To Honor and Remember

From Famous Last Words, Compiled by Ray Robinson.


"We have been together for 40 years, and we will not separate now." Ida Straus
Refusing the lifeboat offered to her, Ida Straus chose to stay aboard the sinking Titanic with her husband Isidor, the New York department store magnate and philanthropist. They perished together when the "unsinkable" ship slipped into the Atlantic in April of 1912.

Famous Last Words came into my life over a cup of coffee with my husband. It's the kind of book I would like to write one day, short, simple, funny and impactful. It ranges from the somber to memorable to down right hysterical. I snarfed my coffee more then once that day and have enjoyed the purchase ever since. If you have only a passing fancy with history, or need to make a paper/report more interesting or if you just want to start your day with something fun then these 177 pages are right for you. 

Case in point. "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." ~Pancho Villa

Famous Last Words, Fond Farewells, Deathbed Diatribes and Exclamations Upon Expiration. Compiled by Ray Robinson, printed by Workman Publishing, New York. April 2003.

The Age and Origins of Famous Phrases

One day I will have compiled all of my favorite phrase origins into one book, (despite the many that are already out there.) For now though, I shall settle on informing you of how old so many of things you say everyday really are. Some are expected, others are surprising, and still more have changed so often that they now mean the opposite of how they started.

My favorite to tell people (because everybody says it) is good-bye. It is a comment on the tendency of us all to shorten and familiarize ourselves to one another. I often think the more you care for a person the shorter their name. My full name is Alexandria, my family calls me Ali and my best friend calls me Al. She also calls her husband "D" which speaks volumes in my book about how much he means to her.

Back to the point, good-bye, I don't know the exact date but it must have began after the spread of Christianity or not to much later, like I said I don't know and couldn't find a date. Upon departure from pleasant company people said "May God be with you." Thus my rough estimate of the spread of Christianity. Sources say that by the late 1500's (The time of Shakespeare and Elizabeth I) it was shorten to "God by you", or "Godbwye". Which then of course has morphed into our everyday use of good-bye.


To Tie the knot, this expression is interesting simply because it means the opposite of what it says. The Geeks tied the knot ahead of the ceremony. The bride would use the Herculean knot to fasten their undergarments and on the wedding night the groom would pray for a fruitful marriage while untying it. Hercules supposedly fathered 50 children in one night! Another ancient ceremony has the family members literally tying the bride and groom's garments together. So of course that could be the origin... History isn't an exact science, at least not until someone invents a time machine.

Anybody want a peanut?!

Short, semi pirate fact from one of my favorite time periods:


In 1588, Sir Frances Drake captained a ship called the "Revenge."


Know why I chose the title now... promise to give you more shortly on the Spanish Armada and Queen Elizabeth I. History is everywhere.

1845 Ireland

Question: What is the difference between a famine and a hunger?

One of the best debates in class I ever had was this question, Ireland 1845-1851 was it famine or hunger? It's most commonly known as the Great Famine, but once my professor posed the question, I've never really been able to settle the answer in my mind. So, I don't intend to win you over to one side or the other, I just thought you might want in on the debate.

There are a few facts to consider first: the blight of course, the governing bodies, and the realities of life of the common Irish farmer. None of these are straight forward facts, they each have such depth that I dare not try to define them completely in this little post. Like I said, I'm just getting you in the conversation. 

Easy facts: In 1847, the "worst year of the famine," just under 190,000 head of cattle were exported from Ireland. While people are living off boiled potatoes and cow's blood, the country is still exporting livestock. At the start of the 1840's a family of six is living on just over 30 pounds of potatoes a day. It's mixed in with various foods but I'm not giving you a recipe book.

Difficult Facts: The English government did attempt to provide aid, but it was a bit like having your younger sibling plan your ninth birthday party. The party is all about them and you end up with disappointing presents. They sent American corn to Ireland with high expectations and disappointing results. In 1849 the Rate-in-Aid Act moved the burden of the relief funds to the Irish landlords. Presumably the population that could afford it. However, we all know that "it" runs down hill so the few land holding farmers left who were already indebted to their lords, were now expected to "contribute" to their own relief.

