Rationale

Why I've Created This Pageant.

I apologize for the four letter words in this youtube, but the ignorance of the high school graduate (and future voter of America) it is about is far more shocking.

The Method in the Madness.

People in earlier era's did not have much of an idea of what people in previous eras really looked like. Here's the incident of "the generosity of Scipio" as painted by various painters through history:

Karel van Mander, 1548–1606

Peter Paul Reubens,1577-1640

Nicolas Poussin, 1594–1665

Giuseppe Maria Crespi, 1665-1747

Jean Charles Nicaise Perrin, 1754-1831

The representations are cast very much in the style of the artists own time.

Our era is different. With movies, T.V. and video games, we can get a pretty good visual history of the human race. So what I'm doing in this pageant is collecting together youtube clips of various documentaries and video games and listing them in chronological order. As you go through them, you'll get a visual feel for the flow of human history.

Note well that I've organized the materials around the famous battles of history, and made use of documentaries that use video game technology to present these battles. Hence, this is the BLOODY pageant of history. I've done this to make it easier for the young guys to stay interested. I know this works, because it worked for me.

Also note well that I am less concerned with the specific accuracy of this or that movie or video game sequence than with the look and feel of the period being portrayed by them. One of the reasons that history is so hard for some people to remember is that they have no concrete visual images to hang their memories of the true facts onto.

Visual memory lasts longer than memories of facts which have no visual memories to back them up. Its easier to remember overall flow of history if you have a visual sense that this visual scene of history came before that visual scene of history.

Incompleteness.

This is an evolving project. I am continuously making changes to the pageant as I go along. Right now, the pageant is terribly euro-centric. I hope to expand its view point as time permits.

Propagation.

Teachers and other educators, feel free to book mark this pageant and propagate it. Anything we can do to stem the tide of ignorance is worth doing, and desperate measures are call for!

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