And those who do study history are doomed to recognize that they are repeating it.

True, but we can never be sure of the ending.

One of Winston Churchill's books was titled "The Hinge of Fate", as I recall.

Who can anticipate the hinge of fate?

From uninterrupted defeat to almost unbroken success: a year when Rommel is gradually thrown back in North Africa, and in the Pacific the tide turns.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/
0395410584/103-5077255-8686237

"Our legions are brimful, our cause is ripe;/ The enemy increaseth every day;/ We, at the height, are ready to decline./ There is a tide in the affairs of men,/ Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;/ Omitted, all the voyage of their life/ Is bound in shallows and in miseries./ On such a full sea are we now afloat... (4.3.215-222)."

http://www.willamette.edu/~blong/ShakeJC/TheTide.html