Category Archives: History

By The Associated Press

Todays Highlight in History:

On Dec. 19, 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached by the Republican-controlled House for perjury and obstruction of justice. (Clinton was subsequently acquitted by the Senate.)

On this date:

In 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington led his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to camp for the winter.

In 1813, British forces captured Fort Niagara during the War of 1812.

In 1907, 239 workers died in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.

In 1946, war broke out in Indochina as troops under Ho Chi Minh launched widespread attacks against the French.

In 1950, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was named commander of the military forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

In 1960, fire broke out on the hangar deck of the nearly completed aircraft carrier USS Constellation at the New York Naval Shipyard; 50 civilian workers were killed.

In 1972, Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, winding up the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.

In 1974, Nelson A. Rockefeller was sworn in as the 41st vice president of the United States in the U.S. Senate chamber by Chief Justice Warren Burger with President Gerald R. Ford looking on.

In 1997, Director James Camerons epic drama Titanic, the story of the real-life luxury ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage in 1912, resulting in the deaths of more than 1,500 passengers and crew, opens in theaters,

In 2001, the fires that had burned beneath the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York City for the previous three months were declared extinguished except for a few scattered hot spots.

In 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared Iraq in material breach of a U.N. disarmament resolution.

In 2003, design plans were unveiled for the signature skyscraper a 1,776-foot glass tower at the site of the World Trade Center in New York City.

In 2008, citing imminent danger to the national economy, President George W. Bush ordered an emergency bailout of the U.S. auto industry.

Ten years ago: North Korea announced the death two days earlier of leader Kim Jong Il; North Koreans marched by the thousands to mourn their Dear Leader while state media proclaimed his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, a Great Successor. Paroled American Lori Berenson, who had stirred international controversy after being convicted of aiding Peruvian guerrillas, left Lima on a flight to the United States for her first visit back home since her arrest in 1995.

Five years ago: A truck rammed into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin, killing 12 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State. (The suspected attacker was killed in a police shootout four days later.) A Turkish policeman fatally shot Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov at a photo exhibit in Ankara. (The assailant was later killed in a police shootout.)

One year ago: Contradicting his secretary of state and other top officials, President Donald Trump suggested without evidence that China not Russia might have been behind a cyberespionage operation against the United States government; Trump also tried to downplay its impact. Millions of people in England learned they would have to cancel their Christmas get-togethers and holiday shopping trips; British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said holiday gatherings could not go ahead and non-essential shops would have to close in London and much of southern England as part of a higher level of coronavirus restrictions.

Todays Birthdays: Actor Elaine Joyce is 78. Actor Tim Reid is 77. Paleontologist Richard E. Leakey is 77. Musician John McEuen is 76.

Singer Janie Fricke is 74. Jazz musician Lenny White is 72. Actor Mike Lookinland is 61. Actor Scott Cohen is 60. Actor Jennifer Beals is 58. Actor Robert MacNaughton is 55. Magician Criss Angel is 54. Rock musician Klaus Eichstadt (Ugly Kid Joe) is 54. Actor Ken Marino is 53. Actor Elvis Nolasco is 53. Actor Derek Webster is 53. Actor Kristy Swanson is 52. Model Tyson Beckford is 51. Actor Amy Locane is 50. Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Sapp is 49. Actor Rosa Blasi is 49. Actor Alyssa Milano is 49. Actor Tara Summers is 42. Actor Jake Gyllenhaal (JIH-lihn-hahl) is 41. Actor Marla Sokoloff is 41. Rapper Lady Sovereign is 36. Journalist Ronan Farrow is 34. Actor Nik Dodani is 28.

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Today in History: Today is Sunday, Dec. 19, the 353rd day of 2021. - wausaupilotandreview.com

OMAHA, Neb. Villanova has provided many historical moments in local and national college basketball history during Jay Wrights tenure national championships in 2016 and 2018, a Final Four in 2009, a 24-game winning streak in Big 5 play and a streak of 189 games without back-to-back losses over a period of five-plus seasons.

The Wildcats made history in the last week as well, but not of the good kind, in defeats of 57-36 on Dec. 12 at No. 1 Baylor and 79-59 Friday night at unranked Creighton.

It marked the first back-to-back losses of 20-or-more points in the 690-game Wright era on the Main Line. There have been other recent lopsided defeats Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor in 2015, Michigan at Finneran Pavilion in 2018, Purdue in the NCAA Tournament in 2019 but nothing in the span of six days like this.

For the first time since the reorganization of the Big East in 2013-14, Villanova (7-4, 0-1 Big East) stands below .500 while losing a conference opener for the first time. Its No. 9 ranking is expected to plummet after the Wildcats initial loss of the season to an unranked team.

The Wildcats have been in a horrific shooting slump over the past three games, counting their 67-53 win over Syracuse in the Jimmy V Classic on Dec. 7 at Madison Square Garden. They are shooting 29.9% overall during the istretch, including 23% from three-point range. After hitting 3 of their first 5 threes in the first 12 minutes against Creighton, they went 1-of-19 the rest of the way.

Wright notes that his teams offensive flow has been missing, as evidenced by the nine assists the Cats have handed out in the last two games, including a season-low four Friday night.

Were struggling, he said after the game. Were just trying to do it on our own, not selfishly, just trying to get us going. Every guy, individually is trying to get us going and were losing our rhythm offensively. Weve got to learn from this and weve got to get our offensive rhythm back.

Another issue is getting guards Collin Gillespie and Justin Moore to be playing their best at the same time. After being limited to seven shots and six points against Baylor, Gillespie (16.2-point average entering the game) came out more aggressively against Creighton and scored 16 points but made just one three-ball in eight tries and 6 of 17 overall.

Moore (15.6 points per game), who led the Wildcats with 15 at Baylor, went only 3-of -10 for six points Friday night while sporting zeroes in the stat columns marked three-point baskets made, rebounds, and assists.

In their four losses, Villanova has shown an inability to finish. They gave up leads of 10 points against UCLA and 11 points against Purdue, both midway through the second half, and were outscored, 36-17, by the Bruins and 24-5 by the Boilermakers down the stretch.

The Cats reduced their deficit to nine against Baylor in the second half but managed just one field goal in the next 8 minutes, 51 seconds. They appeared to be gaining the momentum against Creighton after cutting a 12-point lead to two, 56-54, with 8:38 left, but missed their final 12 shots.

