Why do we need to know this?

"Why do we need to learn this?" It is every teacher's least favorite question. It's usually said in a whiny voice, pleading for relief from boredom and displeasure. When it comes to math, specifically proportions, I had an answer, courtesy of an old pasca bread recipe that called for 10 cups of flour that needed to be proportioned into a bread maker that only held 3. For science, the answer was always something about knowing about the world in which you live. For Latin, grammar, and handwriting, I had an answer. For history, my standard reply was, "Because if you don't know how America came to be America, you won't know when they -- the ubiquitous they -- are trying to take it away from you."

As we come into the 2016 election cycle, it would not be out of place to talk about an important date in history, May 15, 1215.

Wait. What does 1215 have to do with American politics? America didn't become America until 1776.

Yes, and our political system wasn't set up until the Constitution was ratified in 1787, but that's another post.

On May 15, 1215, King John of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta. This is important to American history because a lot of what was promised to English men in the Magna Carta was denied to the Colonists, and that's what helped lead to the Revolution. (I say helped, because there were many factors, and this was only one.)

The year 1215 was fraught (good word) with turmoil. King John and his barons were at odds. When a baron goes to war, you, as his feudal servant/slave may be called upon to fight, too. And even if he doesn't demand you fight, he may raise your feudal dues to pay his military bills. If you look a few years farther back in English history, you wonder why the barons didn't see this coming -- John was not the best king, and his first sojourn (another good word) into the realm of kingship was when his brother, King Richard the Lionheart, was on Crusade and John all but usurped the throne. If John didn't respect his brother the king, would he respect his barons? Not bloody likely.

So they were at war, so to speak. The barons wanted John to respect their feudal rights (which helped the little man not at all). After months of fighting, they finally cornered John at Runnymede Meadow and forced him to sign the Magna Carta if he wanted to stay in power. (This is a very simplistic explanation. For more information, please consult a reputable history site, like the History Channel link below.)

What exactly did the Magna Carta say, and how does it apply to us?

According to the History Channel, "The charter consisted of a preamble and 63 clauses and dealt mainly with feudal concerns that had little impact outside 13th century England. However, the document was remarkable in that it implied there were laws the king was bound to observe, thus precluding any future claim to absolutism by the English monarch. Of greatest interest to later generations was clause 39, which stated that 'no free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised [dispossessed] or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimised…except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.' This clause has been celebrated as an early guarantee of trial by jury and of habeas corpus and inspired England’s Petition of Right (1628) and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679)." emphasis mine (original spelling maintained)

That's why the Colonists held up the Magna Carta as the rule when the British government, led by King George III and Parliament, were infringing upon their rights. The leaders of the Colonies -- soon to be states -- felt so strongly about it, that when they created the Constitution (years after the Revolution -- another post-- check back in September) they created a Bill of Rights that listed many of the ideas presented first in the Magna Carta. According to the Library of Congress website, "Magna Carta was widely held to be the people’s reassertion of rights against an oppressive ruler, a legacy that captured American distrust of concentrated political power. In part because of this tradition, most of the state constitutions included declarations of rights intended to guarantee individual citizens a list of protections and immunities from the state government. The United States also adopted the Bill of Rights, in part, due to this political conviction."

Moral of the story: If the government steps on your rights but you don't know what those rights are, can you really complain? Will you? They're hoping you won't. Learn your history!