"Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them."---George Santayana

I am a believer in the old adage that history repeats itself. I am not saying that exact historical events are duplicated, but that similarities can be found between different historical events decades apart.

For example, Napoleon's European conquest has been compared to Hitler's conquest, right up to their common folly: attacking Russia with the Russian Winter approaching. I can imagine that Hitler thought that his troops must have better winter survival supplies than Napoleon (and I am sure they did) but Russia is known for harsh winters. Winter survival will never be a "sure thing", no matter how well prepared a person is for it.

Here is an article on a handful of American and Irish historical events that "repeat." I can even add at least one more event to it: the Easter Rising. I know, the Easter Rising participants weren't slaughtered in the same manner. Heck, not even all of the leaders were executed. But the importance of the event is still justified. I could have compared the events in the article to the Easter Rising as easily as i caompared it to the Alamo. A point on the Alamo, the soldiers under Colonel William Barret Travis did not surrender; they fought to the last man.

I must enter a little humor into this blog entry, thanks to the great writing of Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

A couple of months ago I jotted down a few thoughts about the apaculypse after watching a couple of shows on the history channel (one about the apaoculypse and the other about Roman society). I am not sure how much of this is my thoughts or from the show, but it makes for some interesting conversations.

One show attempted to say that certain predicted events from the bible had already occurred. Well, in the case of history repeating itself maybe these events have happened multiple times? I don't know, but for the sake of conversation (and maybe debate) let's take a look.

Many groups and organizations feel that the American society contains too much violence and sex (thanks in part to the entertainment industry), be it from television programs, movies, or video games. Well, the Roman Empire was the same. Roman citizens watched the gladiator combats at The Coliseum (and many smaller arenas) like Americans go to the latest action flick or watch the latest reality TV program (god forbid). I know someone on the Histroy Channel show made the statement that the gladiator games/fights were the Roman equivalent of reality TV. The History Channel show also claimed that the Roman society was very open to sex. I don't remember exactly what was stated but here is an article that discusses it.

In the latter years of the Roman Empire (I am not really considering the move to Constantinople), Rome was fighting back Germanic tribes. I can imagine a line being drawn from here to the current war on terroism. I admit this conclusion is a bit shaky. The Germanic tribes managed to sack Rome (multiple times). September 11 can be related to the sacking of Rome. True NYC did not fall, but it was attacked. An even shakier comparison(and I realize that it screws with the timeline): Roman expansion and the invasion of Iraq.

This all leads to a conclusion/comparison that could cause a great deal of debate: The Dark Ages were a period of time after the fall of the Roman Empire, could this period be considered an apoculypse? And if so, what will compare to it today? Nuclear War? Will the U.S. fall? I pray not.

How will the world respond to a second dark age? Who will save the world?

Again, these are just thoughts that occurred to me after watching a couple of programs on the history channel. Now let the hordes of enraged internet bums attack my blog with their comments ;)

The climate has even been known to repeat itself, but will it be able to continue?