There didn't have to be a revolutionary war, or a Declaration of independence, or a Constitution. History isn't pre-ordained even though it's often taught that way. Nothing ever had to happen the way it happened. The remainder of this post is my transcription and paraphrase of what McCullough said. Academic historians frequently lament "popular history," but if it weren't for narrative historians like McCullough, lots of people would not know who they are in this sense. In the introduction., John Tanner, the Academic VP said that "we read history not just to tell us what happened, but to tell us who we are." That's a good description of why I think historians like McCullough are important. The title of his address was "The Spirit of 1776." I estimate the attendance at today's forum to be about 10,000. Today's forum address was by David McCullough, the author of 1776 and the biographies of John Adams and harry Truman (among others). We hold them in the Marriott Center and sometimes there's as many as 25,000 people there. You'd be surprised how well attended devotionals and forums are. The fourth week is called forum and it's usually some national figure who's been invited to address the BYU faculty and student body. Three weeks of the month, there's a devotional. One of the unique features of BYU is that every week on Tuesday, there's a one-hour time slot where no classes are scheduled.
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