History Unit

History is a very complex area of knowledge. You can never truly know what happened in the past, you only have what historians have interpreted happened and that's what you have to put your faith in. Without historians we wouldn't know anything that has happened, though when we read different sources, we also see that even historians have many different viewpoints on what occurred. So how do we know what actually happened? How do we know which source to trust?
This is a constant question that we ask ourselves, that is why there are two distinct names for the sources: primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources are speeches, journals ... from people who said and wrote them at the time, people who were directly involved with what happened. On the other hand secondary sources are articles, reviews, analysed texts... that come from historians who have studied the subject but who weren't directly involved in the event. With these two categories we already can separate ideas into more reliable and least reliable. But we also need to use logic. What is more likely to have happened, how many people share the same opinion, the stronger voice.
Moving on, Becker wrote an article attempting to answer the question: "What are historical facts?", in this article he discusses many different ideas that he has on the subject. He addresses three questions: "what is the historical fact?", "when is the historical fact?", "where is the historical fact?".  He talks mostly about historical facts and how we come up with them. He says "that was a historical event but is now a historical fact" He also discusses that historical facts only makes a difference because they remain in people's minds. This brings me to the Star Trek episode that we watched in class, many years ago an artefact had been created so that each time people passed through the planet they would remember the massacre by reliving it. Once they understand where these strange memories are coming from they contemplate destroying it so that no one else has to go through the horrible nightmares they relived. However, on second thought they realised how important it was to keep that memory alive so that it doesn't repeat itself in the future. Finally, in the Becker article we can come to the conclusion that: "The historical fact is not the event itself but is someone’s interpretation of what happened. Therefore the historical fact is not in the past but in the present, located in someone’s mind."
All of this shows that historical evidence and facts are very tangible, they are things that remain in people's minds and that are transmitted from generation to generation. But how can we be sure that they remain intact and that some of the details aren't altered through time?
In my opinion it is very hard to rely on history as an area of knowledge, although it might seem as a really reliable source it can get very questionable. As Napoleon Bonaparte said: "History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon." However I do think that without historical facts and evidence, the world wouldn't be where it is today because with that information we were able to evolve especially politically. We don't make the same mistakes and we have found new ways of solving problems. Without our history knowledge we might have been forever trapped in the same state and the same place in time.