If theres one thing the three-game stretch has shown, its that the Wildcats could use a rim protector like the ones theyve seen 6-foot-11 Jesse Edwards of Syracuse, 6-10 Flo Thamba of Baylor, and 7-1 Ryan Kalkbrenner of Creighton, who had five blocked shots and altered at least that many more.

With Villanova playing one of its worst defensive games of the season, the Bluejays took plenty of liberties going to the basket against 6-7 Jermaine Samuels and 6-8 Eric Dixon and finished with 42 points in the paint. After the Cats cut the deficit to two, Creightons next five field goals were layups.

That definitely was not one of our best defensive efforts, Wright said. Youve got to give them credit. Theyre always a tough team to guard. I love how they play. The guys with the ball are unselfish. The guys without the ball cut real hard and help out their teammates. Weve done a good job sometimes. We did not do a good job tonight.

In addition, the Wildcats dropped to 0-4 when outrebounded, losing the battle, 41-29, to the Bluejays.

Theres plenty of season left and the Wildcats play only twice the rest of this calendar year at home Dec. 21 against Xavier and Dec. 29 versus Temple. But they need to get back to playing their brand of basketball unselfish and confident in their shooting to keep pace in a wide-open Big East.

Original post:

Villanova made some bad history during the past week with a pair of 20-point road losses - The Philadelphia Inquirer

In November 1960, about a month before Christmas, The Los Angeles Times reported what was then described as a rising trend. "From coast to coast, cooks are trading cookies and recipes to make gift boxes for Christmas," the article read. "It provides a glamorous array of cookies for gifting, plus a hatful of leisure hours to enjoy in the last mad holiday rush."

The piece introduced readers to Mrs. Robert Blanch of Minneapolis, who at that point had been hosting baking swaps for her bridge club for three years. After a particularly successful party, in which eight guests each brought a dozen homemade cookies, "it was decided then to make the Christmas Cookie Swap an annual event."

Unlike other 60s entertaining trends such asconversation pits and aspics the cookie swap party never died down. For many, it's now a time-honored tradition shared with family and friends. For others, it's a sort of competitive culinary sport that includes makingspreadsheets and asking Google, "How do Iimpress at a cookie exchange?"(Answer: Try these sprinkled and spiked butter cookies.)

But how did the concept of ringing in the holidays with intricately decorated sweets come to be? Like most traditions now associated with Christmas, it's partially borrowed from winter solstice festivals. During these celebrations, Ancient Germanic people would feast as a way of both celebrating the "Earth's rebirth" and fortifying for the cold months ahead. To make the most of the darkest day of the year, celebrants would eat a hearty spread of roast meats including a Yule pig, which likely gave rise to the now-traditional Christmas ham and spiced wassail. Simple sweetslike fried honey cakeswere likely served, as well.

By the mid-15th century, however, religious Christmas celebrations increasingly began to dovetail with the solstice festivals. At the same time, spices became more readily available in Europe due to the spice trade and associated colonization. Ingredients like anise, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, mace, nutmeg andsaffronwere all prized as status symbols (so much so that the household of Humphrey Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, reportedly went through two pounds of pepper and ginger per day). This led to families purchasing spices and storing them for use during the holiday season.

This was true, as well, for other pricy indulgenceslike butter, sugar and dried fruits,such asapricots and dates. From these ingredients, you start to see the general outline of cookies served in Christmas tins today, including tender butter cookies, cranberry-date bars and gingerbread. These traditions began to solidify through the ensuing centuries. The Germans developed weihnachtspltzchen an umbrella term for a variety of Christmas cookies, such aslebkuchen, zimtsterne, Schwarz-Wei-Gebck shortbreads and the intricate springerle.

RELATED: Cookies make the best holiday gifts: Here are a top pastry chef's tips for shipping your baked goods

In the early 17th century, European settlers brought Christmas cookies (or "koeptje," as the Dutch would have said) to the New World. The cycle of have-and-have-nots started all over again when it came to affording spices, baking ingredients and dried fruit.

By the 1870s, the tide began to turn.According to author William Woys Weaver, who wrote the 1990 book "The Christmas Cook: Three Centuries of American Yuletide Sweets," there was a flood of cheap imported wares from Germany between 1871 and 1906 when import laws were changed.

"[This] inundated our Christmas markets with cooking utensils . . . like cookie cutters," he wrote. "Unlike homemade counterpartsor local tinsmith's wares, these tools depicted highly stylized images, often drawn from secular themes or with subject's designed specifically to hang on the Christmas trees."

Want more great food writing and recipes? Subscribe to Salon Food's newsletter.

Soon, there was a rise in cookbooks that met the increased demand to actually make items using these tools.

"In a sense, with the advent of inexpensive tin cutters, new emphasis was placed on shape, where in the past, many homemade cookies simply had been square or round," Weaver wrote. "Bells, Christmas trees, camels, crimped wares, lilies, Santa Clauses, turkeys, all of these elaborate shapes tended to deemphasize texture and flavor."

It's at this point in the history of the Christmas cookie that one begins to see the opportunity for the assortment present at modern day cookie swaps. There are the cookies that cut well and stand up to decoration (but aren't necessarily the most flavorful), and then there are the varieties that are absolutely delectablebut don't belong anywhere near a cookie cutter.

Within these loose categories, there has been a lot of room for variety, ranging from regional delicacieslike Baltimore Berger Cookies to New Mexican Biscochitosto recipes built from newer ingredients, such as M&Ms or peanut butter. It's a culinary space that's long been simultaneously defined by reverence for tradition and a desire for little innovations, meaning there's still plenty of space for you to make your mark on this year's cookie swap.

More Christmas cookie stories:

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A brief history of the Christmas cookie - Salon

If you use Microsoft Edge on Windows or Mac, its easy to view and clear your download history with just a few clicks, which can help maintain your privacy. Heres how to do it.

First, open Edge. In any Edge window, press Ctrl+J on your keyboard. Or you can click the menu button (three dots) in the upper-right corner and select Downloads.

Your download history will pop up in a special menu that extends from an area beside the address bar. Using this menu, you can see the status of downloads in progress, view a record of completed downloads, open your downloads folder, search downloads, and more.

To remove a single file from the Downloads list in Edge, hover over the entry in the list until you see icons appear beside it. (If the file you want to remove isnt in view, click See more at the bottom of the menu.) Click the trash can icon beside the file you want to remove from the list.

If youd like to clear your entire Edge download history, open the Downloads list (press Ctrl+J), then click the three dots button in the Downloads list. In the menu that pops up, click Clear all download history.

Click Remove All in the warning pop-up to confirm, and your download history will be wiped.

