Going Down in History

It was Edward Gibbon – himself one of the world’s great historians – who said that History was little more than a record of “the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.” I don’t know about crimes, but you might put my own academic career, which included two degrees in History, among my personal follies and misfortunes, if not outright failures.

Failure itself has indeed lately become a hot topic – almost what you might call a buzz-word. People bandy such slogans as “Dream big, and dare to fail.” There is even a “Museum of Failure.” But one of my own epigrams on the subject finds no inspiration in it:

“WE CAN ALL LEARN FROM OUR FAILURES –
What I’ve learned is how much it hurts to fail.”

My own fizzle as a historian, however, seems particularly regrettable, because one of the few really good teachers I ever had, taught History at the school I attended in London. I liked the way he related the past to present events. I remember him saying that, just as Napoleon had dismissed generals for insubordination, he would not be surprised if Truman (in what was just then a crucial stage of the Korean War) dismissed MacArthur for publicly criticizing Truman’s policies. Sure enough, a few days later, that’s exactly what happened!

That got me enthused about History.

But one of the many times when I learned about failure occurred during an early part of my college career – though it was foreshadowed long before: I will never forget how to spell SEPARATE, because getting it wrong on one occasion in grade school knocked me out of a spelling bee. When I put an E in the middle, instead of an A, the teacher said, “Remember, there is A RAT in SEP-A-RATE,” and that nasty RAT has stayed in my mind ever since.

But it took a much more embarrassing mistake some years later to impress another fact indelibly upon me – this time, a piece of history. It happened on January 18, 1955, when I was in my final year as a student at the University of London, where I was actually specializing in History. On that night, I was in the London studio audience of a big Radio Luxembourg quiz program called “Double Your Money.” Unlike the B.B.C., Radio Luxembourg, a commercial enterprise, was able to award large cash prizes. On this particular show, you could win over three hundred pounds. To me, that was a fortune – more than twice as much as my government grant for the whole year.

The quiz contestants were selected beforehand from the studio audience, by answering preliminary “test” questions. When the category of History was announced, I put up my hand, and felt very excited when I was actually chosen to be given a chance. In order to get on the program, I only had to answer one question, which was:

Which King of England Had the Longest Reign?

This question was more tricky than it appeared. If it had asked, which English MONARCH had the longest reign? – that would have been easy. Everybody knew (or at least would have guessed, and been right) that it was Queen Victoria, who was Queen for 64 years (1837-1901). But which KING? That was much less on the tip of anybody’s tongue, especially mine just then.

Feeling sickeningly uncertain, I said Henry the Third. It was not a bad guess, since he did reign for fifty-six years (1216-1272). But I was wrong, wrong, WRONG – and all my dreams of dazzling wealth departed. The correct answer was George the Third, who theoretically reigned for sixty years (1760-1820). True, he was totally mad for the last nine of those years, and his son, who eventually became George the Fourth, had to be officially installed as Prince Regent in 1811. But I was too crushed even to think of appealing on this technicality.

So, I did not even get on the program. As it turned out, if I had, I would definitely have won the three hundred pounds, for I knew the answers to every one of the other History questions they asked. Fame and fortune would have been mine that night, if only mad old George the Third had not hung on for such a damnably long time. I can’t forgive him for that – but I also can’t forget him. (You would think he had already done enough harm by causing the American colonies to separate – A RAT indeed!)