that if you don't know history, there's no way you can comprehend the present. Without an understanding of the present, you have no chance what the future might hold. History is essential.

Unfortunately, it was my experience that history is one of the worst taught subjects in school. We did study American history for several years when I was growing up (and civics was a graduation requirement) but that was a long time ago and all too often was little more than memorization of names, dates, and places.

It wasn't until I developed a passion for aviation and space that I started studying history. At first, I concentrated on aviation and space history but over the years, I expanded my independent studies to help put the other history in context.