Other Than That, How Was the Play, Mrs. Lincoln?

I love history. I loved history in elementary school, high school, and at the university. The creation of The History Channel (TCH) was a great delight to me.

But I mostly ran out of history two years ago. That is, I have seen almost everything that THC and the other educational channels have to offer on the topics that I like--and I like most all of it. Of late, though, I will watch nearly any new program on history, no matter what time period. For instance, I had never wanted to know about the Spanish American War. But, what the heck, a documentary series was being aired, and I had not already seen it, so I watched a week of it.

I could read more history. I find that authors of histories are often poor (boring) writers, though. And many of these authors have such different worldviews than I have, that I do not relate well to them.

Here is my pet peeve. Some history documentaries have almost nothing to say. For instance, Mary Magdalene is mentioned in about 12 verses of the Bible, and many of the verses repeat each other. Hence, an hour-long documentary on Mary Magdelene previews and rehashes about 10 minutes worth of content, padding the content with baseless speculation and counter-speculation.

Did you know that Grant was supposed to attend Ford's Theater on the night that Lincoln was assassinated? But some months before, Lincoln's crazy wife had flown into a rage and accused Lincoln of flirting with Grant's wife--in front of them all. Because of this, Grant's wife did not like Lincoln's wife, so Grant was not at the theater that night, along with his substantial security detail.

I love this stuff.