History is an odd thing. You begin learning the history of your home country at a young age, then the history of your state, continent, and the entire earth (or what we have come to know of it). While you are learning all of this, you are also creating your own history, and seeing how it connects to the histories of others. The most prominent aspect of history that I have made note of is its tendency towards being paradoxical. Societies and individuals, politics and technology, and intelligence and wisdom are in a constant flux and reinvention of themselves with the forthcoming generations.
Awareness of this common thread throughout the history of the world allows parallels to be made within the ever-turning wheel of history. During the Era of Reconstruction, Americans were struggling to find their place in the society that they had once known to be completely different. Caucasians were now alongside African Americans and former slaves, working on brand new inventions, such as barbed wire and the lightbulb. Also accompanying them or working below them were even more immigrants from Ireland, China, and various other foreign countries that had come through Ellis Island seeking a better life for themselves and their families.
Modern Americans are still living among similar happenings. Americans are now competing for and collaborating on jobs with many more immigrants from Asia, and now the Middle East as well. They are now producing computers, iPhones, MRI machines, and a million other new technologies that arise every single day. And what is the inherent goal that all of these Americans have? To achieve a better life for themselves and their families. History will always be the same, because the wheel of change will always be turning.
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