they are embarrassed about. |
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3. They repeatedly re-enact the same event. This one doesn't necessarily (note the mention of television). |
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It seemed like a good idea at the time. |
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Following the re-enactment of the engineering errors of Apollo fire, there could be one of the political decisions to IGNORE the engineers that gave us the shuttle disaster! |
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But if you want to get off this topic, how about a series of vignettes from all over the world of the US shoring up brutal repressive but "anti-communistic" regimes, instead of progressive populist democratic elements, only to have them fall to communist revovlutions. |
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//The WW2 Bombing of London (which was a mistake for Germany, lucky for everyone else)//
Well, except for the poor sods who had the bombs dropped on them.
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And the otherwise peaceful burghers of Dresden, who woke up one day and never got back to sleep. |
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//I'd like to see how they'd pull off the Tacoma Narrows wiggly bridge in front of an audience//
waugs, clearly you never watched Michael Bentine's Potty Time. |
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(Edited idea & related annotations to remove reference to one event, which people were focusing on instead of actually discussing the idea). |
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Oh you shouldn't do that sort of thing, krelnik. Where will it all end? For example, I particularly object to the death of George Custer being described as a 'last stand'. The implication being that he was conducting a heroic defence when, in fact, he was the vile invader. The whole incident would more properly be described as the Sioux's Last Stand in defence of their lands. |
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That is precisely the point of our re-enactment, DrBob! |
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Oh, look at the tree over there. |
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Must be winter, it's devoid of leaves, but the fine tracery of branches is a poem to behold. |
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