Its important to note that Edges InPrivate browsing mode wont automatically clear your download history, so youll need to clear it manually from time to time to maintain your local privacy. Stay safe out there!

RELATED: Where Are My Downloads on Windows?

Read more:

How to View and Clear Download History in Microsoft Edge - How-To Geek

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indianapolis Colts host the New England Patriots Saturday (8:15 ET, NFL Network) at Lucas Oil Stadium. The last time the Patriots visited the Colts it was another prime-time game on Oct. 18, 2015. It was hyped up as a rematch of the previous seasons AFC Championship game that the Patriots won 45-7. It was also the first meeting since Deflategate, when the Colts accused New England of lowering the air pressure of footballs in the AFC Championship game.

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By the time that game ended some six years ago, the Patriots left Lucas Oil Stadium 34-27 winners.

But the final score wasnt what everybody was talking about moments after the game or even years after it.

It was the play.

The play some call the worst fake punt attempt in NFL history.

The play that left some still wondering why they even attempted it.

Well always look back and shake our heads at that play, former Colts long snapper Matt Overton said.

The Colts, down 27-21 in the third quarter, had the ball fourth-and-3 at their own 37-yard line. They lined up in their normal punt formation before nine of the 11 players (including punter Pat McAfee) ran outside of the numbers, near the Colts' sideline, to try to get the Patriots to think they were running the offense back on the field to go for it.

Wide receiver Griff Whalen ran from the far side of the field and became the center with safety Colt Anderson lined up under center.

Matt Hasselbeck, former Colts quarterback: "We all went to the special teams meeting, so we all understood what the plan was. Trying to steal a possession. So instead of punting, trying to get a first down. Catch them with 12 guys on the field. Get them to waste a timeout. If we snap the ball and take a knee, they have 12 on the field, we get five yards and a first down. We werent trying to pull an Aaron Rodgers of snapping it and throw it deep where whatever happens, happens."

Chuck Pagano, former Colts coach (from 2015): "The whole idea there was on fourth-and-3 or less, we shift to an alignment to where we could catch them misaligned. They tried to sub some people in. Catch them with more men on the field -- 12 men on the field. And if you get a certain look, you have 3 [or] 2 yards to make a play. We shifted over and I didn't do a good enough job coaching it during the week."

It turns out the Colts did snap the ball, which was supposed to happen only if the Patriots tried to substitute -- but New England didnt sub. In fact, the Patriots didnt fall for the play. Whalen snapped the ball to Anderson, who was immediately tackled for a loss.

Collinsworth: "Uh-oh."

Michaels: "Yeah. Now we've got ... on a fourth down and 3 ... you got Griff Whalen ready to take the snap.

"He'll snap it. Actually, Colt Anderson is behind him."

Collinsworth: "What. The. Heck?"

Michaels: "And ... w-what in the world? Flag is down. You tell me."

Collinsworth: "I thought maybe they were trying to get them to jump offsides? ... Theres absolutely no way possible that they should have snapped that ball and tried to sneak it That was insane. A guy on either side of them. What are you doing here? Dont even try to run the play. Weve seen a lot of bizarre stuff. Ive never seen anything more bizarre than that. What was the plan?

Michaels: "I dont know. Completely nuts."

Referee Tony Corrente: "Illegal formation. The whole right side of the line was not on the line of scrimmage. Offense. This penalty is declined. The result of the play is first down for New England."

DQwell Jackson, former Colts linebacker: "My reaction was, What the hell are we doing? I was clueless and confused as everyone that wasnt a part of that play. I had no idea. ...

"At that moment, it was either way in that game. When we had that momentum, that was a sudden change that I had never been a part of, playing in little league, high school, college and the pros. I had never seen that before. Just an epic failure on our part of not executing what we were trying to do."

Pat McAfee, former Colts punter (on Pat McAfee Show, 2019): "It was the perfect situation. We had practiced it all week. The offense comes off the field and wait very visibly on the sideline. The object was the punt team goes on the field, makes it look like were punting, and then all at once everyone sprints and makes it look like were going off the field to bring the offense back on the field. In turn trying to Patriots the Patriots ...

"The left gunner, the person who was supposed to snap the ball (Clayton Geathers), got sick or something [Geathers left with a knee injury]. No worries, lets keep this incredible strategy because we have a guy named Griff Whalen, who is a Stanford guy Griff Whalen was our ultimate utility guy you can trust.

"So, unbeknownst to Griff Whalen, while Colt Anderson was jogging on the field, a coach says to him, If theyre not in the sub thing, since were taking a penalty anyways, try to draw them offsides. That message was not relayed to Griff Whalen, who was reading the playbook and was told if somebody gets under center, snap the ball.

"So once Colt Anderson sees theyre not subbing -- they actually covered it perfectly because they are the New England Patriots -- he tries to draw them offsides. Then out of nowhere, something none of us thought was going to happen, the unfathomable, the worst play in football happens at that moment, and its as easy as two miscommunications there. Easy as the gunner getting sick the day before."

Matt Overton, former Colts long snapper: "Honestly, I got a lot of questions from people asking why I snapped the ball, because they thought I was doing it. Players and coaches asking why I snapped the ball goes to show how chaotic it was and we were not on the same page. Became one of those plays that became a disaster for us in a game that was really close. We gave them a short field, [they] scored on that drive. Huge momentum swing."

Darius Butler, former Colts defensive back: "Coming from New England and knowing how much they harp about going over situational football. They have hybrid-type teams on defense, where they can handle defense or special teams. The Patriots are the best at that. If theres one team you wouldnt catch in a substitute error or with their pants down, it would be the Patriots."

Pagano (after the game): "We shifted over, and I didn't do a good enough job coaching it during the week. Alignment wise, we weren't lined up correctly, and we had a communication breakdown between the quarterback and snapper. That's on me."

Patriots coach Bill Belichick (after the game): "We expected this to be a gadget game in the kicking game -- the onside kick, some kind of fake, fake punt, fake field goal. We didn't know what the play was going to be, obviously, but they went on the swinging-gate-type play, and we went over to the overshift and made sure we covered the inside part and we reacted well to it. So it was a heads up play by our punt return unit."

The Patriots are usually one of the most prepared teams in the NFL, which is why theyve won six Super Bowls under Belichick. The odds of the Colts catching them off guard were not very high. The Patriots took advantage of the short field to score a touchdown six plays later to take a 34-21 lead.

