And we're making history right now

The great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy was born on this day in 1828. He wrote:

"History is nothing but a collection of fables and useless trifles, cluttered up with a mass of unnecessary figures and proper names."

This day in hysteria

Edward Gibbon completed The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on this day in 1787. The six-volume work was the labor of almost 15 years. On the occasion he wrote:

"It was on the ...night of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. ... I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom; and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable friend."

In Decline and Fall Gibbon wrote:

"History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."

Which is how long it takes to read The Story of Civilization

Historian Ariel Durant was born on this day in 1898. She and her husband, Will, wrote The Story of Civilization, the tenth volume of which, Rousseau and Revolution, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1968.

Ariel Durant wrote:

"It is good that a historian should remind himself, now and then, that he is a particle pontificating on infinity."