I always have trouble explaining to people that 1) history is not what happened, but rather a collection of interpretations about what happened in the past and 2) the ramifications of an event are more important to remember than the date of the event. One of the first things college freshmen taking history have to learn is that everything they've been told in high school is much more tenuous than they've been led to believe. You have to have them 'unlearn' a lot, first.
That said...some dates can't slip out of the memory as easy as others. For our generation, certainly, September 11th will be such a date. I had to catch myself from commenting on a woman's birthdate (January 28th) being the same as the anniversary of the Challenger explosion. That was a big one for me, since I was early in college and dating someone who planned to go into NASA. For many Americans, December 7th was such a date, due to the bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941. For many Europeans, today marks another anniversary, because Hitler invaded Poland on September 3, 1939, touching off what would become World War II and the death of many, many millions of soldiers and civilians. So, if you think about it today, you might reflect on how that date became a turning point in our history, all the bad--and perhaps some good, eventually--that came from it, like ripples forward.
By the way, speaking of dates and college freshmen, today's freshman was born in 1985. I feel so old. I was a college freshman in 1985! Argh. I truly believe that the 30s are really much better than the teens or 20s, because you sort of hit your stride. But they didn't even publish a list when I first went to school. Maybe I'll make up one and post it here. I know one--I don't remember ever seeing a 78 rpm record, even though my record player would play one. Oh, hell, that's just sad. I'm the age my parents were with a sixteen-year-old, and I'm still in school. Sigh. *okay, finished with that vent for the year, hopefully*
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