McAfee (on Pat McAfee Show, 2019): "They covered it perfectly because they are the New England Patriots Im even as befuddled as everybody else because, unlike Colt Anderson, none us were told the hard count was coming. Whenever youre trying to out Patriot the Patriots, if that play works, we're talking about it on a complete other side: Remember that one time the Colts outsmarted the New England Patriots?

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"But instead, the complete opposite has happened, it is known as the worst football play in history. My guy Griff Whalen is now known as the worst center in NFL history. Colt Anderson has one quarterback snap and its 3-yard loss Im waiting every single week for some buffoon to draw up a worse play so we dont have to get referenced."

Butler: "It was utter shock that they snapped the ball. Going into that week, I already had a bad feeling about it. Thats part of the reason that a lot of teams lose to the Patriots, because Belichick, he kinds of mind f---s you. You start to over prepare and start doing things out of your character and things like that. You cant out slick the slickster.

"I had a bad feeling from the jump. Theyre not going to make a lot of mistakes It went wrong, and Chuck stood up there and took accountability for it like a good leader would. It was on Chuck to give the green light to go for it, but its on the players to execute it."

Hasselbeck: "Count me as one in favor of it when we were in the meeting, and how we're going to do it and get the possession with 12 men on the field. Theres really no risk here. The one scenario that didnt feel like would happen was we snap the ball and take a knee.

"Really, really good idea with a terrible, terrible execution. Looking back, you can see why it happened. It was a bad look."

Jackson: "I was so pissed that we had played such a good football game in every phase. Just one silly play cost us the game. It was embarrassing for everyone to be a part of that. I just dont understand why the hell he snapped the ball. I couldnt talk to my phone for like an hour after the game. I was so pissed. Took me to have a drink and decompress."

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Worst fake punt in NFL history? Relive it with Indianapolis Colts who were there - Indianapolis Colts Blog- ESPN - ESPN

Miss Alaska Emma Broyles, center, reacts after being crowned Miss America. Jessica Hill/AP hide caption

Miss Alaska Emma Broyles, center, reacts after being crowned Miss America.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska The newly crowned Miss America has made history, becoming both the first Korean American and the first Alaskan to hold the title in the competition's 100-year history.

"I never could have imagined in a million years that I would be Miss America, let alone that I would be Miss Alaska," a beaming Emma Broyles told The Associated Press on Friday in a Zoom call from Connecticut, where she won the competition about 12 hours earlier.

In fact, she was sure they had it wrong. The final two contestants were Broyles and Lauren Bradford, Miss Alabama, and Broyles said she was thinking Bradford was going to make an amazing Miss America.

"And then they said Alaska, and I said, 'No way. Are you sure? Do you want to check that card again?' " she said before the emotion overtook her and she began crying tears of joy.

"I could not believe it," Broyles said. "I am so, so grateful to everybody back at home who's been supporting me for so long, and I'm so glad that I'm able to bring home the title of Miss America to the state of Alaska for the first time in history."

The very first Miss America program began in 1921 as a beauty pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey. However, Broyles is only the 94th Miss America.

The pageant, which has evolved away from the emphasis on looks to focusing on leadership, talent and communication skills, was not held last year because of the pandemic and it wasn't held for several years in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Broyles, 20, said her grandparents immigrated from Korea to Anchorage about 50 years ago, before her mother was born.

"Although my mom is full Korean, she was born and raised right in Anchorage, Alaska," Broyles said.

The Miss America Organization "believes Emma is the first Korean-American to win the crown," spokesperson Matt Ciesluk said in a text message to the AP.

Her mother is a special education teacher at Service High School in Anchorage, the same school Broyles attended.

Miss Alaska Emma Broyles, says she was shocked to hear her name announced as the winner of the Miss America competition. At right is the runner-up, Miss Alabama Lauren Bradford. Jessica Hill/AP hide caption

Miss Alaska Emma Broyles, says she was shocked to hear her name announced as the winner of the Miss America competition. At right is the runner-up, Miss Alabama Lauren Bradford.

Broyles has chosen the Special Olympics for her social impact initiative. Besides her mother's position, her older brother, Brendan, has Down syndrome and competes in athletic events with Special Olympics Alaska.

"I've seen firsthand the impact that Special Olympics has on the families of people with intellectual disabilities. And I know how important Special Olympics is to our community here in Anchorage and here in Alaska, as well as the communities all over the country and all over the world," she said.

Broyles said she looks forward to working with Special Olympics to promote inclusion, compassion and open-mindedness through sports.

"Getting to have this platform to speak about why inclusion is important during a time like this when our country is so divided, and to speak about why it's important to be compassionate, why it's important to be empathetic, why it's important to keep an open mind and to be willing to listen to those who aren't like you or maybe have different opinions than you, I think that this is a time where we need that more than ever," she said.

Broyles winning the Miss America title wasn't the first barrier broken by an Alaska woman this year. Last summer, teenager Lydia Jacoby of Seward, Alaska, came from out of nowhere to win the women's 100-meter breaststroke at the Tokyo Olympic Games. She became the first Alaskan to ever qualify for the Olympics in swimming, let alone win gold.

"I think it's incredibly cool that Alaskan women are representing Alaska, representing our home state so well and getting the recognition I think we deserve," Broyles said.

Along with her title, Broyles earned just over $100,000 in college scholarships, which she calls a "life changing amount of money."

She's currently a junior at Arizona State University studying biomedical sciences and voice performance and said the scholarship money will allow her to attend medical school.

But for the next year, she will travel about 20,000 miles (32,187 kilometers) every month serving as a role model and advocate for young women, the Miss America Organization said in a statement.

Broyles' future plans include becoming a dermatologist and returning to Alaska to practice her profession.

"There's just something special about Anchorage, which is why I know that I want to spend the rest of my life in Anchorage, even despite this little hiatus I'm taking," she said.

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Miss America makes history, as a Korean American from Alaska wins the title - NPR

The latest developments around Covid could very well kill the return-to-office date as we know it, business and health experts say.

"These RTO dates are now history," Nick Bloom, a Stanford Graduate School of Business professor who researches remote work, tells CNBC Make It. "Everything is completely off."

Covid-19 caseloads are rising again throughout the country. Meanwhile, research about the new omicron variant indicates it's highly contagious and a cause for concern. Health experts warn that rising caseloads, coupled with holiday travel plans, will likely lead to a surge in cases in the coming weeks that will overwhelm hospital systems.

Given how fast the state of the virus is changing, Bloom says any workplace reopening update "less than a week old is outdated. The whole concept of return-to-office dates doesn't make much sense."

