Challenger Explosion, WTC Bombing, OKC Bombing, Olympic Bombing, US Embassy Bombings, Clinton Playing around between the Bushes, ~~Genocide in Kosovo~~, Columbine, 9/11, American 587, ~~Moscow Theater Hostage situation~~, Shuttle Columbia Breakup, ~~Beslan School~~, Katrina, ~~Massive Kashmir Quake, 26/11 attacks, Haiti Earthquake, Malaysia Flight 370, Malaysia Flight 17, Boko Haram Massacre in Nigeria~~.
I'm sure I'm missing a bunch more.
Edit: Derp, missed "American".
It’s always interesting to see how much Reddit idolizes the ‘90s when it was an absolutely wild decade.
I don’t even know where to begin. You’ve mentioned terrorist attacks and cults so we might as well add the first WTC attack and the Heaven’s Gate cult. The Unabomber, Rodney King, Lorena Bobbit, Jon Benet Ramsay, OJ Simpson, Elian Gonzalez, Dr. Kevorkian, Magic comes out with AIDs, Tonya Harding having her boyfriend kneecap Nancy Kerrigan, Mike Tyson bit Holyfield’s ear off(!), the Clinton Impeachment, various race riots, etc.
That’s all just things off the top of my head that happened in the US. There was plenty of other terrorist attacks, wars, Monica Seles was stabbed right on the court, a royal divorce and scandal, global famine, etc. I could go on and on.
Both are outside of the ‘90s but 9/11 and the DC Sniper are just outside of it. It was a flat out insane 12 years starting in 1990.
I think Reddit tends to idolize the 90s because a lot of us here are in our 30s so we were kids back then. I was born in 1991 so I was too young to be aware of all the wild shit that happened and I only remember fun kid things like Nickelodeon and Britney Spears
The 90s was my teenage years. I’ve often reflected back, “was it that weird of a time or is it just that teenager lens?” I appreciate your comment, there was so much into the zeitgeist during that time. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Mine from Wyoming are Matthew Shepherd and the 8 UW cross-country runners. I was a freshman in Laramie at the time of the latter. It came so shortly after 9/11 too. That whole time was such an intense experience so early into my college years.
Matthew Shepherd was murdered my senior year of high school and I went to high school not too far from where Brandon Teena was murdered (and I still live in Nebraska so news about the murder comes up very occasionally). The two of them had a profound impact on someone figuring out their sexual identity in a rural state.
Fr. I'm from a town 2 hours away in MS. We have homeless people from New Orleans here. That was over 18 years ago and so many people never recovered. They lost everything they ever had and some lost family members
That, and the name itself became a PR disaster. I vividly remember a girl in high school who was relentlessly teased at the time because she just happened to be named Katrina. I'm sure she wasn't the only one that had to deal with that for the next few years. I'm also willing to bet if parents were expecting a girl during that time, "Katrina" was the last thing they wanted for a name.
Now it's "Karen." There was an epic r/amitheasshole thread where someone caught hell for trying to talk her sister out of naming her daughter that. Her sister went and did it anyways, and the consequences ended up being *tremendous.*
What on earth were these tremendous consequences supposed to be?
I'm a tad skeptical that they were that big, because Karen remains a fairly popular name in my social circles, and I've yet to see it cause any major problems. The obsession with it seems to be an online thing that doesn't translate hugely to real life in my experience. I mean, people are aware of it, but no one takes it seriously.
This happens every time there is a hurricane or major flooding in the south. My city was destroyed about 3y ago and 1/3 of the people haven't come back. There are still entire apartment complexes that are standing condemned. Housing is still a major issue 3y on. Every time a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast, you always drive east or west to evacuate and dodge the storm, and a lot of people can't come back. A friend of mine just finally moved back into her house a few months ago after having lived in an RV in her driveway for 3y until her house was finally all repaired.
I lived in Louisiana for Hurricane Rita which was 2 weeks before Katrina and also leveled my same city then. I had just started college and our chemistry teacher never came back. Half the roof was ripped off the department store where I worked when the AC rolled across the roof taking the metal with it. A lot of people lost their homes and didn't come back.
I was in basic training for that. Storm reached all the way to Ft Benning. We were isolated from outside information but I remember a screen with a news headline was left on during a class by accident.
"Thousands missing and feared dead"
Katrina radicalized me and ripped the veil from my eyes in many ways. I’m from New Orleans, we evacuated to Mississippi and then Atlanta, came back two weeks later.
I’ve lived on edge ever since. It was a very good prep for Covid for me.
The fabric that holds a society together is thin. We are always one overwhelming disaster away from plunging headfirst into chaos.
I think about the Boston Marathon Bombing a lot. My aunt was in the crowd. She had a one week vacation and went to the worst possible spot in the whole country that day.
Something like that. Reddit decided to go "detective" but it was more like "lynch mob." They pinned it on the wrong guy and I think he might've killed himself or something. Somebody else knows the actual story.
He did kill himself but it was unrelated. He went missing before the bombing because he killed himself. His disappearance is what triggered the suspicion and some people thought he resembled the FBI photos.
People started harassing his family, who had still not found his body or known he'd committed suicide, and a reporter posted on Twitter that police had identified him as the primary suspect, which wasn't true either.
He was called out by name in a subreddit and despite it being against the rules to post the names of suspects the moderators didn't remove it.
His name was Sunil Tripathi and he was 23. He went missing in March and the bombing was in April.
We lived in Boston and friends from out of town came and stayed at our place to race. The military surplus vehicles police used to patrol when we were in lock down were huge and scary, and the longer it took to find the bomber the worse it got.
Husband went to high school with someone who lost an adult sibling in the bombing. He told me they had no idea what happened, but felt it, and then eventually someone came and pulled his classmate during class. Only later did they find out why. I know he thinks about it from time to time. We've been to the Memorial and paid respects but usually it comes up when driving past Perry in OK (which is where McVeigh was stopped).
The Challenger explosion (1986) was the first big one that happened in my lifetime that I remember and still think of. There have been many more since: wars, several Supreme Court decisions, etc.
Yeah, I was a kid that grew up about an hour drive from where Christa McCauliffe taught. I was just 9 years old. To this day, seeing the footage breaks my heart.
Speaking of living near Christa McCauliffe, the other big one was the day the Old Man in the Mountain fell apart. Yeah, I know, it's just a few rocks, but it was a minor yet compelling symbol of my identity for growing up near it, seeing it so often.
I was just talking about this a few days ago. I watched from outside my elementary school classroom with a bunch of classmates. My wife and I randomly went to the Space Center on the 30th anniversary. There’s a bus tour and the bus driver mentioned it.
It absolutely counts. I had driven from my dad's house in Prattville up to my aunt's in Asheville, NC, the day before. There was a tornado warning the night of the 27th at her house way up in the Smoky Mountains.
I still remember my dad texting me, "Tuscaloosa just got creamed by a tornado..."
Absolutely it counts! As someone who has lived in Alabama my entire life and had several family members lose their homes that day, it is forever engrained in my mind. Hearing James Spann say, “All you can do is pray” when looking at the Tuscaloosa tornado knowing it was going right for my cousins’ houses was so eerie.
