My maternal grand-mother (1892-1973) remembered seeing, as a little girl, Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubillee celebration in London, 1897. She saw the parade they held through the streets, part of the pageant that involved the armed forces of the British Empire as it then was.
Grandma’s impression of seeing Queen Victoria in the open coach, the old Queen decked out still in black, was as a kiddy sking her step-mother: “Who is that dowdy old woman, mum?”
My mum (1927-1997) was a teenager during the Blitz in London, World War II, while my grandma was an ARP warden.
Oh, and if you include uncles and aunts as ancestors at-a-pinch, my two maternal uncles served during World War II. One was in the British merchant marine, on the Russian convoys avoiding U-Boats during the Battle for the Atlantic, while the other was a Lancaster bomber crewman, and was involved (unfortunately) with the bombing of Dresden, Germany, according to mum.
My great-uncle was in The Battle of the Bulge. I don’t know much else about it except that.
Oh yeah, and I’m somehow related (I think distant cousin) to Ulysses S. Grant. He saw a fair piece of history made, but he’s not generally somebody I crow about.
Not as dramatic as Pearl Harbor, but still, I suppose, history in the making. During WWII, my father’s job in U.S. Army intelligence was to monitor the decoded intercepts of communications between the Japanese ambassador in Russia and Tokyo (he spoke Japanese), which became quite strained towards the end.
I watched (from the periphery - cops on horseback are intimiidating) the rioting at the Democratic national convention (Grant Park) in 1968.
Oh yeah, flash from the past - I was very young, but I remember seeing the Free Love demonstrators on the steps of the library at UC Berkeley just before the water cannon was used on 'em (my dad taught at UCB then). That would’ve been 1959 or 1960.
My grandpa was involved in government research during WWII. Worked on instuments for submarines and stuff like that. There are family stories about his working at a secret government lab at some mansion. There’s also a story about him being in Washington DC when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He was out for a walk that night, walked past the Japanese embassy and saw them burning documents.
Well I have one witness on my mom’s side - a great (several times) aunt was Ann Rutledge, Lincoln’s girlfriend. Apparently they would have married if she hadn’t died at an early age. The he had to hook up with Mary Todd.
On Mom’s side: Lolo (granddad) witnessed the Bataan Death March, Great Uncle was in the U.S. Navy and was present when MacArthur “returned”.
Dad had some great stories. As a kid: grew up during the Depression, wasn’t let into “Gone With the Wind” because he was a kid and Gable said “damn” in it. Actually heard Orson Welles “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast. As an adult: Helped liberate/ clean up Dachau, was detailed to the Beatles concert at Soldier Field, can be seen in footage of the 1968 Democratic Convention arresting protesters, and more.
One of my favorite stories also shows how far we’ve come in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Dad had the dubious distinction of removing the remains of the first documented AIDS death in Chicago. So, he and his partner are sent to the apartment to remove the body and bring it directly to the hospital. Dad calls the hospital and asks if he should take any special precautions before handling the body. The hospital tells him and his partner to wear a double thickness of work gloves. These are just plain leather. Dad and company show up at the hospital and are greeted by “Motherf-----g astronauts.” Full, CDC type protective gear. Dad calls home and asks that we leave plastic garbage bags, bleach, Lysol, a change of clothes and a bucket on the back porch. Well, that night, Dad went to the garage, put his uniform in a triple thick garbage bag, rinsed his shoes and belt with Lysol, poured bleach over himself, then rinsed off with the hose. Then sat in the garage for a couple of hours, working up the nerve to go inside. We found out later that his partner simply torched his uniform in the barbecue and sat in his garage all night drinking Christian Bros. brandy.
Sorry about the long post. I could talk all night about Dad.
My grandmother remembered the [http://www.lihistory.com/7/hs743a.htm]General Slocum disaster, when a ferry carrying passengers on a pleasure trip burned and sank in the East River in NY in 1904 killing more than 1,000. Although she was only 4-1/2 at the time, she remembered them bringing the bodies to the piers in the South Bronx near where she lived.
My great-great grandfather fought at the battles of Second Bull Run, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. He was captured at Petersburg and starved to death in Andersonville.
