Random Rambling: History, Again

We have... let's say an eclectic mix of interests, and we feel our patrons do too.  With that thought in mind, we present a feature we call "Random Rambling."  It isn't quite random, but it's close:  we made a little spinner with some of our favorite subjects.  Every Friday, we give the thing a spin, and then you, lucky people that you are, get to learn a fact related to the subject the spinner landed on.

This week's topic is:

History!

...Huh.  Didn't we do one of these just the other day?  Well, people do say that history likes to repeat itself...

So why don't we make this a post about those famous occasions when history has repeated itself?

Easy Mode:  The 100-Year Flu

About twenty years after the turn of the century, a virus rolled through much of the world.  It infected somewhere north of 500 million people, and of those, millions died.  One of the hardest hit countries was the United States, owing at least in part to resistance to wearing masks.  Even those who lived through having the virus were often affected by long-term or even permanent symptoms.

And of course we are not talking about Covid-19, even though if we were, all those statements would still have been true.  We're actually talking about the Spanish Flu.  Up until Covid-19 smacked the world around in 2020, the Spanish Flu was the pandemic to beat, and it did such a good job that most of our models of how a pandemic can spread are based on it.  Although technically unrelated, the two viruses have more in common than what we've already mentioned, such as their lethality being attributed to the damage caused to their host's lungs and their regular description as a modern-day plague.

But, as suggested by the title of this section, pointing out the eerie similarities between the two diseases is a pretty easy example of history repeating itself.  Surely, we can do better.

Medium:  Naming Originality

If you ever want to get off the beaten path, you should try visiting a place called Orange.  Named for the famed fruit and/or color, the community takes pride in their association, so expect to find some kitschy orange-themed merchandise for sale while you're there.

Oh!  Sorry.  We should probably specify.  After all, we could have been talking about:

• Orange, California
• Orange, Connecticut
• Orange, Georgia
• Orange, Illinois
• Orange, Indiana
• Orange, Massachusetts
• Orange, Mississippi
• Orange, Missouri
• Orange, New Hampshire
• Orange, New Jersey
• Orange, New Mexico
• Orange, New York
• Orange, Ohio
• Orange, Texas
• Orange, Vermont
• Orange, Virginia

This list doesn't include the cities that just have "Orange" somewhere in the name, nor does it include any of the (many) Orange Counties.  If it had, the list would have been twice as long.

Hard Mode:  Name That President

We can do better than that.  Why don't we talk about U.S. Presidents?

Now, obviously, a group of forty-odd older men who share the most powerful position in America are going to have some things in common, so let's get some of the more obvious ones out of the way.

  Adams and Adams.  There are two presidents named John Adams.  The first, John Adams, was our second president.  His son, John Quincy Adams, was our sixth president.  The first John Adams held various political roles before ascending to the presidency (including serving as the previous president's vice-president), and is one of the few presidents to have only a single term in office.  The second John Adams, distinguished from his father by his middle name, also held political office before ascending to the presidency, running for election with the backing of the same political party as his father.  Both Presidents Adams had noteworthy presidencies, although the elder Adams is considered the more popular of the two.  One further note:  Adams the Elder reportedly got along quite well with the man who ultimately beat him in his re-election bid, and his later years were in part defined by that friendship.

  Bush and Bush.  There are two presidents named George Bush.  The first, George Bush, was our forty-first president.  His son, George W. Bush, was our forty-third president.  The first George Bush held various political roles before ascending to the presidency (including serving as the previous president's vice-president), and is one of the few presidents to have only a single term in office.  The second George Bush, distinguished from his father by his middle name, also held political office before ascending to the presidency, running for election with the backing of the same political party as his father.  Both Presidents Bush had noteworthy presidencies, although the elder Bush is considered the more popular of the two.  One further note:  Bush the Elder reportedly got along quite well with the man who ultimately beat him in his re-election bid, and his later years were... in part... defined by... that friendship?

Heeeey, wait a minute...

