Which is how long it takes, approximately, to read The Story of Civilization

Historian Ariel Durant was born on this day in 1898. She and her husband, Will, wrote The Story of Civilization, the tenth volume of which, Rousseau and Revolution, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1968.

Ariel Durant wrote:

"It is good that a historian should remind himself, now and then, that he is a particle pontificating on infinity."

And we're making history right now

The great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy was born on this day in 1828. He wrote:

"History is nothing but a collection of fables and useless trifles, cluttered up with a mass of unnecessary figures and proper names."

This day in hysteria

Edward Gibbon completed The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on this day in 1787. The six-volume work was the labor of almost 15 years. On the occasion he wrote:

"It was on the ...night of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. ... I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom; and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable friend."

In Decline and Fall Gibbon wrote:

"History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."

History in the making: The Misforgotten is now available online for the ludicrously low price of $1.99. It's a crime and a folly! Take a look.

Don't know nothin' 'bout that

German philosopher G. W. F. (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich) Hegel was born on this day in 1770.


"What experience and history teach is this," Hegel wrote, "--that people and governments never have learned anything from history."


Yesterday was Women's Equality Day!


"Woman may be said to be an inferior man." -- Aristotle.

Sorry, we forgot all about it. You know how us men are always slighting our women.

This day in hysteria

Edward Gibbon completed The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on this day in 1787. The six-volume work was the labor of almost 15 years. On the occasion he wrote:


"It was on the ...night of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. ... I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom; and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable friend."

In Decline and Fall Gibbon wrote:

"History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."