Throughout humanity's existence, arguments and beliefs have been validated with evidence of recorded past events and memories. History can only exist because humanity can record and remember it, so this offers the opportunity to become very powerful if this truth is harnessed correctly, and strangely enough, the Party knows exactly how to exploit it. “If the party could throw its hand into the past and say about this or that event, it would never have happened – this, surely, would have been more terrifying than simple torture or death” (34). The Party has absolute and unshakable control of the present and, therefore, has the ability to alter the recorded past. Because human memory is elusive and often imprecise, the only way to know, without a doubt, whether an event happened in the past is through recorded history (Mohomed 74). Therefore, the citizens of Oceania, being deprived of true historical records, must believe and accept that all Party propaganda is true, and this allows the Party to justify any actions it takes.