The great Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote: Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. “Not to know what happened before you were born, that is to be always a boy, to be forever a child.” In a sense, historical understanding — knowledge of what happened before you were born — is primary to all realms of knowledge. Science is the study of the great discoveries of the past in our knowledge of the natura…
