Professor Johnston often said that if you didn’t know history, you didn’t know anything.  You were a leaf that didn’t know it was part of a tree.  http://www.michaelcrichton.com/timeline/  Timeline is a science fiction novel by American writer Michael Crichton, published in November 1999.  It tells the story of a group of history students who travel to 14th-century France to rescue their professor.  The book follows in Crichton's long history of combining technical details and action in his books, addressing quantum and multiverse theory.  The novel spawned Timeline Computer Entertainment, a computer game developer that created the Timeline PC game published by Eidos Interactive in 2000.  A film based on the book was released in 2003.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_(novel)

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.  This famous statement has produced many paraphrases and variants:  Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes.  Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.  Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.  Those who do not know history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them.  From Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense from The Life of Reason by philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist George Santayana (1863-1952)  There is a similar quote by Edmund Burke (in Revolution in France) that often leads to misattribution:  "People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors."   https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana

"If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten."  —Rudyard Kipling  All the illustrations, maps and other history-related materials on the Heritage History electronic library site were taken from history books and atlases that are not longer copyright protected and are available to republish without cost.  The complete text of every book in the library can be read directly off the website, and both printable (PDF) and eBook (EPUB, MOBI) formats are available for every book.    http://www.heritage-history.com/index.php?c=library&s=info-dir&f=heritage_mission

The terms leeward and windward are used in a number of ways to describe specific places, physical features, and climatic processes.  In one sense, windward and leeward generally refer to the location of a place relative to the prevailing wind direction.  A windward location is one that is exposed to the prevailing winds.  Conversely, a leeward location is protected from the prevailing wind.  The Windward Islands, as they came to be called, include Barbados, the Caribees (a cluster of small islands), DOMINICA, MARTINIQUE, GRENADA, SAINT LUCIA, and SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES.  The Windward Islands, a former British colony, are the southernmost islands in the Lesser Antilles and were once collectively named the Federal Colony of the Windward Islands and later the Territory of the Windward Islands.  The northern continuation of the Lesser Antilles includes islands that are farther downwind from the Windward Islands.  First discovered by Columbus in 1493, these are the Leeward Islands, which includes ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, the British Virgin Islands, MONTSERRAT, SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS, and ANGUILLA.  A string of leeward islands is also found northwest of the Hawaiian Islands, and this group has become a national bird sanctuary.  The Society Islands in French Polynesia, a region east of the COOK ISLANDS in the South Pacific, are identified as leeward islands.  The narrow sea-lane separating eastern CUBA and HAITI lies in the path of the northeast trade winds.  As such, vessels traveling between the ATLANTIC OCEAN and the CARIBBEAN SEA are using the aptly named Windward Passage.  http://geography.name/leeward-and-windward/

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

leeway  (LEE-way)  noun  The amount of freedom to do something: margin or latitude.   In nautical terminology, leeway is the sideways drift of a ship to leeward (away from wind).  From Old English hleo (shelter) + way.  Earliest documented use:  1669.

flotsam  (FLOT-suhm)   noun  1.  Goods found floating after a shipwreck.  2.  People or things considered useless or unimportant.  From Old French floter (to float).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root pleu- (to flow), which is also the source of flow, float, flit, fly, flutter, pulmonary, pneumonia, pluvial, and fletcher.  Earliest documented use:  1607.

jetsam  (JET-suhm)  noun  1.  Goods thrown overboard to lighten a ship in distress.  2. Discarded material, debris, etc.   An alteration of the word jettison.  Earlier, jettison was the act of throwing goods overboard to lighten a ship in distress.  From Latin jactare (to throw), frequentative of jacere (to throw). Earliest documented use:  1491.

groggy   (GROG-ee)  adjective  Dazed, weak, or unsteady, as from lack of sleep, tiredness, sickness, intoxication, etc.  After Old Grog, nickname of Admiral Edward Vernon (1684-1757), who ordered diluted rum to be served to his sailors (and thus helped coin the term grog).  The admiral earned the nickname from his habit of wearing a grogram cloak.  Grogram is a coarse fabric of silk, wool, mohair, or a blend of them.  The word grogram is from French gros grain (large grain or texture).  Earliest documented use:  1770.