He says many firms are now pulling out of the idea of setting a new return-to-office date altogether, as Google did when it delayed its office re-openings previously set for January. Lyft, an outlier, announced it will not require people to return in-person until 2023.

But for most employers, Bloom says CEOs should scrap any plans to bring workers back to offices in January and communicate that they'll revisit the idea mid-month after the holiday travel season. From there, if low Covid caseloads and rates of transmission permit it, they might consider reopening in early February with an optional return, and scale up to a full return through the end of March.

Some workers will need a longer lead time to plan their return, such as parents in charge of school or caregiving responsibilities, and people who've moved away but plan to return.

An extended return timeline has another benefit: Employers planning to issue a vaccination requirement must give employees enough time to get vaccinated, says Dr. Perry Halkitis, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health. Even those who have received their full dose may have trouble scheduling a booster shot, which is now recommended as a means of slowing the spread of the Covid variants.

"I'm a firm believer that we should not be allowing people who are unvaccinated to enter public spaces, including the workplace," Halkitis says. "If I'm going into an office, I want to go to to an office where I know people must be vaccinated."

Businesses must also be flexible and consider workers who have children in schools and day cares, where outbreaks can lead to caregiving challenges, and those who have kids under 5 who are too young to be vaccinated.

Rather than rush to set a new return date, leaders should be using this period of uncertainty to set expectations, says Kate Bullinger, CEO of the management consultancy United Minds, whichadvises Fortune 500 clients on organizational change. "It's impossible to predict what the winter will bring," she says. Instead, she advises leaders commit to continually assessing the situation, health guidelines and employee sentiment, using all three to communicate any updates on a return timeline.

From a human behavior standpoint, Halkitis adds employers should take time granted with new return-to-office delays to make sure they're considering not just when, but also how, workers want to return, especially regarding how much time they'll be expected in-person versus when they can work from home.

A trickier question is what firms should do if they've already welcomed people back in-person for months. Bloom recommends employers send workers back home for the holidays around the weeks of Christmas and the New Year, if they haven't already, to slow the spread and concerns of the virus.

CEOs may be reticent to pull back on plans or project an air of uncertainty, Bloom says. But refusing to give space to the virus's spread and people's concerns could do more harm than good. "They say the hardest three words for a CEO to say are 'I don't know,'" Bloom says, "but those have to be used, because you're dealing with adults who have their own information."

"We saw what happened when leaders projected false confidence in May or June 2020," Bloom says, "but we've all learned the best policy is just being honest with employees."

Check out:

Omicron Covid variant: Is it safe to return to the office in-person?

How the omicron variant could impact return-to-office plans

For many workers, the return to offices has become The Great Wait. Its costing employers millions

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The return-to-office date is 'history,' business and health experts say - CNBC

Hades has become the only video game to ever win a Hugo Award in recognition of "excellence" in the sci-fi and/or fantasy genre.

As described by the awards' own website, The Hugo Awards were first awarded in 1953, and have been awarded by the World Science Fiction Convention every year since 1955, run by and voted on by fans. 2021 marks the first year ever that video games have been considered, albeit via a "one-off" category set just for this year, with possible plans to eventually introduce a permanent category.

Hades was shortlisted alongside The Last of Us 2, Spiritfarer, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Blaseball.

Supergiant Games' creative director and writer Greg Kasavin was unable to attend the show in person, but shared a wonderful acceptance speech via his Twitter account.

"Wish I could have attended the Hugo Awards in person," Kasavin tweeted (thanks, NME). "I wasn't able to make an acceptance speech there on behalf of the team though did have a few words here. I'm grateful that the awards are recognizing work in this category, much less the work we did!"

"Since early 2020, many of us have spent more time gaming than we ever expected," Hugo Awards co-chair Colette Fozard explained. "This award will offer fans an opportunity to celebrate the games that have been meaningful, joyful, and exceptional over this past year."

ICYMI, Hades is now the highest-rated game available to play on Xbox Series X and PS5 consoles even though it was only released on those consoles in August. It shot to the top of the best-ranked charts for both next-gen consoles on Metacritic, standing at 93 on both Xbox Series X and PS5.

At the time of writing, in PS5's case, Hades sits just one point above its nearest rival Demon's Souls, which ranks 92/100 and three above Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, which scores an aggregate rank of 90. For Xbox Series X, it sneaks in one point above Forza Horizon 5, which stands at 92, and Microsoft Flight Simulator's 90 by 4 points.

Been intrigued by Hades but reluctant to jump in? Read why Heather says Hades has completely changed her perspective on dungeon crawlers and roguelikes.

Read these Hades tips and tricks to maximize your odds in the Underworld.

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Hades makes video game history and is the first game to ever win a Hugo Award - Gamesradar

As the MLB lockout continues and trades arent able to be made, lets take look back at a trade between the Brewers and Royals that occurred 11 years ago today, December 19th, 2010.

Of course I am referencing to the trade that sentRHP Zack Greinke and SSYuniesky Betancourt to the Brewers. In exchange, the Royals receivedOFLorenzo Cain, SSAlcides Escobar, RHPJeremy Jeffress,and RHP Jake Odorizzi.

For the Brewers, it was a win now move from GM Doug Melvin in what turned out to be an incredible 2011 season. The Crew ended up setting a franchise record in wins (96) and won the division. In the playoffs, a walk-off hit propelled them out of the divisional round and into the NLCS. They eventually fell two games short of a World Series appearance.

Greinke made 28 starts for the Brewers in 2011 and struck out over 200 batters. He pitched alongside Yovani Gallardo and Shaun Marcum, who made a great trio atop the starting rotation. Betancourt was a fun player to watch, but ultimately was not all that reliable defensively.

As for the Royals, Cain and Escobar ended up being core players during their stretch of back to back World Series appearances in 2014 and 2015. Jeffress ended up making 27 appearances as a Royal before being traded to the Blue Jays in 2012. Odorizzi was also traded in 2012 and was a key piece in the James Shields deal that sent him and Wade Davis to the Royals from the Rays.

For Jeffress, he actually had multiple stints back with the Crew. He initially signed a minor league deal in 2014 and was traded with Jonathan Lucroy in 2016 to the Rangers in exchange forCF Lewis Brinson, RHP Luis Ortiz and Player To Be Named Later. A year later, he was traded back to the Brewers where he remained with the team until the conclusion of the 2019 season. In 2018, he recorded 15 saves and pitched to a 1.29 ERA.