  Lincoln and Kennedy.  Alright, that was a little weird, but maybe such things should be expected between father-sone pairings.  And a couple of those coincidences could be said of a large number of presidents, right?  So let's get more specific.  This time, no relation between the two presidents we'll talk about.  We'll just pick two random presidents and see what they have in common.  Let's say... Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy.

  Lincoln:

• Lincoln was first elected to Congress in '46.  He was eventually elected president in '60, though he would die in office (he was assassinated).
• Lincoln held firm opinions on civil rights, opinions that ultimately proved quite divisive.
• Lincoln got married while in his 30s to a lovely lady about ten years his junior.
• Although an accomplished president, Lincoln is in some ways best known for his assassination.  He was shot in the head on a Friday during a public appearance.
• His killer never made it to trial, being fatally shot in return.
• Lincoln's successor was a Southerner named Johnson, born in '08 (which made him slightly older than Lincoln at the time of his death)
• Fun fact:  Lincoln had a bodyguard named William who survived him by quite a bit, living to almost exactly 75 years, 5 months

  Kennedy:

• Kennedy was first elected to Congress in '46.  He was eventually elected president in '60, though he would die in office (he was assassinated).
• Kennedy held firm opinions on civil rights, opinions that ultimately proved quite divisive.
• Kennedy got married while in his 30s to a lovely lady about ten years his junior.
• Although an accomplished president, Kennedy is in some ways best known for his assassination.  He was shot in the head on a Friday during a public appearance.
• His killer never made it to trial, being fatally shot in return.
• Kennedy's successor was a Southerner named Johnson, born in '08 (which made him slightly older than Kennedy at the time of his death)
• Fun fact:  Kennedy had a bodyguard named William who survived him by quite a bit, living to almost exactly 75 years, 5 months.

  The Power of Statistics.  ...Wow.  It's kind of spooky how many coincidences there are in common between those two, yeah?

Not as spooky as you might think.  It turns out you can make similar lists with dozens of presidential pairings.  In fact, here's a list of coincidences that a bunch of presidents have in common:

• Half of the presidents served two terms.
• All but one president was white, and every single president was male.
• More than half of all U.S. presidents were between the ages of 45 and 55 when they first took office.
• Nine presidents either died while in office or less than a year after leaving office.
• Thirty-two presidents served in the military before becoming president.
• Twenty-seven presidents worked as attorneys before becoming president.
• Eleven presidents were related to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, specifically.
• Only four presidents were unmarried while in office.
• Of the presidents who were married (almost all of them), only four married someone older than themselves.
• Eight presidents studied at Harvard; five presidents studied at Yale.
• Out of the forty-five presidents, forty were elected to a different public office before becoming president.
• Twenty presidents served as governors before becoming president; eighteen served as U.S. Representatives, seventeen as U.S. Senators, and fifteen as Vice-President of the United States
• To demonstrate how esoteric these coincidences can get:  more U.S. Presidents favor vanilla ice cream than any other ice cream flavor.

Vocabulary Time

What you're looking at isn't just a case of history repeating itself.  What you're seeing is called apophenia, which is the thoroughly human ability to look at seemingly unrelated things and find patterns.  It's the real reason why history can seem to repeat itself so regularly— we intentionally find commonalities in how things have unfolded.

Does history repeat itself?  Yes, obviously, all the time.  Are most of the repeated instances actually noteworthy?  No... but they can seem that way if you group enough of them together.

Is it weird that we had two History-based Random Rambling posts in such a short period of time?  Well, considering that there was a 1 in 10 chance of "History" popping up each time we spin, and we spun twice since the last History post, no.  It would literally be weirder to flip a coin three times and have it come up "heads" each time.  Now, if we were to write a second post about history repeating itself, that would be weird.  But you can replicate that weirdness by selecting this post and using the Copy command, so maybe that wouldn't be historically noteworthy.

In conclusion, yes, history repeats itself.  But unless the occasion that is repeating itself is awfully specific, it probably isn't worth worrying about.

For example, this would be noteworthy.