How long ago is 'history'? (war, general, events, historical)

[callmemaybe]

Would you consider yesterday history?

Personally, I think it depends on whether those events are still playing out directly. For example - the fall of the Soviet Union is history for the most part, though if you live in Belarus, North Korea, Cuba or Vietnam it's very much part of the present narrative.

The Gulf War is history now, but wasn't until the last troops were pulled out of Iraq last year, since from 1990 to 2011 we had troops in Iraq.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 I would argue is not history because its result is still the current situation. September 11 also isn't history yet because we are still in Afghanistan and still rebuilding the WTC, and the issue of 9/11 truth still looms.

[Grandstander]

If mine is the only response, then this thread is history...and it took less thean ten minutes.

[hamellr]

Yesterday is history. Major decisions are being made every day that effect hundreds of thousands of lives. Just take a look at what happened yesterday!

[PA2UK]

Technically, yes. In practise, no. If yesterday is history than there's pretty much no such thing as current events.

From what I've noticed, most people seem to feel that, in general, anything before they were born is "history".

[Nolefan34]

Anything that already happened in the past is history. This post will be history 1 mili-second after I hit send.

[CowanStern]

Originally Posted by callmemaybe

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 I would argue is not history because its result is still the current situation. .

Then the events of 1776 aren't history, either.

To try to give a good answer to the OP's question, I would say events cross the line into history when they are no longer in the living memory of most of the people who are examining the import of them. So, junior high school history now includes 9/11, which the pupils cannot personally remember, and have to rely on accounts that are passed along to them as a body of history.

[Dd714]

From a historians standpoint, you have to give events time to play out in the world stage, and for observers to view events from a level of objectivity. That's difficult to do for events that happened 5 or even 10 years ago. Who can comment objectivly on the War in Iraq? Historians still have difficulty with the subject of the Vietnam War in treating it without subjective and biased opinions. But it's not neccessary to see a final conclusion to the event to historically evaluate - The Korean War has been in a holding period of sorts for 60 years.

I would say a fair measuring point is to wait a generation - 25 or 30 years, before events can be viewed from an objective and nuetral viewpoint, with a fair historical view of it's impact upon events that follow it.

[Dude111]

Originally Posted by callmemaybe

Would you consider yesterday history?

Indeed it is!! (10 seconds ago is history)


Ah man!!

[Mikestone8]

History is what you can remember.

I was a precocious kid, who watched the tv news from about age 8 (ie 1956) so anything before that is history as far as I'm concerned.

Yet when I was in Grammar school, some of my teachers had fought in WW1, and I recall one who said he felt uncomfortable seeing so much of his own lifetime now written down in textbooks as "history".

I had that kind of shock years later, when I told my landlord's 10yo son a joke about the Vietnam War. He had never heard of it.

[alphamale]

One second ago. One second ago. One second ago.