No...not my saying. Turns out someone hates history enough at IUP to scratch that phrase into a prof's desk in his office with a paper clip.
Now, I'm going to try to prove to people that history is actually interesting...and more often than not - moving and inspiring. A few good stories from American history oughta do the trick...
Virginia - 1765
In response to the passing of the Stamp Act (an effort by the British crown to tax the colonists for their "protection" they gave them during the French and Indian War) Patrick Henry vehemently spoke out against it in the House of Burgesses...
“Tarquin and Caesar had each his Brutus, Charles I. his Cromwell, and George III." –and here he was interrupted by the cry of ‘treason’- "may profit by their example; if this be treason, make the most of it.” And as one scholar notes, “This is the way that the fire began; Virginia rang the alarm bell for the continent.”
How about another story about the same guy? Let's jump to March 1775, when Patrick Henry is attempting to establish a unified militia in the colonies to rise up against the British, but the men of the Continental Congress aren't having any of it...so he makes his famous "Give Me Liberty!" speech, but most people only know what he said and nothing more...former President John Tyler was told a story about the moving speech by the grandson of Patrick Henry...enjoy...
Philadelphia - 1775
"Mr. Henry was holding a paper cutter in his right hand: and when he came to that part of his speech in which he said: ‘I know not what course others may take.’ He cast a glance at these gentlemen, and bending his head forward, and with stooping shoulders, and with submissive expression of countenance, he crossed his wrists, as if to be bound; then suddenly straightening up, a bold, resolute purpose of soul flashed over his countenance, and then struggling as if trying to burst his bonds, his voice swelled out in boldest, vibrant tones; ‘Give me liberty!’ Then wrenching his hands apart, and raising aloft his hand with the clenched paper-cutter, he exclaimed; ‘Or give me death!’ and aimed at his breast, as with a dagger and dropped to his seat.
"The effect, continued Mr. Tyler, was electrical. There was more in the tones and the action than in the words. The house was still as death…the members started from their seats. ‘The cry ‘to arms’ seemed to quiver on every lip and gleam in every eye.’"
You want something more Colonial? How about the Walking Purchase of 1737?
"Thomas Penn and James Logan conducted the "Walking Purchase," perhaps the most notorious land swindle in colonial history -which is saying a great deal. Unable to stop invading squatters, the local Lenni Lenape band agreed to relinquish a tract that would be bounded by what a man could walk around in thirty-six hours. Of course, the Lenni Lenape expected to lose only a modest parcel, but Logan and Penn had made elaborate preparations to maximize their purchase. They employed scouts to blaze a trail, and they trained three runners. On the appointed Septemmber day, the runners astonished and infuriated the lenni Lenape by racing around a tract of nearly twelve hundred square miles, including most of their homeland. Retail sale of farms within the tract ultimately earned the proprietors nearly 90,000 pounds sterling."
Now I hope that helped you get a better perspective on how awesome (and sometimes amusing) history can be.
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