A bodyguard of lies Essay Example

A bodyguard of lies Essay Example A bodyguard of lies Essay A bodyguard of lies Essay History has not only been mistaken, but has been an outright lie multiple times. One such example would be the way children are taught in school about Christopher Columbus. Undoubtedly one of the most influential men in history was not as we have heard a great man but rather a terrorist with inhumane ways of dealing with the indigenous Americans. A man who never discovered the earth was round. That discovery had been made roughly 2,000 years previous by another man name Pythagoras. Another lie is the idea that Europe has invented all of the mathematical formulas of our world. Historians continue to discover that more often then not mathematical advances have almost always appeared faster in the Middle East then they have in Europe In mathematics, Pascals triangle is a geometric arrangement of the binomial coefficients in a triangle. It is named after Blaise Pascal in much of the western world, although other mathematicians studied it centuries before him in India, Persia, China, and Italy. (http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Pascal%27s_triangle) Other such incidents throughout United States history point to an inept government lieing and skewing real historical facts for political gain, The U. S. government has a long history of lying in order to win public approval for its wars: On February 15, 1898, an explosion ripped through the USS Maine anchored off Spanish-controlled Cuba, killing 268. Though an inquiry was unable to determine the cause of the explosion, the U. S. press conducted a hysterical campaign to blame Spain. The campaign helped win public support for the Spanish-American War in which the U. S. seized control of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam and the Philippines, launching itself as a world power( http://socialistworker.org/2002-2/427/427_07_HistoryOfLies. shtml) On February 15, 1898, at 9:40 p. m. the Maine sank in Havana Harbor after an explosion, resulting in the deaths of 266 men. The Spanish attributed the event to an internal explosion; but an American inquiry reported that it was caused by a mine (http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Spanish-American_War#USS_Maine). Even one of the most famous wartime leaders Winston Churchill was quoted saying that In wartime, tr uth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. Based on someone who was as competent as Winston was it would be apparent that some sort of skewing of the facts has happened some where along the line with all major historical stories. There is more then one side of any given story and more often then not the truth is found somewhere in-between. While reading a book like A Peoples History of the United States (Howard Zinn) it is easy to see that there are two contradicting points of view in history during the industrial revolution. We are told that this is a time when child labor laws are beginning to crop up. We are not told of the vast magnitude of the problem. We can not even imagine the enormity of the situation that the American people where dealing with at the time. Yet the industrial revolution is seen as a very positive time for everyone in the United States due to our advancement in technology according to the more moderate and traditionalist point of view. So just as in science a vast accumulation of facts really proves nothing. Just because you have thirty ways in science to prove something right does not always make it so. It might be right under those thirty different circumstances but it only takes one way to prove it wrong to make it an incorrect theory. So in history you can see it is not just an assortment of facts that make it strong or believable. It is an assortment of facts that are from many different varied sources often from different sides of the line that make it a coherent and accurate description of what happened. In other words you might say that you dont just build a house with studs, but also with nails, shingles, and pipes.