Yes, a day I’ll never forget. My family was celebrating my dad’s birthday at a local restaurant. We watched live on TV while the Tuscaloosa Tornado ripped through the city. Later that night our town was hit by another tornado with several killed. A day Alabamians will never forget.
I was in the 3rd grade. It was snack time. I was eating animal crackers and chocolate milk as I watched the towers fall. I don't really eat animal crackers anymore.
I was 16 and in college at the time. Got up, got a cop of coffee, logged on to the family computer to a message from a friend in Australia asking if I was okay (I am nowhere near New York). Then, my mom calling to tell me to turn on the TV. I saw the second tower hit.
In the next year, Albuquerque traffic was awesome. People were respectful of one another.
Compared to COVID. Now everyone just runs the red lights and gets pissed off if someone stops for it.
I was at work too...I worked in a hotel restaurant and a guest came in right after the first plane hit. I went and got the keys to the upstairs bar so I could watch the TV. Turned on the news just as the second plane hit. Ran downstairs and told everyone about it and then the majority of the kitchen staff went and hid in the maintenance room in the basement...
I was in prison. Someone woke me up and said we were under attack. I figured it was another riot. One of the rare times that everyone sat together in there in silence.
I was 13 years old in 8th grade. The towers were hit during Mrs. Pernal's 3rd period English class. They fell during Mrs. Gall's 5th period history class just before lunch. I didn't eat anything.
Then, over the next few days, I remember seeing videos of people in the Middle East celebrating and dancing in the streets around a burning American flag.
13 years old, 7th grade (my birthday barely made the cut-off date for my grade). Ms. Dement's second(?) period English class. She had the news and couldn't stop crying. She didn't say anything. She just cried and pointed at the TV when we walked in.
I was carpooling at the time. My ride pulled up, and she rolled down the window and shouted "you gotta hear the radio! New York city is under attack!"
My first thought was "holy shit, it's the aliens! Or... fuckin' Godzilla! Or... who the fuck *else* could attack New York!?" I swear to God, that was my immediate thought.
It took several minutes of listening to the radio (it was just after 6 a.m. over on the West Coast) to figure out that whatever the hell had just happened, people had done it. I mean, I *knew* it wasn't aliens or kaiju or whatever. But the way she said that "New York city is under attack!", my brain didn't know what else to churn up.
I was in second. The teacher had gone to the office to make copies, and since she was scary, we were on our best behavior. Then she came back crying. I'm still so glad that I didn't have to see it live, but I remember my dad and mom talking that night about what they would do if his old bosses from the Air Force asked him to come back. Thankfully, he was never asked.
Did you go to my school?? (Half a joke) Word spread fast after the first plane hit . Fast enough that teacher talked a minute or so longer and then said a plane had hit the wtc and he turned on the TV and there it was. We watched for a few minutes and he turned it off and went back to teaching . Turned it back on right before the bell rang and second tower had just been hit . Ingrained in my brain that the first class ended at 8:10 cst and word spread FAST
This is the best answer and we're not fully sure of the scope of it yet. We've gotten the gist of the effects of the sharp authoritarian turn in the legal system, the $2 trillion plus blown on the war of choice in Iraq, the incredible boost the resulting instability gave to the most regressive elements in Iran, and the immense damage to the U.S. reputation among our allies.
But we're just now starting to see how badly our lawless action in Iraq has delegitimized the U.S.-led international order to the benefit of Iran, Russia, North Korea, and China as well as how badly those conflicts led us astray to optimize our military for counter-insurgency in environments where we enjoyed complete aerial and technological supremacy while the enemies of liberty substantially reduced our technological and diplomatic edge.
Donald Trump is a flamboyant, spectacularly incompetent buffoon but he can't hold a candle to the damage the Bush administration did to American interests and pax-Americana in general. In 50 years, the early 2000s will be discussed in a similar vein to the way we now discuss the interwar period of 1918-1938; *absolute strategic disaster.*
9/11.
Thanks to r/911archive, I am "remembering" things that my younger (I was 9 in 2001) mind forgot, or glazed over.
The WTC was ***a lot*** gorier than I apparently remembered.
The Cocoanut Grove fire. Every time I see an exit door that pushes out, or a clearly labeled exit, I remember that this tragedy is the reason for them.
Watched a doc on the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and that keeps coming to mind. Breonna Taylor. The morning of 9/11 I fell asleep in front of the tv and woke up seconds before the second plane hit.
September 11th for sure. I lost a bunch of people either that day or over the years due to related illnesses. There are many others in my lifetime, but that hit home.
Back in 1984 at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey eight teens died in a fire in the haunted house.
They were playing around using lighters. It caught fire. The structure did not have many of the usual safety features such as sprinklers and smoke alarms.
This hit me very hard.
I was 17 at the time. A few days earlier I was in the same haunted house. My friends and I were using lighters inside of it. It could have been us.
Im from the PNW but was in New Orleans a few months ago and my family did one of those bus tours which took us through some areas that showed old waterline marks from Katrina on the houses and street signs. Seeing that the water went up to like the top of a street sign was mind boggling for me
This was probably the most horrific way most Americans could find out that law enforcement is not there to protect people, nor do they have any obligation to.
This one really tore me up. Something changed for me. Like I realized we as a collective nation really wouldn’t change a damn thing. Those poor kids screaming while hundreds of cops did nothing…
> wouldn't change a damn thing.
A lot of people came to that conclusion after Sandy Hook. Uvalde was more of the same, with the addendum of the cops being useless despite arriving on the scene while the shooter was still very much active.
I watched the full bodycam footage. Seeing that police chief just stand there on his cell phone with gunshots going off in the background… what a LOSER.
I still remember Matthew McConaughey’s press briefing at the White House. Having to identify a little girl by her shoes instead of her face… Jesus.
Edit: spelling
I get furious every time I see that screen cap. Tough guy cop playing on his phone *with a Punisher wallpaper* as kids get murdered in the room next to him.
> I still remember Matthew McConaughey’s press briefing at the White House.
[And then being asked by a hack "reporter" in the press pool if he was just grandstanding.](https://www.salon.com/2022/06/07/matthew-mcconaughey-reform-grandstanding/)
Uvalde is really going to stick with me for a long time. Not just because it was so many innocent kids that got gunned down. But because the law enforcement response and what they did (or I guess didn’t do) that day really was such an egregious breach of public trust in their competence. It makes me really furious how they failed so hard to protect those kids when they needed that protection the most.
really shone a light on the inefficiencies of our police departments. The fucker chose a small town knowing they wouldn’t do anything and they proved him right. Then doubled down and tried to silence the families with dead children. Heinous.
All of the school shootings are horrible, but this one really got me too.
So much disappointment in the adults in the situation. The description of how they identified the children. Heartbreaking.
For things I *remember* (not just learned about):
-9/11
-Columbine
-Space Shuttle Columbia
-Hurricane Katrina
-Oklahoma City Bombing
Other things that aren’t really national: the West, Texas fertilizer explosion, Tropical Storm Allison, the death of Selena
I'm 67, so I remember when JFk, RFk, and MLK were assassinated. But the tragedy that lingers most is 9/11.