Cain signed with the Brewers as a free agent prior to the start of the 2018 season. In surprising fashion, David Stearns also acquired Christian Yelich via trade on that same day. Both Cain and Yelich performed exceptionally well that first year with Cain serving as the table setter for the MVP Yelich in the lineup.

Unfortunately, that 2018 team ended up finishing one game short of a World Series appearance as they lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in game seven of the NLCS. However, the Brewers have made the playoffs every year since then and were division champs again in 2021. As we enter 2022, Cain is in the final year of his contract that he signed back in 2018.

It is really cool to see how the trade in 2011 with the Royals impacted both teams and how prospects given up at that time ended up returning and being big contributors for the Brewers years later.

As the MLB lockout continues, we will continue to take a look back at these historical transactions. Earlier this month we surpassed the 41st anniversary of a historic trade with the Cardinals in which the Brewers acquiredRollie Fingers,Ted Simmons, andPete Vuckovich.

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On This Day In History, Brewers Made A Big Trade With The Royals - Reviewing the Brew

Big History burst on to the scene 30 years ago, promising to reinvigorate a stale and overspecialised academic discipline by situating the human past within a holistic account at a cosmic scale. The goal was to produce a story of life that could be discerned by synthesising cosmology, geology, evolutionary biology, archaeology and anthropology. This universal story, in turn, would provide students with a basic framework for their subsequent studies and for life itself. Big History also promised to fill the existential void left by the ostensible erosion of religious beliefs. Three decades later, its time to take a look at how Big History has fared.

David Christian first made the case for what he called Big History in an article in the Journal of World History in 1991. He based it on an interdisciplinary course that he had been teaching at Macquarie University in Sydney that brought together faculty members from the sciences and the humanities. The idea for the course was to situate human history within a grand historical narrative that stretched backwards in time to the origins of the cosmos in the Big Bang and forwards to include the present and future development of the human species. The course promised to transform the way students were taught history by focusing on the big picture and what united all humans rather than what divided them.

At the time, Christian was reacting to a trend in academic life towards increasing specialisation. This trend played a role in further dividing the two cultures of knowledge represented by the arts and sciences, but also led to divisions within those two cultures as well. Christians discipline of history, for instance, had grown fragmented into geographic and temporal specialisations, while narrow studies of archival sources were preferred to large-scale narratives that were more common earlier in the century. At a time when, in Jean-Franois Lyotards memorable phrase from 1979, an incredulity towards metanarratives represented the eras postmodern condition, Christian headed in the opposite direction.

Christian not only argued that historians should broaden their narratives beyond their narrow specialisations, he also questioned the necessity of focusing solely on the era of history documented by written records. Here he challenged one of the foundational premises of modern historical analysis. Once we accept that history should extend beyond the era of written sources, it opened the possibility to go much further. As Christian explained in his 1991 article:

Three decades later, much of Christians vision has been fulfilled. Big History has become well established. It is now entrenched in Australia where it is taught at several universities, and theres a Big History Institute at Macquarie. It is taught at universities around the world such as at Newcastle University in the UK, Dominican University in California, and the University of Amsterdam, to name just a few. There is an International Big History Association (IBHA) that was founded in 2010, which has organised five conferences since then. And in 2017, the IBHA launched the Journal of Big History, now published three times per year. Several monographs and textbooks have also appeared since the mid-1990s, notably Christians book Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (2004) and Fred Spiers book Big History and the Future of Humanity (2010).

Big History was in fact at the forefront of a broader shift to large-scale, scientific history. A very different attempt to establish large-scale history on a scientific footing was proposed by Peter Turchin, the Russian American evolutionary anthropologist. In Historical Dynamics (2003), Turchin sought to apply the kind of mathematical modelling associated with evolutionary biology to social processes, such as the rise and fall of complex societies. Closer to the Big History formula is the recent work of the medieval historian-turned-public intellectual Yuval Noah Harari. His bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011) reconstructs the story of humanity, beginning with the Big Bang and ending with a lament about how humans have become God-like. A subsequent bestselling work, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2015), speculated about what the future holds, based on the scientific story of life that was presented in Sapiens. The popularity of Hararis works indicates that there is a public appetite for the large-scale, scientific approach to history.

The popular appeal of the basic premise of Big History is also evident in Christians recent book, Origin Story: A Big History of Everything (2018), another New York Times bestseller. Christians TED Talk, which summarises the Big History narrative in a mere 18 minutes, has been viewed well over 12 million times since 2011. Big History has garnered much high-profile attention, attracting the interest of Bill Gates, who initially came across Christians Big History course, available online through the Teaching Companys Great Courses, and recognised its educational potential.

Gates has for many years been trying to reform the education system in the United States, largely by advocating for the Common Core, a set of new standards for mathematics and reading skills that the Gates Foundation funded and then lobbied to be adopted by most states. Big History appealed to Gatess agenda. He thinks it provides just the kind of holistic programme of knowledge that he believed was missing from high-school education. The result was the Big History Project, an online course that provides free resources for those wanting to teach Big History at the middle- and high-school levels across the US. The project says that there are more than 1,000 teachers committed to teaching the curriculum. Big History, it would seem, is very much here to stay.

What accounts for Big Historys attraction for popular audiences and educators? For Christian and other big historians, the answer is built right in to the premise of writing Big History in the first place. By producing an overarching story of life, Big History is meant to fill the void that was left by the processes of secularisation that have dismantled the holistic narratives that were provided by traditional religious systems. According to Christian, secularisation has left people feeling fragmented and searching for some sort of grander vision and meaning of life that they can no longer find in religion. In supporting this view, Christian often refers to the French sociologist mile Durkheim, who in 1893 argued that modern life has engendered a state of anomie, meaning that most individuals find themselves disoriented and uprooted from a deep sense of social belonging. Big History should, therefore, be understood as providing the kind of holistic meaning that used to come from religion. In this way, it is a modern creation myth or an origin story, but one based on science rather than ancient scripture.

The language of religious faith and conversion underpins Big History. As Ive argued elsewhere, the authors of Big History present their discoveries of Big History as clear moments of conversion, when they rather suddenly recognised that they could find the holistic meaning that was missing from their lives in the universal story of life. These personal experiences then get turned into invitations to readers, inviting them to a similar conversion. Christian suggests that Big History is like a myth, because it is meant to provide the kind of deep meaning that is typically associated with religion. But for myths and religion, such deep meaning is conferred only with reference to the transcendent, something that is missing from the Big History narrative. So how is it possible, then, for Big History to be a myth or an origin story without reference to a transcendent? The answer, somewhat oxymoronic, is that science itself provides the mythic meaning of Big History.