So here it is, if a famine assumes a certain amount of natural disaster, a lack of control over results (written accounts of the smell of the rotten potatoes fields) and a hunger assumes a lack of funds to purchase available food stuffs, (Ireland was still shipping livestock to England in 1849 despite the thousands starving), what do you call the period from 1845 to 1851?



Stat's 
Population in 1845 -8.5 million. Population in 1851-2 million. 3 million people died of starvation, most of the rest fled the county. With the massive immigration went the Irish culture leaving Ireland governed by a non-native government and lacking most of it's "common" people.


Best Textbooks I've read on Ireland: 
Cronin, Mike. A History of Ireland. New York: Palgrave, 2001.  (best overview of Ireland)
O'Dowd, Mary. A History of Women in Ireland, 1500-1800. NYC: Longman, 2004. (best one on one presepective)

The Past, Dyslexia, and a History Degree

I described my reading habits as a child to a friend today, "I had a cognitive delay. I would read a paragraph aloud and then wouldn't be able to recall what I read." She paused and said "delay? You are one of the most intelligent people I know."

It struck me then, to the rest of the world "delay" has a connotation of unintelligent. To me it has only ever meant more time to process, more time to gain a greater understanding of the words in front of me. She certainly meant no harm by her words, in fact she was paying me a compliment which I thanked her for, but I couldn't help but suddenly see myself through her eyes. From there my brain began to wonder, has my dyslexia truly had such a large effect on my adult life? And should people be impressed that I made it through a history degree without any additional help or special considerations? I never really thought so but others always had.

I have often had to deal with teachers, friends, and co-workers who lacked an understanding of dyslexia both in the effects and the generalities. That is to say, most underestimated my abilities, or over compensated for me. Each of these tactics were as difficult to deal with as the people who paid no attention to it at all. As a child, I had the luxury of tutors and time to overcome my learning curve. As an adult student I had to learn different ways of dealing with the lengthy reading tasks in front of me. Which I think I managed with equal amounts of determination and patience.

I am proud to say I never used cliff's notes in college, and I never read a review in hopes of gaining the content of a book. Reviews are for giving professional works context in their field or for letting you know if other historians believe what the author is trying to prove. Not for gaining a sneak peak or a real understanding and opinion of the work.

Was the weekly amount of reading daunting? Absolutely! Did I fall behind? On occasion, but every student does. Oh and in case there is any debate, I'll say it here and now, history majors read more than any other major. Don't let the english lit. majors fool you, they read one book and analyze it. Historians have to read five books just to confirm one fact, (when we're lucky.).

More then two years into my degree a friend of mind, who was studying engineering at the time, told me that he couldn't study history, because "you had to learn and know too much." I laughed out loud. The engineer, a profession I couldn't even pretend to imagine doing for it's conceptual math and complex ideas, was telling me that history was too hard. I had chosen it because it spoke to me and it wasn't until I was neck deep that I realized dyslexia might make this a challenge. Nothing in my education had been simple so as always I accepted it, accommodated it and stubbornly refused help on tests or extended deadlines for reports simply based on the fact that I was "afflicted." My delay was any other students similar distraction, TV, friends, or a job. They couldn't get special consideration and neither would I. All students face some kind of challenge, so make an exception for one you must make it for all. Each student learns how to fit our unique circumstances into our college life.


This entire thought stream lead me to this question. If I will have dyslexia for the rest of my life was it ever a benefit to me in school or college to move a deadline or take a slightly different test? No boss was going to make the same kind of accommodation for me. I needed to learn to work around my delay. Despite the years of frustration, hours of re-reading and lower grades I received I will never say I wish I had done things differently. Those few tools I was given in grade school, summers of tutoring from my aunt and my shear force of will provided me with the capabilities to adjust, evaluate and succeed in every task I came across. My degree means that much more because I had to fight for it. 

A Soldier's Life

"Come back with your shield or on it." Words for a departing Spartan solider. It isn't untrue that Spartans were a warrior class. Strong, raised to withstand great pain, and taught battle skills from a young age. To our soldiers we say, "Come back." Not much more, not much less, our Spartan's are asked to endure the battle and the life long after the battle has past. So whose soldiers are stronger? Those that survive the battle or those that live with the memories.