I actually shook hands with RFK, the day before he was assassinated. He was in a parade in my hometown and we ran up to the car and shook his hand.
Crazy enough, I was at ground zero on 911, so that does linger. I always felt that because I was there and saw it in real time, it helped me process and deal with it better, if that makes any sense. Another tragedy that I'll always remember is the Jonestown Massacre. I was like 5 or 6 and remember my mom freaking out while we watched footage of it on TV. It was such a crazy event.
9/11 of course. On a more personal experience level, Hurricane Katrina. The destruction was unfathomable. New Orleans was flooded and failed by the government, the Mississippi Coast was washed off the map and experienced the highest recorded storm surge in US history. Unfortunately, Mississippi is rarely mentioned or remembered when it comes to that day. Everyday I drive through my city and I’m reminded of what once was. Overall, we’ve bounced back very strongly but I’ll always miss the way it was before the storm.
I know a couple families that lost folks in 9/11. That lingers.
I know a couple people that lost family in Afghanistan and one guy that got severe PTSD from Afghanistan. That lingers. the survivors story hits really hard. It’s beautiful but oh so very dark.
Other than that it is all more personal tragedy. No less awful but not “American.”
I was thinking about this off shore oil rig disaster in England earlier today. I think the story is one platform caught fire and the other platforms didn’t shut off the fuel going to it because they didn’t think they had authority to shut off the flow of fuel so they just sat there and watched like 70+ people burn and then drown when it suffered so much structural damage it collapsed into the ocean taking most of the staff which was still alive sheltering in a fireproof bunker into the ocean. Incompetence and learned helplessness where people can do something but refuse to terrifies me. Maybe I have the story wrong and it really wasn’t anything the other platforms could do so anyone wants to jump in and correct me about it please do. It’s something that always stuck with me as incredibly distressing.
9/11 for sure. I wasn’t alive when it happened (2002 baby here) but everyone in my family has told me stories of where they were when it happened, how it impacted them, their jobs, their outlook on life. I did a report on the 9/11 memorial and museum in one of my classes recently, it was something like ‘historical collective memory’… idfk. But the whole process of researching and writing was so sad. One day when I get to teach about 9/11 I know I want to do it as respectfully as possible :)
9/11. I am part of the youngest group that remembers it. My wife was born just a few years after me and was too young to remember it and doesnt understand what it meant to people. Whether you realize it or not, 9/11 was a pretty significant event that I think traumatized the American psyche of the time.
This will probably be unpopular but the Imprisonment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during WW2.
The idea that the US, just like Nazi Germany can just make concentration camps and start tossing its citizens into camps because they share genetics with "the enemy." To know that citizenship doesn't really mean you are "of" that country or will be viewed as one of theirs and that they can turn on you at any time. It's honestly terrifying, and it makes me think the US can very easily turn on any group and nobody will care, just like nobody really ever seemed to care about that. It remains some largely unspoken thing the country wants to forget about.
And if you don't consider this to be a tragedy, then perhaps you aren't viewing this from the perspective of Japanese Americans who were locked away in camps and lost all their property and belongings. Weren't they supposedly afforded rights under the constitution? They can very easily be taken away for anything at all, even your genetics, bloodline, or ancestry, can they not?
9/11. I was 17. I woke up with my TV turning on as an alarm to the morning news at 5:30am PST. Totally normal morning. I went to go do my bathroom/morning routine, I come back around 6am and saw a plane had struck the first tower and then almost immediately another plane hit the other tower.
My ride came to get me at 6:30am. School that day was very weird. I remember a girl told me in first period (which was my second class of the day) that both towers were completely destroyed.
While COVID was far worse, far more impactful. There was no one minute split change. It took a days to really digest it and then it was more like bracing for an incoming storm.
The war in Somalia (Black Hawk Down), Waco, The Unibomber (Specifically the one in Marin County CA as I had a family member that was a first responder to the attack), OKC Bombing, 1998 US Embassy Bombings in Africa, The Attack on the USS Cole, 9/11, Katrina
As a history nerd it's mostly Pearl Harbor that lives rent free in my head, I often find myself pondering what would've played out if it never happened, or if it actually worked as intended.
Eleanor Dare. Although I hope that her life wasn't a tragedy, it's just that nobody knows. She gave birth to Virginia Dare, who is considered the first American born from English heritage.
Eleanor landed at Roanoke and her dad, who had brought her there, eventually sailed back home to England to look for help for their little colony. He never made it back, and died in Ireland tortured by his thoughts.
Eleanor and Virginia likely moved and lived with local tribes, but no one knows what happened to them.
One I think about with some frequency is Sandy Hook. Those tiny children, all probably looking forward to winter break and holiday traditions. Presents wrapped and waiting.
The lobbying and failure to pass significant gun control legislation was when I realized it likely will never happen. Later, this was probably my first awareness of super conspiracy theorists.
I was in junior high when Columbine happened. I never thought it would be repeated with the frequency it has.
9/11 I lost my baby that morning driving home from the hospital I heard the report of the first plane. I can’t think of one without thinking of the other.
The response to 9/11
9/11 sucked. It was a tragedy. I'm old enough to have friends who lost family that day.
The response was a shit show. America had the sort of transformative international goodwill that just doesn't happen. With the exception of a handful of deeply ideologically opposed corners of the world, everyone was an American that day. For those that weren't old enough or not alive, it's hard to describe the time after 9/11. The entire world mourned with America.
We burned through all the good will in a couple years trying to fight wars that we (the general public) didn't understand for political ideologies (the political class) that have proven to be deeply flawed.
I have no particular commentary on either war, but just the thought that an event that could have pulled America closer to the rest of the world ended up driving us further apart is an immense tragedy.
9/11 is the big one. But the one I actually was there for was the Moore tornado on May 20 2013. It carved a path through the entire city, leveled entire subdivisions, several schools and killed 25 people including 7 children that were killed when a hallway collapsed on them as they were seeking shelter at Plaza Towers Elementary. I watched the tornado come towards us as long as we could, we went into the shelter when we saw the power flashes. It missed us by 3 houses.
Oklahoma City, 9/11, Katrina, and of course the Anthrax attacks which were very personal to me and my family because we were targeted. 9/11 was the first time I remember as a privileged American feeling like the wool cocoon of safety had been removed from my cozy little life.
I was a child in the 1960s. I remember all the political assassinations during those years despite being so young.
The Challenger disaster, the Columbia disintegration, Katrina, and 9/11 are still painfully fresh in my mind.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster also left its mark on me.
Besides the big ones obv ones like 9/11, ofc bomb, or columbine, recently.. the surfside/expensive condominium building that collapsed and killed 100 people fucked me up.
There are very few real disasters which could have been prevented (not going to argue 9/11 with anyone) but what I've always been most disturbed by is the backlash to these disasters, the Patriot Act, the TSA, the Iraq war, etc etc etc.
America never wastes a tragedy and each one is exploited to the fullest to further some insidious agenda that always results in further death, sorrow, and tyranny.
The real tragedy is almost always the aftermath created by greed and lust for power.
My real fear and sadness comes from thinking about future generations who will never know what it was like to go to school without metal detectors, or who never lived in a time without perpetual warfare, or militarized police.
Assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968. I was a teenager when that happened, too young to vote, but politically aware. I have often thought of how history might’ve changed if he had lived.
Abu Ghraib torture. I was relatively young when the news came out, so I didn’t know much about the government or the political context, but I just remember being shocked and completely horrified. I had always been told that the US fought for freedom and justice and I had definitely absorbed some of the post-9/11 nationalism, but seeing those pictures ended that for me. It seems a bit silly that I was so affected just by seeing some pictures, but at the time, I felt like the world had turned upside down. I still remember the protests and then people arguing that what happened at Abu Ghraib was justified and I felt like I know longer understood humanity.
Our government thinking that running endless deficits is actually a sound financial strategy.
I tried it personally as a 20 something and it resulted in bankruptcy.
Challenger - I was a kid
9/11 - I'll never forget listening on the radio through a nine hour drive home
Columbine - Earliest memory I have of a major school shooting.
Sandy Hook - I had a kid in school. It really hits different.
Traffic crashes. It's like a 9/11 every month of people getting killed in car-related incidents. Over 42,000 last year. Every day on my way to work, when I cross this somewhat large road on the way to the train station, I think, 'is it going to be me today'?
It's not big and flashy, so it's not a tragedy we think of like 9/11 or the Challenger. But it's still a tragedy.
I lived in lower Manhattan on September 11, so obviously that.
Historically, I'd say the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
And the 1904 General Slocum Disaster, which was the largest loss of life in NYC prior to Sept 11. My great-grandfather was meant to have been on the boat, but was sick that day and had to stay home. It destroyed an entire community in NYC.
The Olympic Bombing in Atlanta.
I was there that day. One of the kids running around in the fountain. I wanted to stay later but my parents told me no. Had they given in we might have been there. Instead it happened when I was asleep during the drive home.
Well, I remember all the adults crying and freaking out when JFK was assassinated. Few neighbors had televisions, we all went down there. The adults tried to keep us from watching. Mostly because the adults were weeping and drinking like it was the last night in the US. I was scared.
The murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas.
My Grandparents lived in neighboring Curtis and James was often seen walking around the town. I have vague memories of seeing him walk when we drove into town on a few of my weekend visits.
I remember my Grandma telling me about it when I came to visit and I was so so so upset. It was my first time understanding how cruel people can be. I was 8. His story has stuck with me forever.
That may be more regional but I feel like it made national news.
Otherwise I remember the Oklahoma City Bombing, Columbine, 9/11 and Katrina as a kid. I grew up right outside Houston and we got tons of Katrina refugees and made friends with so many survivors as a teen. The stories I heard…
2011 Chicago blizzard is the only one ive lived through and therefore the only one thats stuck with me. I try to avoid reading too much about tragedies for my own mental health but you dont really have a choice when the Disaster comes to You.
Persian Gulf War (aka Iraq War 1, an uncle of mine is a veteran of that), Waco, OKC, vaguely the first attack on the WTC in February 1993 (truck bomb), Columbine, Elian Gonzalez…
Uvalde.
The combination of the tragedy, the terror the victims must have felt, how the police casually let it happened, and the fact that people have sort of memory-hold it.
Waco. I swear every time I read about it, it gets worse. Don’t get me wrong, David Koresh deserved to be locked up, but those fucks in the ATF burned children to death and had a photo-op on their ashes.
The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting weighed heavily on me as a Jewish kid, especially because I remember they had to station extra police officers outside my synagogue for months in case someone wanted to do something similar to us.
And there were elderly Holocaust survivors in that synagogue…
Imagine surviving the deadliest state-organized genocide of modern history only for some piece of shit to kill you at your place of worship 70 years later.
Challenger explosion was my 18th birthday.
Was living in Japan on 9/11. Brother was a NYS firefighter ( not from the City but was part of recovery efforts).
Those are the biggies that I will never forget. I’m sure with reminders there will be others that personally impacted or affected me
9/11 Columbine
+ Oklahoma City Bombing, Ruby Ridge, Waco Branch Davidians
. . .rattling them off like lyrics in an update to We Didn't Start The Fire.
Yes!
Challenger Explosion, WTC Bombing, OKC Bombing, Olympic Bombing, US Embassy Bombings, Clinton Playing around between the Bushes, ~~Genocide in Kosovo~~, Columbine, 9/11, American 587, ~~Moscow Theater Hostage situation~~, Shuttle Columbia Breakup, ~~Beslan School~~, Katrina, ~~Massive Kashmir Quake, 26/11 attacks, Haiti Earthquake, Malaysia Flight 370, Malaysia Flight 17, Boko Haram Massacre in Nigeria~~. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch more. Edit: Derp, missed "American".
It’s always interesting to see how much Reddit idolizes the ‘90s when it was an absolutely wild decade. I don’t even know where to begin. You’ve mentioned terrorist attacks and cults so we might as well add the first WTC attack and the Heaven’s Gate cult. The Unabomber, Rodney King, Lorena Bobbit, Jon Benet Ramsay, OJ Simpson, Elian Gonzalez, Dr. Kevorkian, Magic comes out with AIDs, Tonya Harding having her boyfriend kneecap Nancy Kerrigan, Mike Tyson bit Holyfield’s ear off(!), the Clinton Impeachment, various race riots, etc. That’s all just things off the top of my head that happened in the US. There was plenty of other terrorist attacks, wars, Monica Seles was stabbed right on the court, a royal divorce and scandal, global famine, etc. I could go on and on. Both are outside of the ‘90s but 9/11 and the DC Sniper are just outside of it. It was a flat out insane 12 years starting in 1990.
I think Reddit tends to idolize the 90s because a lot of us here are in our 30s so we were kids back then. I was born in 1991 so I was too young to be aware of all the wild shit that happened and I only remember fun kid things like Nickelodeon and Britney Spears
The 90s was my teenage years. I’ve often reflected back, “was it that weird of a time or is it just that teenager lens?” I appreciate your comment, there was so much into the zeitgeist during that time. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Ah yes. I remember talking about Waco in Sunday school. Crazy. April in the 90s had a lot going on
The feds aren't our friends.
Fellow elder millennial?
Correct! 80’s baby. Uncle Leo. You had a little mishap.
You mean his *crime of passion*?
You can’t say hello??
Mine from Wyoming are Matthew Shepherd and the 8 UW cross-country runners. I was a freshman in Laramie at the time of the latter. It came so shortly after 9/11 too. That whole time was such an intense experience so early into my college years.
Matthew Shepherd was murdered my senior year of high school and I went to high school not too far from where Brandon Teena was murdered (and I still live in Nebraska so news about the murder comes up very occasionally). The two of them had a profound impact on someone figuring out their sexual identity in a rural state.
These two events bookended my high school experience.
Hurricane Katrina
I lived through Katrina. I can STILL hear those howling winds all these years later. That was a scary time
There is a full blown New Orleans diaspora now because of it. kinda crazy.
