This thread and this one have made me curious on how we would have responded during other key moments in history.
Is anyone interested in participating in a “live as it happens” thread as if it were the day JFK was shot? Pearl Harbour Day? The day Lincoln was assassinated? D-Day? The surrender of the Confederacy? I’m sure there’s a whole lot more key events in history we could do. I think it would a very interesting and fun way to explore history.
Or am I a complete geek for even thinking of the idea?
Oh, I wouldn’t say I’m an expert on anything, but I can surely say OMG! Lincoln’s been shot! What will this mean for healing the country? We have plenty of smart folk who can offer the logical historically correct context and insight.
There was this one: Historic SDMB posts throughout… history. (I actually wrote about a 30 page tell-all expansion of the "Moses comes back " post I wrote for that one- I think it could work as part of an “alternate oral histories” collection.)
I like the idea but I don’t think I will participate, because I would end up making smart-ass comments and twisting the stories down a path toward parody, which probably isn’t what you’re looking for.
Nothing against the idea as such. Might even be fun/instructive. My basic reaction is simpler though: wait a bit and be ready. Another event like the ones cited will appear before you know it.
How about the sinking of the Maine? That was possibly the first big event of the age of Yellow Journalists. It is still debated hotly by historians today.
Do we need to set any ground rules? Like try not to apply what we know now to what was happening then?
The sinking of the Maine…that was the start of the Spanish-American War, right? But the ship wasn’t sunk by the Spanish? (Oh Og, tell me I’m in the ballpark…)
You are 100% in the ballpark and it is very unlikely that the Spanish sank it, but it was the rallying event that got us into the war. It is a small war that changed America in many ways. I’ll save the rest in case a thread gets going on it.
Sort of in the ballpark. They really don’t know how her forward gunpowder magazines exploded (all of them at the same time) but yes, she sank, and they tried to figure out if it was the Spanish…they never found out for sure.
Anyway back to you OP. I’d be in for one.
I like the JFK one. But maybe to make it more authentic, we should picka topic NO ONE here could have been around for. It would force original thought, and eliminate blatent allegory…
Oh, did you hear about that city of Rome? It did burn. Why, I heard tell the emperor, Nero, was dancing on the roof, fiddling away like a madman while it burned!
I guess what you’re trying to imply is if Clinton had been in charge then Rome wouldn’t have burned, is that it? Then would you mind explaining how Clinton managed to let the Christians get that out of control when he’d been warned about them for years! Oh, Nero’s just so evil… well at least Nero didn’t lie under oath…
Oh wait, I’m afraid that’s using too much presentism isn’t it?
Well, I wasn’t around for that one :). I don’t mind having people who were around for the actual event posting…they can set us straight and give us some insight into what REALLY happened as far as public reaction goes.
I’ll give it a couple of days to drum up interest (and allow us time to hit the history books ) but I was leaning toward either JFK or Dec 7 1941, to start out. We can certainly do November 22, 1963.
Did SDMB exist when Princess Di was killed? Or Columbine?
Those would probably the first two events that most Dopers could remember.
David Simmons and a handfull of others can remember WW2 and before.
Probably half or more of us have some memory of Watergate and that era, though I didn’t know what was happening and was just pissed that they took cartoons and I Love Lucy for days on end off to show the president and a bunch of boring politicians.
The first historical events I can remember really well are the Bicentennial- first the nationwide street party that led up it and the Bicentennial themed shows and all, and also coming back to our hotel (my family was in Philadelphia that day along with about 300 million others it seemed) and watching the reports on the events in Entebbe (one of Israel’s great “Don’t f*ck with Wendy Testaberger” moments).
I think you and I are near the same age, Sampiro. I remember those things too. I remember the Iran hostage crisis, Challenger exploding, and Elvis dying.
The Israeli athletes being murdered at the Olympics is just a tad beyond my memory, though.
Oh, I remember the death of Kennedy quite clearly. I was in third grade. For me it was the first of those “I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard about it/experienced it” events.
Others have been a tornado that went through our city, the first moon landing, the Murragh federal building bombing, and 9/11.
Look, I’m sorry to interrupt this threade, but I’m hearing reports of a terrible massacre in Boston-towne. Apparently, the Redcoates have fired into an assembly of patriots, killing dozens! Let us denounce King George in the Barbeque Pitte and then gather our musketts to defend our libertee. (And fie upon those who have declaired musket-ownership unnecesarie for thee defence of our freedoms!)