Does it take more strength to go to war knowing you'll likely not come home, or knowing that you'll have to live the next 50 years with everything you saw?

Of course our current values wildly differ from those of Sparta and we don't raise our children with the notion that them must die nobly in a war, but we do raise soldiers. Families with long traditions of service, military or civil have the same expectation for their offspring and often teach them to endure to harden themselves to pain and trauma. So maybe we are not as different as we think.

Maybe the difference lies with the mother. A Spartan mother almost never expected her son to live to 80 years old with children and grandchildren to love. That life was reserved for a different kind of man. Our lifespan is too long for most of our ancestors to even begin to want to live.  And we wholeheartedly expect our soldiers to have the luxury and I would say, burden of a family after war. They will come home, get a job, go back to school and integrate into a whole society that may only half respect them for their service and certainly never understand the sacrifice of it.

I say that is where their strength lies. That is how I can compare a Marine to a Spartan. It is not enough to have lived through a war and it is not enough to come home and survive everyday with what you have seen. The strength of our soldiers is in the life they lead now. The ability to continue to enjoy, to find happiness, and peace again, with more knowledge then most men would ask for. Remember the next time you meet a veteran not to just marvel at the story that they have to tell, but to marvel that despite themselves, despite what logic would dictate, they can live well.

History vs. Current Events

I often debate with who ever will listen, where the history books should end and where the current events journal should begin. As I began to learn how to critically think about my sources, I began to realize that the term "current" has a much larger time frame than the past ten or twenty years.

Primary sources are among the best sources to use because they are so close to the "action". For that same reason they are the most easily debated, again because they are so close to the action." To much opinion, and selective memory is used to suit my comfort. Historians spend most of their research time evaluating and reevaluating their sources. Looking for additional information that hopefully backs up what they know or disqualifies it. Critical historians live by the old saying of "there are two sides to every story and then there is the truth." Historians live where the truth is hidden in the 12 different stories told by the 12 different people all witnessing the same event from a different view point.

The trick to evaluation lies in the years/distance from the event. While there are still living survivors and/or participants of an event, historians will have a difficult time truly knowing what actually occurred and why. There will always be too much at stake for the survivors for them to let the important roam free. My unofficial cut off date is December 7, 1941, the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Everything from 1942 onward, should be considered current as there is still too much at stake for those still living. I put qualifiers on Pearl because the baby boomers were directly effected through they're parents and still have memories of the effects of the Pearl Harbor bombing. Many still feel a nostalgia for a time when Hawaii was joining the United States (late 50s), easily recalling Hawaiian history because it was everywhere in pop culture at the time. So it's a soft line, shoot me.  :)

What is important to note is that at the time enough stories where collected and accounts/records where received that historians are now easily able to compare records. They can decipher and learn what happen to allow the Japanese to bomb Pearl, and the resulting affects on the states because of our entry in the war.


What could not be understood in 1945 or 1950 were the effects of the bombing on all of America. Most stories were of how men died, few retold how they lived through it. Where they hid, where they actually were when the 'return to base, this is not a drill' call went out on the radio. I will always argue that these are the stories that make history, the knowledge that a man stood on top of his radio station building to watch and tell the island were the bombs were falling as his world blew up around him. His building was hit and it was when the power went out that he stopped broadcasting. That is a historical event not because of the heroics of it, but because what he did affected so many people. Or the knowledge that a little girl watched the men from the crumbled and burning Arizona swim to shore through the burning water. The shore they were swimming to was nearly her front yard, and she saw a few of them later in the bunker she hid in with her mother. What people did during the attack is worth understanding, not just how governments reacted. 

Those stories aren't easily found by historians and even less easily gathered at the time. And I would argue that somehow that makes them more important.  Do I think historians should stop collecting information about my so called current events, of course not! I believe they should stop attempting to fit the event in the bigger picture.

Collect data, keep the sources clean, hold people accountable for what they say, and collect more data. That is my motto.