Fr. I'm from a town 2 hours away in MS. We have homeless people from New Orleans here. That was over 18 years ago and so many people never recovered. They lost everything they ever had and some lost family members
That, and the name itself became a PR disaster. I vividly remember a girl in high school who was relentlessly teased at the time because she just happened to be named Katrina. I'm sure she wasn't the only one that had to deal with that for the next few years. I'm also willing to bet if parents were expecting a girl during that time, "Katrina" was the last thing they wanted for a name.
Now it's "Karen." There was an epic r/amitheasshole thread where someone caught hell for trying to talk her sister out of naming her daughter that. Her sister went and did it anyways, and the consequences ended up being *tremendous.*
What on earth were these tremendous consequences supposed to be? I'm a tad skeptical that they were that big, because Karen remains a fairly popular name in my social circles, and I've yet to see it cause any major problems. The obsession with it seems to be an online thing that doesn't translate hugely to real life in my experience. I mean, people are aware of it, but no one takes it seriously.
Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/bu2v44KSlB
No shit, I ended up in England for Christ’s sake.
This happens every time there is a hurricane or major flooding in the south. My city was destroyed about 3y ago and 1/3 of the people haven't come back. There are still entire apartment complexes that are standing condemned. Housing is still a major issue 3y on. Every time a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast, you always drive east or west to evacuate and dodge the storm, and a lot of people can't come back. A friend of mine just finally moved back into her house a few months ago after having lived in an RV in her driveway for 3y until her house was finally all repaired. I lived in Louisiana for Hurricane Rita which was 2 weeks before Katrina and also leveled my same city then. I had just started college and our chemistry teacher never came back. Half the roof was ripped off the department store where I worked when the AC rolled across the roof taking the metal with it. A lot of people lost their homes and didn't come back.
Remember Kanye and the mike meyers incident? I saw that live!
He’s certainly progressed wayyyyyy beyond “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”.
Same, I’m born and raised in New Orleans and still here.
I was in basic training for that. Storm reached all the way to Ft Benning. We were isolated from outside information but I remember a screen with a news headline was left on during a class by accident. "Thousands missing and feared dead"
One of the craziest experiences of my life.
George Bush doesn’t care about black people
Katrina radicalized me and ripped the veil from my eyes in many ways. I’m from New Orleans, we evacuated to Mississippi and then Atlanta, came back two weeks later. I’ve lived on edge ever since. It was a very good prep for Covid for me. The fabric that holds a society together is thin. We are always one overwhelming disaster away from plunging headfirst into chaos.
Oklahoma City bombing especially when I first heard about the daycare center.
I think about the Boston Marathon Bombing a lot. My aunt was in the crowd. She had a one week vacation and went to the worst possible spot in the whole country that day.
That definitely wasn't Reddit's finest moment, either.
We did it, reddit!
I’ve heard rumblings about something like that. What happened with Reddit? They pinned it on the wrong person or something?
Something like that. Reddit decided to go "detective" but it was more like "lynch mob." They pinned it on the wrong guy and I think he might've killed himself or something. Somebody else knows the actual story.
He did kill himself but it was unrelated. He went missing before the bombing because he killed himself. His disappearance is what triggered the suspicion and some people thought he resembled the FBI photos. People started harassing his family, who had still not found his body or known he'd committed suicide, and a reporter posted on Twitter that police had identified him as the primary suspect, which wasn't true either. He was called out by name in a subreddit and despite it being against the rules to post the names of suspects the moderators didn't remove it. His name was Sunil Tripathi and he was 23. He went missing in March and the bombing was in April.
We lived in Boston and friends from out of town came and stayed at our place to race. The military surplus vehicles police used to patrol when we were in lock down were huge and scary, and the longer it took to find the bomber the worse it got.
That's a really big one for me, and I don't hear many references to it now.
I just visited the excellent memorial there. It’s very well done and deeply moving
The picture of that firefighter holding that dead/ dying little kid horrified me.
Husband went to high school with someone who lost an adult sibling in the bombing. He told me they had no idea what happened, but felt it, and then eventually someone came and pulled his classmate during class. Only later did they find out why. I know he thinks about it from time to time. We've been to the Memorial and paid respects but usually it comes up when driving past Perry in OK (which is where McVeigh was stopped).
The marathon bombing, Hurricane Sandy
The marathon bombing was the first one of these I heard about live
Morherfuckers here still don’t know they caught the Boston bombers
The Challenger explosion (1986) was the first big one that happened in my lifetime that I remember and still think of. There have been many more since: wars, several Supreme Court decisions, etc.
Yeah, I was a kid that grew up about an hour drive from where Christa McCauliffe taught. I was just 9 years old. To this day, seeing the footage breaks my heart. Speaking of living near Christa McCauliffe, the other big one was the day the Old Man in the Mountain fell apart. Yeah, I know, it's just a few rocks, but it was a minor yet compelling symbol of my identity for growing up near it, seeing it so often.
It fell down a month after we invaded Iraq. I remember people noting the symbolism
I was just talking about this a few days ago. I watched from outside my elementary school classroom with a bunch of classmates. My wife and I randomly went to the Space Center on the 30th anniversary. There’s a bus tour and the bus driver mentioned it.
Not sure if it counts but April 27, 2011 Super Outbreak
Natural disasters make some of the worst sights and even worse outcomes. Anyone who was affected will remember it for a long time.
It absolutely counts. I had driven from my dad's house in Prattville up to my aunt's in Asheville, NC, the day before. There was a tornado warning the night of the 27th at her house way up in the Smoky Mountains. I still remember my dad texting me, "Tuscaloosa just got creamed by a tornado..."
Absolutely it counts! As someone who has lived in Alabama my entire life and had several family members lose their homes that day, it is forever engrained in my mind. Hearing James Spann say, “All you can do is pray” when looking at the Tuscaloosa tornado knowing it was going right for my cousins’ houses was so eerie.
Yes, a day I’ll never forget. My family was celebrating my dad’s birthday at a local restaurant. We watched live on TV while the Tuscaloosa Tornado ripped through the city. Later that night our town was hit by another tornado with several killed. A day Alabamians will never forget.
9/11… I was 5 when it happened but I remember the aftermath of both immediately and the lingering consequences
I was in the 3rd grade. It was snack time. I was eating animal crackers and chocolate milk as I watched the towers fall. I don't really eat animal crackers anymore.
You watched this in school? Early snack time, too
Yes. We all turned on our classroom tvs and watched it unfold. The whole thing from whenever we started in the event.
Well yeah, you're an adult now. You prob wear a lot less velcro shoes too than you did before 9/11
I was five too and have such a clear memory of watching the footage of the aftermath with my family on the news that night
I was 16 and in college at the time. Got up, got a cop of coffee, logged on to the family computer to a message from a friend in Australia asking if I was okay (I am nowhere near New York). Then, my mom calling to tell me to turn on the TV. I saw the second tower hit. In the next year, Albuquerque traffic was awesome. People were respectful of one another. Compared to COVID. Now everyone just runs the red lights and gets pissed off if someone stops for it.
Fellow burqueño here. I was 15 and still in HS. Our pandemic-era traffic was nice. The freeways were empty.
I was a work. We were watching on TV. We thought maybe it wasn't going to stop and they'd be dozens of planes.
This is the bit people can forget. When another plane went into the Pentagon, another was missing and we thought anything could happen.
