I think that every so-called history book and film biography should be prefaced by the statement that what follows is the author's rendition of events and circumstances.
Modern scientific knowledge appeared piecemeal. Historians wrote about human history; physicists tackled the material world; and biologists studied the world of living organisms. But there were few links between these disciplines, as researchers focused on getting the details right.
For the vast majority of world history, human life - both culture and biology - was shaped by scarcity. Food, clothing, shelter, tools, and pretty much everything else had to be farmed or fabricated, at a very high cost in time and energy.
My view of my role is that together with like-minded men and women, I could help contribute to a bipartisan view of American engagement in the world for another period; I could do my part to overcome this really, in a way, awful period in which we are turning history into personal recriminations, depriving our political system of a serious debate.
If you were asked to go on 'Mastermind,' what would your specialist subject be? I wouldn't have a clue what I could answer questions on. Birmingham City Football Club would be a start, I suppose, but with a hundred odd years of history, thousands of matches, players and incidents to recall, even access to Google would leave me struggling.
I went to regular schools and I was home schooled a lot but I don't have any history in schools. Like, I literally don't exist. I didn't even get a birth certificate until the mid-80s. I always feel like I could be, like, 10 years younger, or maybe I'm 70!
Whenever I think of my birthplace, Walton-on-Thames, my reference first and foremost is the river. I love the smell of the river; love its history, its gentleness. I was aware of its presence from my earliest years. Its majesty centered me, calmed me, was a solace to a certain extent.
Birthright citizenship in America is part of something larger: The American longing to sever from history, to be a place of new beginnings.
Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil. This fair land, once a distant outpost of the pagan world, has become, through the preaching of the Gospel, a beloved and gifted portion of Christ's vineyard.
I thought I was okay in my first film, and then I was really, really bad in some films. I really cringe when I see some of my scenes. There's a scene in one film where a dog is biting me; the expressions I have made should be qualified as the most over-acted scene in the history of the cinema. The dog's expressions were more real than mine.
'Air' is what the world looks like: An inconvenient mashup of human politics and divine geography. We leave bits and pieces of ourselves and our history in every place we encounter.
You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise.
No tyrant, however evil, has yet lacked ready hands to execute his most abominable will. To read how eagerly men have rushed to serve the despot is the bitterest, the saddest matter of history; it is the saddest sight in our own day.
That President Mohammad Khatami's policies have been blocked is the bitterest incident in the contemporary Iranian history. This means that the wishes of millions of people who voted for Khatami and called for freedom and justice have been ignored... Why should cultural activities and journalism be so risky in Iran?
After voluntary exertions on the part of our people to which the history of the world furnishes no parallel, is the old root of bitterness still to remain in the ground, to sprout and bear fruit in the future as it has borne fruit in the past?
The history of black America was from slavery, oppression, civil rights, and you felt kind of isolated as an entity in our country.
In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.
If the only time you think of me as a scientist is during Black History Month, then I must not be doing my job as a scientist.
If you only think of me during Black History Month, I must be failing as an educator and as an astrophysicist.
I did a book in 1996, an overview of black history. In that process I became more aware of a lot of the black inventors of the 19th century.
