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I’ve already mentioned the entertainment inherent in history. Many will read that and say, perhaps quite forcefully, “This guy’s a nut!”

Ah contraire, the entertainment is there.

The problem is in how it’s been fed to us. In order to ensure that students have actually studied their lessons our education systems demand thatwe memorize, and later enter in tests, the year that something happened. In truth, the year doesn’t matter except in its relation to, and thereby its effect on some other event.

For instance, Jacques Cartier apparently arrived in the New World in the area that is now known as Montreal in 1535. That date was probably important to Champlain who later used Cartier’s information and lived in the area for some time, but for me it doesn’t mean too much. Did they shoot (or try to shoot) a moose?

I can imagine the native population enjoying the Frenchmen’s reaction to weather, wildlife and vegetation.

How many people actually believed Cartier’s stories when he returned to France? How many didn’t believe him but used those stories anyway to create money for themselves? … Much the same as speculators do with stocks today.

In 1614 Champlain received, from France’s King Louis XIII, ten years of exclusive trading rites for furs from New France.

Just a minute! That’s like someone having exclusive rights to sell all the diamonds produced in North America.

What did Champlain have on good King Louis?

My point is, when someone tells you that one of Champlain’s men, Br

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