90-second history lesson worth learning

This is quite an interesting illustration of the history of the Middle East and an effective use of computer graphics to visualize that history. I give credit to Ben Witherington III, who posted the link on his Belief Net blog.

What this "5,000 years of history in 90 seconds" shows is that this is a volatile region, as most regions are. Correcting historical conquests and other changes in the name of "justice" or "legal claims" is often futile and ignores history. Claims to a particular piece of land might go back generations or even millennia. Arabs and Israelis dispute the rightful ownership of Jerusalem, for example, but that piece of land has been "owned" by a dozen or so conquerors over the course of history. Which claim is valid? The oldest, the least disputed, the most morally substantive, the most recent? Few nations have undisputed historical claims to their lands. We are frequently reminded that the United States was formed from territory conquered from native Americans, but those indigenous people were not a homogeneous group. The different tribes sometimes fought over disputed territory. And let's not forget the Vikings and others who have claimed to have settled in North America before 1492. So whose claim is valid?

Nearly all ethnic groups were, at one time or another, subjugated by other groups. When Congress was debating an apology for American slavery, a letter-to-the-editor writer volunteered to make that apology if someone would apologize to him for his American ancestors who came here as indentured servants and for his Irish ancestors who were subjugated and enslaved by the British and for his Anglo-Saxon ancestors who were butchered by Vikings and conquered by Normans and for his Norman ancestors who were conquered and enslaved by the Romans and for his Roman ancestors who were slain by the Goths, Visigoths and others. ... You get the picture.

It is essential that we know history — a subject that is too often shortchanged by modern education and modern politicians — but it's dangerous, as Woodrow Wilson found out as he designed new nations following World War I, to try to "correct" history.