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In 1941, the United States was drawn into a false sense of security, believing that neither Japan nor Germany could or would attack us.

History is the study of the past. That’s obvious, but why is it so important? Everyone has a history. Every event that happens in their lives is viewed as that person’s personal history. That person either cherishes that history and lives up to it, or despises it and tries to forget it.

There is an old saying that “if you fail to learn your history you are doomed to repeat it.” What this means is that in your personal history if you don’t learn from your mistakes and your triumphs the mistakes keep repeating and your triumph keep repeating. Each day of our lives there are thousands of lessons that we learn but fail to realize that they are lessons. For instance, I usually carry with me two sets of car keys, why? I have been in the situation where I have locked my keys in my car. I learned a lesson that if I don’t want to be locked out of my car with a set of keys in the car then I should carry an extra set with me.

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The same philosophy holds true for national and international events. In 1941, the United States was drawn into a false sense of security, believing that neither Japan nor Germany could or would attack us. We were wrong, because, as everyone should know, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and launched this country into the fighting of World War II. For sixty years this country believed that they could never again be attacked. For sixty years we again had a false sense of security. On September 11, 2001, almost sixty years after the events at Pearl Harbor, the United States was attacked again. This time as everyone is aware was the World Trade Center, Pentagon and the field in Pennsylvania plane crashes. These three separate but combined events claimed the lives of nearly three thousand civilians.

The saying “if you fail history you are doomed to repeat it” fits in this and all instances. It doesn’t matter if there are false senses of security or not. The conditions have to be right for the events to repeat themselves.