What is History? History is very interesting as we get to learn about our past and events that happened that have made our nation what it is today. We get to learn about tragedies, happy times and things that made our country a better place, like women finally getting the right to vote. It is articles, artifacts and research that can inform us about the past in ways to help us change the future and make the world a better place. I think there isn’t per say a way to “do” history, but it certainly makes us think and read and be more open to different thoughts and understandings. These were my thoughts and reflections when I first started History 1120 in September 2018, and these reflections are basically how I still feel at the end of the course. However, the course made me more aware of details of historic events and actions. For example, when I read about The Filles de Roi, I learned just how much impact the Church had in peoples’s daily lives and what a powerful impact the Church had helping the King of France to create new settlements in New France and creating a new colony for France. When I went to Ukraine in 2006, I saw how important the Church was to a village. The church in the village where I stayed was over 400 years old. It even had bullet holes from the second world war when the Russian army soldiers attacked the village and wanted to destroy the church, but the villagers all grabbed a shovel, an ax, a hoe, anything and they all stood in front of this church to protect it from the soldiers demolishing it. Inside it was elaborate and beautiful. This shows how the people embrace religion and how they put what little money they had into the church. When you drive along the highway and pass villages, you can see how each village has the church standing out from everything else. Since that year, the village people have built a new huge stone church and the 400 year old one still stands as a museum in the village and a reminder of how much religion is important to the people and the culture.
