"History is written by the victor." -Unknown
A historical fact is a fact about the past. It answers the very basic question, "What happened?" Yet beyond merely listing the events in chronological order, historians try to discover why events happened, what circumstances contributed to their cause, what subsequent effects they had, and how they were interpreted.[1] In an effort to get at what really happened, historians compare stories from a wide variety of sources, searching for common elements that corroborate a plausible account.
Accounts are compared with archeological findings. Neither history nor archeology is an exact science, but technique and technology improvements over the years have enabled them both to make stronger and stronger cases for their accounts of the past.
Yet historical accounts are subject to frequent disagreement. Much disagreement is due to the fact that accurate history is difficult to obtain, for a variety of reasons. Much information regarding the past has been lost. Many cultures have a rich oral history, but lack written documents. Oral accounts, or "story telling," suffer from an inherent loss of information. Each person in the chain will tend to "interpret" the story, presenting the opportunity to accidentally alter it, or worse, to slant the story to one's own tastes before passing it on.
Written history before the age of copiers and computers had to be hand-copied, providing similarly easy opportunities for errors or exaggeration. Some material is simply propaganda, intentionally containing little or no truth. Even if authentic, the meaning of documents regarding the past can be highly unclear to any modern investigator, or can conflict with other sources.
These factors and others result in quite a bit of uncertainty about historical accounts. This leaves room for parties to interpret history in ways that favor them, resulting in strong resistance from those on opposing sides.
YOU ARE READING
OUR HISTORY
Historical FictionUPDATES COME SLOW- sorryyyy 🧍 this book is, and always will be, dedicated to my one and only, Eli Mixon. he's been there for me through tough times, and i don't have the words to thank him for all he's done. so i've written a book about the world...