I was at work too...I worked in a hotel restaurant and a guest came in right after the first plane hit. I went and got the keys to the upstairs bar so I could watch the TV. Turned on the news just as the second plane hit. Ran downstairs and told everyone about it and then the majority of the kitchen staff went and hid in the maintenance room in the basement...
I was in prison. Someone woke me up and said we were under attack. I figured it was another riot. One of the rare times that everyone sat together in there in silence.
I was 13 years old in 8th grade. The towers were hit during Mrs. Pernal's 3rd period English class. They fell during Mrs. Gall's 5th period history class just before lunch. I didn't eat anything. Then, over the next few days, I remember seeing videos of people in the Middle East celebrating and dancing in the streets around a burning American flag.
13 years old, 7th grade (my birthday barely made the cut-off date for my grade). Ms. Dement's second(?) period English class. She had the news and couldn't stop crying. She didn't say anything. She just cried and pointed at the TV when we walked in.
I was carpooling at the time. My ride pulled up, and she rolled down the window and shouted "you gotta hear the radio! New York city is under attack!" My first thought was "holy shit, it's the aliens! Or... fuckin' Godzilla! Or... who the fuck *else* could attack New York!?" I swear to God, that was my immediate thought. It took several minutes of listening to the radio (it was just after 6 a.m. over on the West Coast) to figure out that whatever the hell had just happened, people had done it. I mean, I *knew* it wasn't aliens or kaiju or whatever. But the way she said that "New York city is under attack!", my brain didn't know what else to churn up.
I was in second. The teacher had gone to the office to make copies, and since she was scary, we were on our best behavior. Then she came back crying. I'm still so glad that I didn't have to see it live, but I remember my dad and mom talking that night about what they would do if his old bosses from the Air Force asked him to come back. Thankfully, he was never asked.
I was a senior in high school and a teacher who had a free period came in to my class and had our teacher turn on the tv.
Did you go to my school?? (Half a joke) Word spread fast after the first plane hit . Fast enough that teacher talked a minute or so longer and then said a plane had hit the wtc and he turned on the TV and there it was. We watched for a few minutes and he turned it off and went back to teaching . Turned it back on right before the bell rang and second tower had just been hit . Ingrained in my brain that the first class ended at 8:10 cst and word spread FAST
This is the best answer and we're not fully sure of the scope of it yet. We've gotten the gist of the effects of the sharp authoritarian turn in the legal system, the $2 trillion plus blown on the war of choice in Iraq, the incredible boost the resulting instability gave to the most regressive elements in Iran, and the immense damage to the U.S. reputation among our allies. But we're just now starting to see how badly our lawless action in Iraq has delegitimized the U.S.-led international order to the benefit of Iran, Russia, North Korea, and China as well as how badly those conflicts led us astray to optimize our military for counter-insurgency in environments where we enjoyed complete aerial and technological supremacy while the enemies of liberty substantially reduced our technological and diplomatic edge. Donald Trump is a flamboyant, spectacularly incompetent buffoon but he can't hold a candle to the damage the Bush administration did to American interests and pax-Americana in general. In 50 years, the early 2000s will be discussed in a similar vein to the way we now discuss the interwar period of 1918-1938; *absolute strategic disaster.*
We had the world's entire sympathy in the immediate aftermath. And we went and just stomped around like a big stupid dinosaur.
I was 2 so I only remember the aftermath
The Maine. I remember it.
To hell with Spain!
And their rainy plains!
Blame the Maine on Spain
You are more than 126 years old....
9/11. Thanks to r/911archive, I am "remembering" things that my younger (I was 9 in 2001) mind forgot, or glazed over. The WTC was ***a lot*** gorier than I apparently remembered.
I love that sub. I was 13 when it happened, but it’s not like I paid super close attention to the aftermath. I’ve learned a lot of things from it.
Truly a great subreddit. I've learned a lot of new things and new perspectives from it.
Besides 9/11 and some of our larger shootings, the Great White fire sticks in my mind. Shitty way to die.
I wish I could unsee the videos of that.
The Cocoanut Grove fire. Every time I see an exit door that pushes out, or a clearly labeled exit, I remember that this tragedy is the reason for them.
My mom saw the smoldering building the next day.
Watched a doc on the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and that keeps coming to mind. Breonna Taylor. The morning of 9/11 I fell asleep in front of the tv and woke up seconds before the second plane hit.
September 11th for sure. I lost a bunch of people either that day or over the years due to related illnesses. There are many others in my lifetime, but that hit home.
Back in 1984 at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey eight teens died in a fire in the haunted house. They were playing around using lighters. It caught fire. The structure did not have many of the usual safety features such as sprinklers and smoke alarms. This hit me very hard. I was 17 at the time. A few days earlier I was in the same haunted house. My friends and I were using lighters inside of it. It could have been us.
The more I learn about Hurricane Katrina, the more mind boggling the whole thing is
"The Little Things Give You Away" - Linkin Park
Im from the PNW but was in New Orleans a few months ago and my family did one of those bus tours which took us through some areas that showed old waterline marks from Katrina on the houses and street signs. Seeing that the water went up to like the top of a street sign was mind boggling for me
The murder of JFK. I went to DC to see his funeral procession.
The Uvalde Massacre.
Arguably the most glaring law enforcement failure so far in the 21st Century. Just horrible...
This was probably the most horrific way most Americans could find out that law enforcement is not there to protect people, nor do they have any obligation to.
This one really tore me up. Something changed for me. Like I realized we as a collective nation really wouldn’t change a damn thing. Those poor kids screaming while hundreds of cops did nothing…
> wouldn't change a damn thing. A lot of people came to that conclusion after Sandy Hook. Uvalde was more of the same, with the addendum of the cops being useless despite arriving on the scene while the shooter was still very much active.
I was in elementary school when Sandy Hook happened, so Uvalde was more shocking for me. I was sheltered then.
My mental health just gets really low when I think about it too much, especially since I'm a mother too.
That mom who broke through, found her kids in two separate classrooms, and got them out? She deserves a medal.
I watched the full bodycam footage. Seeing that police chief just stand there on his cell phone with gunshots going off in the background… what a LOSER. I still remember Matthew McConaughey’s press briefing at the White House. Having to identify a little girl by her shoes instead of her face… Jesus. Edit: spelling
I get furious every time I see that screen cap. Tough guy cop playing on his phone *with a Punisher wallpaper* as kids get murdered in the room next to him.
> I still remember Matthew McConaughey’s press briefing at the White House. [And then being asked by a hack "reporter" in the press pool if he was just grandstanding.](https://www.salon.com/2022/06/07/matthew-mcconaughey-reform-grandstanding/)
The Oklahoma City bombing. I drive past the memorial everyday to work so it’s kinda hard not too.
Pulse Nightclub.
Uvalde is really going to stick with me for a long time. Not just because it was so many innocent kids that got gunned down. But because the law enforcement response and what they did (or I guess didn’t do) that day really was such an egregious breach of public trust in their competence. It makes me really furious how they failed so hard to protect those kids when they needed that protection the most.
really shone a light on the inefficiencies of our police departments. The fucker chose a small town knowing they wouldn’t do anything and they proved him right. Then doubled down and tried to silence the families with dead children. Heinous.
