James Madison, during a pivotal moment after the United States won the Revolution in 1786, when the states were increasingly in dispute with each other, spent countless days during the winter and spring of that same year reading through 400 books in an effort to understand ancient republics and confederacies and why they failed.
He did not want the newly United States to go through what they did.
When he finished, he used what he learned to draft the Virginia Plan: a proposal for a strong, central authority and a bicameral (two-house) legislature.
This plan, although not entirely adopted, became the fundamental principles of the U.S. Constitution, which has carried us to the present moment.
To think about what learning from the past can do to alter the future.