It seems like the past few years haven't been very good, and compared to the rest of modern history, yeah, they're still pretty bad — 2021 has been pretty bad. From virus variants to the Taliban taking over Afghanistan, we almost wish we were living a hundred years ago… 2024 update: wow! Things got much worse. Who needs the present when you can pretend the past is the most important time? Maybe we can dissociate from this mistake of a year. Or from the past decade, honestly.

When things are getting tough in the modern day (and they do seem to be getting tougher all the time), we can distract ourselves from the pain in a relatively healthy way. Even though it's still rather weird, we love making history memes that our AP history teachers from high school would unenthusiastically approve of. Here are some of the best ones to help you dissociate from the present.