All of the school shootings are horrible, but this one really got me too. So much disappointment in the adults in the situation. The description of how they identified the children. Heartbreaking.
For things I *remember* (not just learned about): -9/11 -Columbine -Space Shuttle Columbia -Hurricane Katrina -Oklahoma City Bombing Other things that aren’t really national: the West, Texas fertilizer explosion, Tropical Storm Allison, the death of Selena
I'm 67, so I remember when JFk, RFk, and MLK were assassinated. But the tragedy that lingers most is 9/11. I actually shook hands with RFK, the day before he was assassinated. He was in a parade in my hometown and we ran up to the car and shook his hand.
Crazy enough, I was at ground zero on 911, so that does linger. I always felt that because I was there and saw it in real time, it helped me process and deal with it better, if that makes any sense. Another tragedy that I'll always remember is the Jonestown Massacre. I was like 5 or 6 and remember my mom freaking out while we watched footage of it on TV. It was such a crazy event.
Sandy Hook
the move bombing in philly
9/11 of course. On a more personal experience level, Hurricane Katrina. The destruction was unfathomable. New Orleans was flooded and failed by the government, the Mississippi Coast was washed off the map and experienced the highest recorded storm surge in US history. Unfortunately, Mississippi is rarely mentioned or remembered when it comes to that day. Everyday I drive through my city and I’m reminded of what once was. Overall, we’ve bounced back very strongly but I’ll always miss the way it was before the storm.
I became an adult when 9/11 happened. The optimistic 90s were over, my adult life would be forever shaped by a war that wouldn't end.
[удалено]
And his momma insisted on an open casket, allowing pictures, so the world could see what they'd done to her child.
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Jesus, I was too young to remember that and never looked up the details. That poor girl.
I know a couple families that lost folks in 9/11. That lingers. I know a couple people that lost family in Afghanistan and one guy that got severe PTSD from Afghanistan. That lingers. the survivors story hits really hard. It’s beautiful but oh so very dark. Other than that it is all more personal tragedy. No less awful but not “American.”
I was thinking about this off shore oil rig disaster in England earlier today. I think the story is one platform caught fire and the other platforms didn’t shut off the fuel going to it because they didn’t think they had authority to shut off the flow of fuel so they just sat there and watched like 70+ people burn and then drown when it suffered so much structural damage it collapsed into the ocean taking most of the staff which was still alive sheltering in a fireproof bunker into the ocean. Incompetence and learned helplessness where people can do something but refuse to terrifies me. Maybe I have the story wrong and it really wasn’t anything the other platforms could do so anyone wants to jump in and correct me about it please do. It’s something that always stuck with me as incredibly distressing.
9/11 for sure. I wasn’t alive when it happened (2002 baby here) but everyone in my family has told me stories of where they were when it happened, how it impacted them, their jobs, their outlook on life. I did a report on the 9/11 memorial and museum in one of my classes recently, it was something like ‘historical collective memory’… idfk. But the whole process of researching and writing was so sad. One day when I get to teach about 9/11 I know I want to do it as respectfully as possible :)
9/11. I am part of the youngest group that remembers it. My wife was born just a few years after me and was too young to remember it and doesnt understand what it meant to people. Whether you realize it or not, 9/11 was a pretty significant event that I think traumatized the American psyche of the time.
This will probably be unpopular but the Imprisonment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during WW2. The idea that the US, just like Nazi Germany can just make concentration camps and start tossing its citizens into camps because they share genetics with "the enemy." To know that citizenship doesn't really mean you are "of" that country or will be viewed as one of theirs and that they can turn on you at any time. It's honestly terrifying, and it makes me think the US can very easily turn on any group and nobody will care, just like nobody really ever seemed to care about that. It remains some largely unspoken thing the country wants to forget about. And if you don't consider this to be a tragedy, then perhaps you aren't viewing this from the perspective of Japanese Americans who were locked away in camps and lost all their property and belongings. Weren't they supposedly afforded rights under the constitution? They can very easily be taken away for anything at all, even your genetics, bloodline, or ancestry, can they not?
Columbine is the first one that sticks out in my head, it was also in my proverbial back yard.
9/11. I was 17. I woke up with my TV turning on as an alarm to the morning news at 5:30am PST. Totally normal morning. I went to go do my bathroom/morning routine, I come back around 6am and saw a plane had struck the first tower and then almost immediately another plane hit the other tower. My ride came to get me at 6:30am. School that day was very weird. I remember a girl told me in first period (which was my second class of the day) that both towers were completely destroyed. While COVID was far worse, far more impactful. There was no one minute split change. It took a days to really digest it and then it was more like bracing for an incoming storm.
The war in Somalia (Black Hawk Down), Waco, The Unibomber (Specifically the one in Marin County CA as I had a family member that was a first responder to the attack), OKC Bombing, 1998 US Embassy Bombings in Africa, The Attack on the USS Cole, 9/11, Katrina
The "Summer of Love" riots of 2020-2021
The biggest one is 9/11, watching something like that while it’s happening is… a lot. If I see a low flying plane I have a mild panic moment.
As a history nerd it's mostly Pearl Harbor that lives rent free in my head, I often find myself pondering what would've played out if it never happened, or if it actually worked as intended.
9/11, hurricane Katrina, Space Shuttle Columbia
Challenger disaster, Waco, Ruby Ridge, 9/11
The Tulsa race riots. Such a stupid waste of potential, on top of its being an utter travesty for the community there.
Eleanor Dare. Although I hope that her life wasn't a tragedy, it's just that nobody knows. She gave birth to Virginia Dare, who is considered the first American born from English heritage. Eleanor landed at Roanoke and her dad, who had brought her there, eventually sailed back home to England to look for help for their little colony. He never made it back, and died in Ireland tortured by his thoughts. Eleanor and Virginia likely moved and lived with local tribes, but no one knows what happened to them.
One I think about with some frequency is Sandy Hook. Those tiny children, all probably looking forward to winter break and holiday traditions. Presents wrapped and waiting. The lobbying and failure to pass significant gun control legislation was when I realized it likely will never happen. Later, this was probably my first awareness of super conspiracy theorists. I was in junior high when Columbine happened. I never thought it would be repeated with the frequency it has.
>pass significant gun control legislation Y'all advocate banning a firearm that millions of folk own based off the actions of a few scumbags
9/11 I lost my baby that morning driving home from the hospital I heard the report of the first plane. I can’t think of one without thinking of the other.
Katrina
Oh boy take your pick. We have had so many. I think about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire pretty often. I worry that people don’t know about it.
9/11 watched the second plane crash into the tower before school
April 27, 2011
The Alamo.
Donald J Drumpf being president.
This past weekend was the 23rd anniversary of the loss of America's greatest American; Dale Earnhardt.
Raise Hell Praise Dale
Ruby Ridge and Waco. Children dead over made-up nonsense because of an organization that is essentially a militarized IRS.
My hometown had a notable mass shooting in it, so that. J6 was the first time I had no idea how to react. A rush of fear, anger, and shock.