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From:  Andrew Pressburger  Subject:  flotsam  The 20th-century medievalist historian Henri Pirenne claimed that Western European feudalism gradually yielded to middle-class entrepreneurs in trade and commerce by beachcombers collecting flotsam from shipwrecks and selling the items at inland fairs.  Later on they would settle outside or below feudal castles for protection (these settlements came to be known as faubourgs or suburbs) and obtain trading monopoly from the local lord.  This development amounted to a paradigm shift in economic and social development, influencing radical changes in the realm of politics as well. 
From:  Michael Sharman  Subject:  flosam and jetsam  In the days of my youth, 1938 or so, there was a music hall duo, very similar to Flanders and Swann, 20 years later, called Mr. Flotsam and Mr. Jetsam.   Their real names were B.C. Hilliam and Malcolm McEachern.  The opening of their turn was to sing (together) “We’ll tell our names so that everyone knows we’ve got some.”/ (F) “I’m Flotsam.” / (J) “I’m Jetsam.” (F) “He’s Jetsam.” (J) “He’s Flotsam.” (together)  “We’ll tell you again so that nobody forgets ‘em’.”  (F) “He’s Jetsam.” (J) “He’s Flotsam.” (F) “I’m Flotsam.” (J) “I’m Jetsam.”  They were funny, topical and never rude, and were a turn to look forward to.

February 9, 2018  PITTSFIELD — If approved by the state's top court, the Berkshire Museum will sell Norman Rockwell's "Shuffleton's Barbershop," its most valuable work, on the way to drawing $55 million out of its collection and resolving a standoff that has mesmerized the art world.  But in a concession, the work will be sold to a nonprofit museum in the United States, not at auction to a buyer anywhere in the world.  And four months after that transaction, the acclaimed painting, considered Rockwell's masterwork, will spend 18 to 24 months on display at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge.  The museum and Attorney General's Office on Friday revealed details of their effort to resolve a dispute over the legality of art sales.  Their agreement capped months of court battles and rallies that split museum supporters and, to a degree, the community itself.  The divide remained Friday, as members of Save the Art, a community group, assailed the agreement as not in keeping with the museum's mission.   "The 'compromise' agreement . . .  is flawed," the group said in a statement.  "It flouts all standards of museum best practices and fails to honor the Berkshire Museum's duty to the community's cultural past or its future generations."  Instead of protecting the public trust, the pact violates it, the group said.  The agreement is considered a breakthrough in the long-running dispute and could influence how museums view potential sales of works in their collections.  The museum's plan must be approved by a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, but that is considered likely given the state's endorsement.  The agreement includes requirements the museum report to the attorney general on steps it will take to sell the 40 works it listed for sale last summer.  The art will be sold in three batches, with specific works to be selected by the museum.  Sales must stop when proceeds reach $55 million, the agreement says.  That is the figure that the Attorney General's Office decided, after a monthslong investigation, that the museum needs to shore up its finances.  That means that not all 40 of the works will necessarily be sold, depending on prices obtained through sales.  With the agreement, the attorney general and museum avoid an extended fight through the appellate level, consuming months or years of time and expense.  Because the petition represents the views of both sides, and contains an agreed-upon set of facts, the court can review and judge them much faster.  The museum and state are expected to drop pending actions before the Massachusetts Appeals Court.  Lawyers for two other groups of plaintiffs have said they will review the agreement before deciding whether to continue to contest the sales.  By selling works to cover operational expenses, the museum broke ranks with trade associations  Ethics codes of those groups say revenues from the deaccession and sale of art should only be used to address the needs of museum collections.  Rockwell gave "Shuffleton" to the museum in 1959.  The painting, which appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on April 29, 1950, had been valued by Sotheby's at between $20 million and $30 million.  Its next owner remains a mystery.  The museum declined to identify the prospective buyer or to say how much will be paid for the painting.  While the agreement preserves public access to "Shuffleton's Barbershop," the fate of the other painting the artist gave to the Pittsfield museum, "Shaftsbury Blacksmith Shop," will not be known until it is grouped into one of three lots that the museum can sell, under terms of the deal.  Larry Parnass  Read much more at http://www.berkshireeagle.com/stories/shuffletons-barbershop-to-be-sold-to-us-museum-will-be-shown-at-rockwell-museum,531708?

To the Muse reader who is intrigued by the short story  

"Bartleby, the Scrivener:  A Story of Wall Street" by Herman Melville, first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam's Magazine, I challenge you to read it and the short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, first published in Collier's Magazine on May 27, 1922

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1841  February 12, 2018  On this date in 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born.  On this date in 1948, farmers in Nebraska were so inspired by the former president they started a train in his honor to feed the world's hungry.  The train launched from the town of Lincoln, Nebraska.  Carloads of food donations were gathered onto sections of the train in Iowa, South Dakota and Illinois.  Supplies from Colorado and Wyoming also arrived at start.  The train kept moving east toward Philadelphia rounding up even more supplies.  Around 200 freight cars of supplies were collected.  By the end of February food was on its way to Austria, Germany, Poland, Japan, Korea and other nations who had suffered so much during World War II.  William Lambers  http://www.pnj.com/story/news/2018/02/11/we-need-abraham-lincolns-friendship-train-again-guestview/323028002/  Thought for Today  It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. - Charles Darwin, naturalist and  author (12 Feb 1809-1882)