4ever influenced by the past

       I think it's fair to say that most people don't see any importance in learning about history. This makes sense as they are all dead already and knowing what year the Declaration of Independence was written isn't really relevant to today's world. However, I want to implore you to consider that history may actually extremely relevant to society despite how long ago it was. 

If you get rid of the way that school taught you to think about history (dates, eras, battle names) and think about it only in terms of what happened, you might be able to see how the past developed the foundation of the world we have today. 

As an example, let's discuss the Mongol Empire. In the early 1200s, tribes that were previously at war with one another were joined together by a man named Chinggis Khan. They had a population that was less than a million people, yet they had managed to conquer almost all of China, Europe, and East India and have the second largest empire in all of history. Although their methods were incredibly brutal, as they would give villages one chance to surrender then massacre all people (including women and children), this isn't what gave them a leg up on other countries. It was simply the organization of the military that allowed the Mongols to conquer others so quickly. Khan separated his people into units of 10,000, 1,000, 100, and 10 so that communication was more efficient, and new people who joined the tribe (conquered people) could be easily added into these units. Before he knew it, Khan had an entire empire that was loyal to him and in turn there was widespread peace across the empire. Despite having conquered so many places and people, the Mongols didn't add much of their culture into the world except for this military structure, which was then used by nearly all nations after their empire had fallen (Black plague). Although the Mongol Empire existed hundreds of years ago, it was able to lay a foundation for something in society that allows for one's country to be seen as strong and gives the people in that country a sense of relief since outside invaders are not a threat. 

Fun Fact: The Mongols killed so many people that it lowered the amount of carbon being released and cooled the temperature of the Earth!

While this was just one example, this can be done with anything, such as the beginnings of economic thought, social hierarchy, and belief systems. History teaches us about how things have began, and how they have grown to be what they are now. Understanding this process of a system or belief will allow one to be able to analyze how it works, how it fails, and how it can be improved. 

-Celeste