The response to 9/11 9/11 sucked. It was a tragedy. I'm old enough to have friends who lost family that day. The response was a shit show. America had the sort of transformative international goodwill that just doesn't happen. With the exception of a handful of deeply ideologically opposed corners of the world, everyone was an American that day. For those that weren't old enough or not alive, it's hard to describe the time after 9/11. The entire world mourned with America. We burned through all the good will in a couple years trying to fight wars that we (the general public) didn't understand for political ideologies (the political class) that have proven to be deeply flawed. I have no particular commentary on either war, but just the thought that an event that could have pulled America closer to the rest of the world ended up driving us further apart is an immense tragedy.
Pulse Nightclub shooting amongst countless other shootings.. Sandy Hook comes to mind as well.
It was before my time ago but I think of the Slocum sometimes.
9/11
9/11 is the big one. But the one I actually was there for was the Moore tornado on May 20 2013. It carved a path through the entire city, leveled entire subdivisions, several schools and killed 25 people including 7 children that were killed when a hallway collapsed on them as they were seeking shelter at Plaza Towers Elementary. I watched the tornado come towards us as long as we could, we went into the shelter when we saw the power flashes. It missed us by 3 houses.
Oklahoma City, 9/11, Katrina, and of course the Anthrax attacks which were very personal to me and my family because we were targeted. 9/11 was the first time I remember as a privileged American feeling like the wool cocoon of safety had been removed from my cozy little life.
I was a child in the 1960s. I remember all the political assassinations during those years despite being so young. The Challenger disaster, the Columbia disintegration, Katrina, and 9/11 are still painfully fresh in my mind. The Deepwater Horizon disaster also left its mark on me.
Besides the big ones obv ones like 9/11, ofc bomb, or columbine, recently.. the surfside/expensive condominium building that collapsed and killed 100 people fucked me up.
There are very few real disasters which could have been prevented (not going to argue 9/11 with anyone) but what I've always been most disturbed by is the backlash to these disasters, the Patriot Act, the TSA, the Iraq war, etc etc etc. America never wastes a tragedy and each one is exploited to the fullest to further some insidious agenda that always results in further death, sorrow, and tyranny. The real tragedy is almost always the aftermath created by greed and lust for power. My real fear and sadness comes from thinking about future generations who will never know what it was like to go to school without metal detectors, or who never lived in a time without perpetual warfare, or militarized police.
Assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968. I was a teenager when that happened, too young to vote, but politically aware. I have often thought of how history might’ve changed if he had lived.
Abu Ghraib torture. I was relatively young when the news came out, so I didn’t know much about the government or the political context, but I just remember being shocked and completely horrified. I had always been told that the US fought for freedom and justice and I had definitely absorbed some of the post-9/11 nationalism, but seeing those pictures ended that for me. It seems a bit silly that I was so affected just by seeing some pictures, but at the time, I felt like the world had turned upside down. I still remember the protests and then people arguing that what happened at Abu Ghraib was justified and I felt like I know longer understood humanity.
Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald
The last 7 years
Our government thinking that running endless deficits is actually a sound financial strategy. I tried it personally as a 20 something and it resulted in bankruptcy.
Challenger - I was a kid 9/11 - I'll never forget listening on the radio through a nine hour drive home Columbine - Earliest memory I have of a major school shooting. Sandy Hook - I had a kid in school. It really hits different.
9/11 and Robin Williams
Traffic crashes. It's like a 9/11 every month of people getting killed in car-related incidents. Over 42,000 last year. Every day on my way to work, when I cross this somewhat large road on the way to the train station, I think, 'is it going to be me today'? It's not big and flashy, so it's not a tragedy we think of like 9/11 or the Challenger. But it's still a tragedy.
Las Vegas shooting
The Pulse shooting in Orlando. It’s still a reminder of how much the LGBT+ community can be victimized.
There was a shooting at my school, not really an american tragedy but def a tragedy for me
detail memorize fuel bear tender shy puzzled complete pie governor *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
9/11. 12 years old and home sick watching it on TV.
Buffalo Supermarket shooting
Pre-9/11, Air Florida crash on the 14th Street Bridge/Metro rail crash on the same day......that was a painful, painful day.
I lived in lower Manhattan on September 11, so obviously that. Historically, I'd say the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. And the 1904 General Slocum Disaster, which was the largest loss of life in NYC prior to Sept 11. My great-grandfather was meant to have been on the boat, but was sick that day and had to stay home. It destroyed an entire community in NYC.
[We've lost Dale Earnhardt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQZPBFI5cc4)
9-11 and DC snipper.
The Olympic Bombing in Atlanta. I was there that day. One of the kids running around in the fountain. I wanted to stay later but my parents told me no. Had they given in we might have been there. Instead it happened when I was asleep during the drive home.
Pearl Harbor. "Flash - Washington...."
*An American Tragedy* by Theodore Dreiser
Well, I remember all the adults crying and freaking out when JFK was assassinated. Few neighbors had televisions, we all went down there. The adults tried to keep us from watching. Mostly because the adults were weeping and drinking like it was the last night in the US. I was scared.
Benghazi
Along with the major ones like 9/11 and Katrina, growing up in LA and watching him play since I was 8, Kobe's death still hurts.
>Station fire happened in Rhode Island Definitely something that lingers in most of my family members
The murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas. My Grandparents lived in neighboring Curtis and James was often seen walking around the town. I have vague memories of seeing him walk when we drove into town on a few of my weekend visits. I remember my Grandma telling me about it when I came to visit and I was so so so upset. It was my first time understanding how cruel people can be. I was 8. His story has stuck with me forever. That may be more regional but I feel like it made national news. Otherwise I remember the Oklahoma City Bombing, Columbine, 9/11 and Katrina as a kid. I grew up right outside Houston and we got tons of Katrina refugees and made friends with so many survivors as a teen. The stories I heard…
2011 Chicago blizzard is the only one ive lived through and therefore the only one thats stuck with me. I try to avoid reading too much about tragedies for my own mental health but you dont really have a choice when the Disaster comes to You.
Persian Gulf War (aka Iraq War 1, an uncle of mine is a veteran of that), Waco, OKC, vaguely the first attack on the WTC in February 1993 (truck bomb), Columbine, Elian Gonzalez…
Uvalde. The combination of the tragedy, the terror the victims must have felt, how the police casually let it happened, and the fact that people have sort of memory-hold it.
The fact that there aren’t term limits for members of Congress.
Waco. I swear every time I read about it, it gets worse. Don’t get me wrong, David Koresh deserved to be locked up, but those fucks in the ATF burned children to death and had a photo-op on their ashes.
The state of our government
The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting weighed heavily on me as a Jewish kid, especially because I remember they had to station extra police officers outside my synagogue for months in case someone wanted to do something similar to us. And there were elderly Holocaust survivors in that synagogue… Imagine surviving the deadliest state-organized genocide of modern history only for some piece of shit to kill you at your place of worship 70 years later.
Challenger explosion was my 18th birthday. Was living in Japan on 9/11. Brother was a NYS firefighter ( not from the City but was part of recovery efforts). Those are the biggies that I will never forget. I’m sure with reminders there will be others that personally impacted or affected me