Big History proposes eight threshold moments, when profoundly new forms of complexity appear in the past

This notion of science having a mythopoeic function was popularised by the myrmecologist E O Wilson, who, since the 1970s, has advocated for the creation of a grand narrative that would link the evolutionary processes of life with that of human origins and development. His book On Human Nature (1978) argued for the necessity of blending biology with the social sciences to produce a scientific narrative offering the same kind of driving purpose for modern life that traditional myths provided for ancient tribes. Wilson hoped such a narrative, also clear in much of his subsequent work, from The Diversity of Life (1992) to The Meaning of Human Existence (2014), would convince humans to recognise their connection to all things, and therefore their duty to preserve the biosphere. From this perspective, Big History is a version of Wilsons mythopoeic narrative, one whose authority derives from the science that provides the factual basis for the narrative and, ultimately, the meaning of life.

The Big History narrative itself is given shape by the interplay between the forces of entropy and complexity that are represented, respectively, by the second law of thermodynamics and evolution. The second law of thermodynamics postulates that there is a finite amount of energy in the Universe that is slowly dissipating, but evolution shows that there are moments when a particular threshold is reached and overcomes entropy by the creation of new forms of complexity. Big History proposes there are eight threshold moments, when profoundly new forms of complexity appear in the past: (1) the Big Bang; (2) stars and galaxies; (3) new chemical elements; (4) the Earth and solar system; (5) life on Earth; (6) the human species; (7) agriculture; and, our currently proposed geological epoch, (8) the Anthropocene.

These eight threshold moments structure the Big History narrative. What makes these threshold moments scientific, apparently, is that they are all derived from recent advances in relevant areas of science. Second, thanks to the discovery of advanced chronometric techniques such as radiocarbon and genetic dating, it is possible to assign fairly specific dates to these thresholds and establish an accurate and continuous timeline. Each new threshold is not completely disconnected from the previous, however, in the sense that the competing forces of entropy and complexity remain active, represented by the notion of energy flows. Energy flows are a process that connects all things, from the cosmic dust in space to the worms in the ground. This is the specialised architecture and language of Big History. There is also a fair amount of speculation.

Indeed, if we look more closely at Christians Origin Story, we find a decidedly formalised and specialised discourse embedded in a great deal of guesswork. This is because, for all that we appear to know about the deep past based on scientific advancements, there is still much that is unknown and much that is likely unknowable, particularly with regard to the threshold moments themselves.

That we may know less about these threshold moments than Big History acknowledges is evident in the explanation for how they come about. They arise, according to Christian, because of the right combination of Goldilocks conditions, environmental circumstances that come together in just the right sort of way to make sudden new forms of complexity possible. Threshold 2, for instance, which refers to the emergence of stars and galaxies, happened because of the Goldilocks conditions established by a combination of gravity and matter. Each threshold, moreover, takes place when a similar combination of environmental circumstances gives rise to a sudden evolution of complexity, and this is the case whether the threshold is cosmic, geological, biological or historical in nature. This idea helps provide an apparent coherence and unity for Big History. The problem is it reduces the complexities of life, along with our knowledge of them, to a formula derived from a fairy tale.

The Big History approach is particularly unsatisfactory when it comes to humans. Because we are a product of nature and also capable of understanding and shaping natures processes, humans possess a dual aspect that does not easily fit into the Big History framework. The challenge is further complicated by the moralising dimension of Big History that requires the reader to accept a certain amount of responsibility in shaping the future story of life. Yet when humans enter the story in Threshold 6 as a unique species whose linguistic capabilities lead to what Christian calls collective learning (the ability to share knowledge over space and time), humans are presented as largely passive vehicles for the incessant demands of energy flows.

This perspective continues into all the subsequent thresholds. Big History describes the shift from a hunter-gatherer way of life to one of intensive agriculture that is represented by Threshold 7 as the product of three Goldilocks conditions. These are new technologies (and increasing understanding of environments generated through collective learning), increasing population pressure, and the warmer climates of the Holocene epoch. So, what role did humans play in this shift? One wonders. Aside from the new technologies, it seems that developing large-scale farming was largely unavoidable due to an increase in population and warmer climate, a view that ignores findings that show that the transition to agrarian life involved a lengthy and often violent process that some resisted. In other words, a host of contingent factors led to and shaped the advent of agriculture, based on human relationships and power struggles, and they are far more complex than Big Historys deterministic formula suggests.

Humans are passive observers to the major developments of the period we are supposedly shaping

Because the scale of Big History is so large, some of the traditional subjects of historical analysis, such as wars, empires, trade and religion receive limited attention unless they directly intersect with the overarching themes of thresholds and energy flows. Threshold 8 or The Anthropocene, however, offers an example of how these subjects are handled when they are deemed relevant. The Anthropocene is perhaps the most successful or widely known popularisation from Big History, and it overlaps with the present and recent past. As is now well known, the Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch that marks a new phase in Earths history that has been primarily shaped by human activity. It includes many of the fundamental events and trends of the past 200 years, from industrialisation and colonisation to the total wars of the 20th century and the rise of mass democracy.

However, in Christians Origin Story humans are never really presented as more than passive observers when it comes to the major developments of the period in history that we are supposedly shaping. Industrialisation, globalisation, colonisations and more all seem rote responses to the demand for new sources of energy flows and increasing complexity. The very nature of society and government was transformed, Christian writes, by the new energy flows and technologies of the Anthropocene. So even in the Anthropocene the humans are just following new energy flows and the development of technologies. This speaks to the difficulty of integrating a sense of human agency into the Big History narrative, a problem that becomes particularly important at the end of the story.

Every Big History ends with a discussion of the future. Each future can, within a certain range of possible outcomes, be predicted, based on the large-scale scientific narrative that has preceded it. In Origin Story, Christian is careful not to suggest that the future is predetermined but rather gives the outline of possible scenarios of which he has a clear preference. One possibility is that the human species will continue on its current trajectory of heating the planet and reducing biodiversity because of its reliance on fossil fuels and, in so doing, will alter the Goldilocks conditions that make human life viable in the first place. In the other, preferable future, humans will learn to recognise the trajectory that they are currently trending and make pragmatic decisions that will alter their dependency on the kind of energy flows that are destroying the biosphere. Christian is optimistic that humans will decide to embark on the latter quest for a more balanced existence in part, he says, because certain governments and recent international agreements have already stated these as goals. Christian is also optimistic because Big History itself provides us with the kind of large-scale knowledge that is necessary in order to confront such difficult problems. Christian admits, however, that not much action has actually resulted from any of this.

