"History Lesson" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

short story by British writer Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1949 in the magazine ''

Startling Stories ''Startling Stories'' was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1955 by publisher Ned Pines' Standard Magazines. It was initially edited by Mort Weisinger, who was also the editor of ''Thrilling Wonder Stories'', S ...

''. The two-part story speculates on the cooling of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

as a doomsday scenario for

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

and an evolutionary advent for

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

Plot summary

The first part of the story is told from the perspective of a tribe of nomadic humans of the 30th century, in a future where Earth has entered a final

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

. The tribe is travelling toward the

equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...

ahead of

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

s that are descending from the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Mag ...

, but discovers, when they arrive in the last hospitable region of the planet, that glaciers from the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

have already almost reached them. The tribe carries with it a few relics from the previous centuries which it considers sacred, although the functions of the various objects have been forgotten. A generation later, just before the two glaciers fronts meet and spell ultimate extinction of the human species, the relics are safely relocated to a cairn on a mountain that stands between the two advancing bodies of ice. Among the relics there is a radio beacon built as an asteroid-tracking device that was never deployed but is still functioning. The second part of the story is told from the perspective of a race of Venusian reptiles who have evolved into intelligent beings capable of space travel in the 5,000 years since the cooling of the Sun. The Venusians travel to Earth and, attracted by the radio beacon, manage to recover the relics of the last tribe of humans, now the only remnants of civilization not buried under ice. The title of the story comes from the attempts of the Venusian scientists to reconstruct the life and times of erect bipeds that once walked on the Third Planet. After centuries of fruitless studies of humankind's last writings found in the relics the scientists believe a major breakthrough when they manage to decipher the working principle of a film reel that apparently contains an animated cartoon short, which ends with a section of text, which no amount of effort and speculation can decipher: "A Walt Disney Production".

Similarities with other works by Clarke

* According to Clarke's introduction to his story collection ''

Reach for Tomorrow ''Reach for Tomorrow'' is a 1956 collection of science fiction short stories by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. All the stories originally appeared in a number of different publications. Contents This collection includes: *"Preface" *"Rescue P ...

'', this story shares its roots with "Rescue Party". "Rescue Party" is similar in that the Sun is changing in a way that dooms Earth. However, rather than cooling, it explodes, destroying all planets, and the response of humans to the event and the stories' endings are very different. * There is another similarity with "Rescue Party" and also with "Trouble with the Natives" and '' 3001: The Final Odyssey''. In all four stories, aliens draw naive conclusions from little information about humans — a movie reel in this story, a 2D portrait in "Rescue Party", some BBC broadcasts in "Trouble with the Natives", and information taken from the end of the "Century of Torture", the 20th, in '' 3001: The Final Odyssey''. * In one aspect, this story is very similar to a story in Clarke's '' 2010 Odyssey Two'': superfast evolution of smart animals on a world newly made habitable. In ''2010'', the heating up of Europa brings native animals to the stage of human cavemen in just 20,000 years; in this story, the cooling of Venus brings Venusians to the level of spacefarers in just 5,000 years. * At the end of ''

The Fountains of Paradise ''The Fountains of Paradise'' is a 1979 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. Set in the 22nd century, it describes the construction of a space elevator. This "orbital tower" is a giant structure rising from the ground ...

'', the Sun cools temporarily (nevertheless for thousands of years, as in another "ice age") turning Earth into an icy wasteland. This situation is very similar to first story of "History Lesson". But the response of humans to this doomsday scenario is very different in the two works.

Publication

"History Lesson" was included in Clarke's anthology '' Expedition to Earth'', published in 1953. In the British edition (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1954), the title was "Expedition to Earth", while the story otherwise also known under that title appeared there as ''

Encounter in the Dawn "Encounter in the Dawn" (also known as "Expedition to Earth") is a short story by English writer Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1953 in the magazine ''Amazing Stories''. It was originally collected in the anthology '' Expedition to Ear ...

''.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:History Lesson (Short Story) Short stories by Arthur C. Clarke 1949 short stories Fiction set in the 30th century Post-apocalyptic short stories Dying Earth (genre) Short stories set on Venus Works originally published in Startling Stories