My father served in the Navy at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, on the USS Eldorado, the flagship of Admiral Turner, the commander of Amphibious Forces, Pacific. Secretary of the Navy Forrestal and the Marine General H.M. Smith were aboard during the Iwo Jima campaign.
My great-great (I think) grand-uncle Valentine (Dad’s side of the family) was a Sicilian immigrant & anarchist who took part in a bombing on Wall Street in 1920.
He returned to Sicily after the bombing, but took off again after Mussolini got really popular. Family lore says that he knew Leon Trotsky, though I dunno what their relationship was (i.e. friends, or simply people with similar ideals). Unlike Leon, he escaped a hatchet in the head; I think he eventually returned to either Sicily or America - gotta ask Dad again - & died a natural death.
Not the world’s greatest guy, in my own estimation.
I guess id depends on what you mean by ‘witnessed’.
If you mean, ‘saw with their own eyes’, then I could say my Uncle. He landed on Juno beach at Normandy and is still alive.
But if you mean, ‘were alive when’, then I would say my grandmother. She was born in 1904 and is still alive today. I would say that she has witnessed every major event in the 20th centurey. (And counting. )
Mom and Dad avoided becoming part of history one late November night in 1942. They and another couple were going to go out on the town in Boston, but the other couple was late and they never got to their final destination: the Coconut Grove. It burned down, killing about half of the 1000 patrons.
kiffa and her kids were rescued by the Marines from a coup in Bangui, Central African Republic in 1995. Mr kiffa was in Mali, looking for a house. Apparently the Marines came in so fast that kiffa didn’t have time to grab her purse, and they ended up in the Cameroons without passports. Nothing like getting a call at 3 in the morning, with a stranger saying “Your sister and the kids are alive and safe…” :eek:
You know that’s still technically unsolved, yes? Well, if your story be true, turn it into to some authorities, and maybe you’ll be on some history lost and found show, or one of those specials like, “Crime Solved 8 Decades Later.”
Baker , my great-great-greatgrandfather was also a prisoner at Andersonville. He and six other guys somehow escaped but were recaptured. He did survive, though, fortunately for me.
My grandfather was a chemical engineer and worked on the Manhattan Project in the Empire State Building–he didn’t tell anyone about it until years after WWII.
My father had the dubious honor of seeing Mussolini’s hanged body.
One great-great-grandfather was killed at the battle of Antietam.
A great-grandfather was wounded and disabled (lost the use of his arm) in the Battle of the Seven Days at Gaines Mill.
Another great-grandfather was a sergeant in the Georgia 6th Cavalry, and managed to survive the war unscathed. He fought (among other battles) at Chickamauga.
A great-great grandfather fought under Andrew Jackson, and was present at The Battle of New Orleans.
But as Shelby Foote would say, “It wasn’t all valor.” One great-great grandfather spent the Civil War hiding in the woods and dodging the draft. A great-great-great grandfather was a Hessian fighting for the British in the American Revolution. He was captured at Trenton (after Washington crossed the Delaware), returned to duty after a prisoner exchange, deserted at Charleston, and wound up settling in North Carolina.
Remembered another tidbit of minor history, thanks to brachyrhynchos’ contribution. When, in the early 1990s, the Rwandan Patriotic Front attacked the then government, my younger brother was visiting his girlfriend who lived there in a house across the street from the main entrance to the Rwandan Army base in Kigali.
He called me at the office and explained that they were trapped, hunkered down below window level in the main hallway. When he held the phone up I could hear scattered automatic weapons fire.
I called the Rwanda desk at the State Department and advised them of my brother’s situation. The officer I spoke with asked me to get back in touch with them and record names, nationalities and passport numbers for everyone in the house, as well as the location, which I dutifully did and passed back to him (there were ~8, mostly Europeans).
Then I thought, “Hey, wait a minute! I can call Kigali, but the State Department can’t?” I decided he was possibly just giving me something to do.
Anyway, French paratroopers extracted them a few days later. The girlfriend’s a whole 'nother story.
Yes, I’m aware of the “unsolved” status of the case. The thing is this: I don’t think we actually have proof of his involvement. There’s no “smoking gun” that I know of - I don’t know if one ever existed.
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