Moreover, the scientific consensus concerning climate change was established a long time ago now; what has been missing is the will to do anything about it at the political level. Importantly, politics is precisely the level at which Big History offers no help. When the struggle for democracy, for instance, is reduced to a byproduct of a particular regime of energy flows, it is difficult to see just what Big History offers with regard to the political fight for consequential climate policy. What it does offer is a change of perspective or worldview but with little understanding of how to go about wielding the necessary political mechanisms to bring about effectual change. From a historiographical perspective, this would require an analysis at the microlevel of social and cultural history, the very terrain that is shown to be of little consequence in the Big History narrative.

Thirty years on, it is becoming clear that the issues that confront Big History are not unlike that of earlier attempts to utilise the cultural authority of science to write a history of everything. Weve already seen that Big History relies on the same mythopoeic rhetoric that was central to E O Wilsons works of popular science that yearned to project the same sense of wonder and meaning on to science that has traditionally been found only in religious metanarratives. This desire has a deeper history, however, that stretches to the 16th century, and has produced genres of scientific history that resemble Big History. This includes sacred histories that sought to elaborate and narrativise the historical events of the Old Testament as well as universal histories that sought to uncover the overarching stages of human history from Providential and secular perspectives.

There are similarities with more recent forms of large-scale history as well, such as the positivist histories of the 19th century, which sought to explain the development of civilised society as the product of a progressive scientism, or the evolutionary epics of the 19th and 20th centuries, which sought to tell the story of life from an overarching evolutionary perspective. What these forms of history all share with Big History is the desire to synthesise contemporary science to tell a story of humanity and to reduce its development to a set of laws or stages leading to the present and future.

To be fair, Christian has even suggested that, in some ways, Big History represents a return to universal history. He also expresses sympathy with the work of H G Wells, whose The Outline of History (1920) sought to present a holistic account of world history for the same reason: to unite a fragmented world. What makes Big History fundamentally different from these previous iterations, according to Christian, is that it has the benefit of relying on modern science and can therefore provide a more accurate account of large-scale events such as the Big Bang and the emergence of life. But important questions present themselves: first, are we actually much, if any, closer than Wellss generation to understanding the meaning of these events? Second, how much does the scientific knowledge we have gained since then really tell us about the development of human society and culture?

One way to think about these questions is to consider the compelling similarities between Big History and the sacred history written by the 17th-century English theologian Thomas Burnet. Burnets history was based on the contemporary science of Copernican cosmology and Cartesian physics. His Sacred Theory of the Earth (1680s) showed that Earth went through a series of seven stages, as clearly illustrated by the books frontispiece. While these stages conformed to the central events of the Bible such as the Creation, the Deluge and the Last Judgment, Burnet argued that natural law determined these events. They were not miracles. Like Christians Big History, Burnets The Sacred Theory of the Earth sought to provide a holistic account of the most important historical events but explained by contemporary science. Again, like Big History, the key to understanding the stages of Earths history for Burnet was getting the science right.

Big History privileges the cosmic at the expense of the human, the natural at the expense of the political

This was equally important to the universal histories of the 18th and 19th centuries that replaced the epochs of the Bible with the stages of civilisational development. Henry Thomas Buckles sensational History of Civilization in England (1857) argued that scientific laws that he discerned via an analysis of statistical regularities guided human history and intellectual development. It was England, according to Buckle, that provided the historical model of civilisational progress that other nations would have to follow to achieve a free and prosperous society. Progressing further than that, however, would require an understanding of the scientific laws of development that led to that progress in the first place, an understanding conveniently provided by the very existence of Buckles book. Buckles work is often presented as a product of 19th-century positivism, and it is embedded in Eurocentric conceptions of history and progress. But it shares with Big History a desire and belief that history in its totality can be understood with reference to a few scientific principles and a handful of key events.

Buckles and other positivist-inspired works, however, were soon antiquated by new grand narratives of life that relied on the emerging science of evolution. These focused not on civilisation but race, and imagined the global dominance of the Anglo-Saxon as a product of a lengthy struggle for existence that began deep in the past. The anthropologist and travel writer William Winwood Reade, for instance, applied Darwinian evolution to a history of humanity that originated with the origins of the Universe in a nebular fire mist. Reades The Martyrdom of Man (1872) then proceeded through a series of progressive stages that were determined by a combination of struggle and overarching directional development. Much like Buckles work, Reades Martyrdom of Man was meant to inspire its readers to bring about future progress that he imagined would eventually lead to such transformative measures as passenger air travel and laboratory-produced meat. Over the years, Martyrdom of Man grew in popularity as it was eventually translated into Dutch, and by 1912 had reached 20 editions. It also notably inspired Wells to write his own evolutionary epic that became the Outline of History.

The point in rehearsing this history is not simply to show that Big History has predecessors. It is to identify and place it within a specific tradition of large-scale history-writing that also includes sacred and universal histories, positivist histories and evolutionary epics. While it may be true that Big Historys success rests upon some deep human need for origin stories, it is important to recognise that Big History is not just like other origin stories. It is just like a specific tradition of origin story that has roots in Judeo-Christian conceptions of history and seeks to rely on the authority of science to justify its historical claims. The sciences may change along with the particular facts that are brought in to support them, but the overall form of the story remains the same.

With that said, thanks in part to Big History, large-scale accounts of the past have moved from the periphery to the centre of historical thinking and writing. What Big History has done well is challenge the long-held assumption that has limited the discipline of history to the era of written records. As it is clear that we live at a moment when, as Dipesh Chakrabarty has argued, the previously relatively separate processes of human and geological timescales are now colliding, so we need new ways to think historically in order to grasp what is happening and how to respond. Big History provides one possible answer to this problem by producing a holistic, singular and universal story that seeks ultimate knowledge in the overarching laws of science.

But, much like the Judeo-Christian conception of history from which it derives, Big History reduces the vicissitudes of human history to processes that are ultimately beyond human control. What this means is that Big History necessarily privileges the cosmic at the expense of the human, the natural at the expense of the political. This is, unfortunately, a necessity that follows from Big Historys goal of uniting the human species under the framework of a story that is supposedly for everyone. It may make for a popular just-so story that appeals to billionaires looking to empty history of politics and divisions, but it offers little for those hoping to understand how we go about thinking through the problems and possibilities of writing history in the age of the Anthropocene.

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We should be wary about what Big History overlooks in its myth - aeon.co