# Which events of the past 50 years will be remembered in 100 years? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 2, 2012, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009 "2012-07-02T15:30:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/21 "2012-07-03T06:15:44Z")
Maybe I’m just being present-centric, but I think we don’t remember what happened 100 years ago because there really wasn’t a whole lot going on, at least on the national level. There were all sorts of important trends and movements dealing with industrialization and immigration, but very little in the way of “events” you can really hang your hat on from the end of the Civil War through the 1910’s. Part of it is that national politics had virtually stalled-- both parties’ platforms were virtually identical and it was a whole lot of politics for politics’ sake and bickering over spoils. The period is extremely interesting for economic historians and social historians, but for the typical “great men, great events” that get taught in school, there really wasn’t much going on. I think that the 1990’s after the fall of the Soviet Union will be viewed as similar, and maybe even up to the present. I don’t think we’re ever going to forget 9/11 per se, but it is my suspicion that as time goes on future generations are not going to regard it as the huge turning point in history that we all assumed it would be. I think on the history textbook level, it got us involved in two relatively minor wars (albeit long and expensive ones) and that’s it-- the “war on terror” didn’t really materialize as the next major phase of history after the Cold War as some people thought it would. As far as I’m concerned, we’re still in the turgid post-Cold War historical dull period. Just like the last third of the 19th century, there’s some incredibly important things going on, but they’re more in the form of long-term trends like globalization than big watershed events. ---
**Author:** ![catncamo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@catncamo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catncamo)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/22 "2012-07-03T06:17:51Z")
9/11 WTC and first black president. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/23 "2012-07-03T06:38:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > John Kennedy? Not so much, in my opinion. A really charismatic guy but there wasn’t a lot of substance underneath. He deserves credit for handling the Cuban Missile Crisis well but after that it’s a short list. I think the Kennedy assassination is already considered more significant that the actual Kennedy presidency in the collective recollection. It’s perfectly timed and metaphorically compelling as the dividing line between the idealism of the 50’s and early 60’s and the turbulent later 60’s and 70’s. If nothing, he’ll be remembered as that guy who boinked Marilyn Monroe and then got shot, thus starting the 60’s. 🙂 > [@pancakes3](#): > > …teapot dome… Teapot dome was in the 1920’s, although Harding certainly conducted himself like a typical gilded-age president. ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/24 "2012-07-03T06:51:22Z")
I think it’ll be 9/11 and the wars that followed, the 2004 tsunami off Indonesia, the quake/tsunami/Fukushima disaster in Japan, the Arab spring, and the rise of China. I doubt anybody will think much of the moon landings because we’ll have been to Mars by then ;). ---
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/25 "2012-07-03T07:01:56Z")
> [@Shade](#): > > For comparison, how many events can you remember between 1860 and 1910? I suspect most people’s lists goes something like: > > - American Civil War > - Abraham Lincoln is assassinated > - Uh… > > OK, not that bad, but I looked on wikipedia, and there were things that I knew happened, but could have told you whether it was before or after 1850, so I didn’t think I could count them. > > I think “cold war” and “first people in space/on the moon” are way up there. MLK seems to have a reasonable chance, as he’s already a byword even by people who don’t know anything else about the period. > > I’m not sure even 9/11 will be that obvious: can you name the worst terrorist atrocity \before\ 9/11? Will 2060 really be that different, even if you attribute all of the current wars, wars on terror, and anti-Islam sentiment to 9/11? As for most people’s lists, I think most people remember the extraordinary inventions of the period: the airplane, the automobile, electic light, the assembly line etc. My own feeling is that 9/11 will be remebered like we remember the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, one of the causes of WWI. 9/11 will be seen as the cause of the Iran War and thus one of the causes for the eventual bankruptcy of the U.S. As for terrorists before 9/11, does Dachau, Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen count? Or the Trail of tears here in the U.S.? ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/26 "2012-07-03T09:50:02Z")
Well, we live in the age of moving pictures, so anything that has compelling footage is likely to be remembered better than its actual historical importance might merit. The JFK assassination wouldn’t have become the cultural artefact that it is without Mr. Zapruder and his cine camera. I’d say that the following are so significant that they would be talked about anyway: Collapse of Soviet Union / end of Cold War Advent of the Internet Does climate change count as an “event”? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/27 "2012-07-03T17:55:18Z")
Several people have mentioned the rise of China. I agree it’s been a significant historical trend of the last fifty years but I think it’s been too diffuse to be called an event. If you want a pick a specific event to serve as a keynote, I’d suggest the Shenzhou 5 mission in 2003 when China launched Yang Liwei into space. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/28 "2012-07-03T18:35:38Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > clinton’s impeachment will be a factoid, but probably not universally known - like andrew johnson’s. > > additionally: > vietnam > watergate > USSR breaking up > iraqi/afghan war(s) I suspect the USSR’s existence will, in the minds of most people a century or more from now, be sort of melded into the general progression of Russian history. In the grand scheme of things it won’t be especially well remembered. It will be remembered that the U.S. and Russia/USSR were rivals, but the transition between USSR and the Russian Federation will be the same sort of dimly understood thing as, say, the Glorious Revolution is outside of history classes in England. Hell, people were still calling the Soviete Union and Soviet people “Russia” and “Russians,” even when speaking of people who weren’t Russians, while the Soviet Union still existed. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/29 "2012-07-03T21:26:49Z")
Whatever is regularly discussed or alluded to in the media. 9/11 Vietnam war Watergate scandal 1969 moon landing Kennedy assassination fall of Berlin Wall ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/30 "2012-07-03T21:30:26Z")
In 50 years, old farts like me will still be making Yakov Smirnoff jokes and they will have long passed from the current dead-horse stage into moderately amusing drollery because no one will understand them. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/31 "2012-07-03T21:55:12Z")
color me embarrassed by my 2 factual errors. for whatever reason, i linked teapot dome to rutherford b hayes. and as for custard? i’ll make that screw-up until the day i die. i think the USSR falling will be a staple in the history books because it’s easily identifiable. china’s major “events” would probably include the cultural revolution, or the transition of power to Deng XiaoPing. maybe the establishment of the Euro? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/32 "2012-07-03T21:55:20Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > Does climate change count as an “event”? It would result in events that would potentially be very memorable indeed, like major wars or famines. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/33 "2012-07-03T22:57:40Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It would result in events that would potentially be very memorable indeed, like major wars or famines. How many people remember the various natural disasters caused by the Little Ice Age? ---
**Author:** ![dngnb8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@dngnb8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dngnb8)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/34 "2012-07-03T22:59:29Z")
The invention of the Widget ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/35 "2012-07-03T23:14:22Z")
Not so much a single event, but I think that unless their history is heavily bowdlerised people will regard the latter half of the 20th century as a time when what society considered fundamentally right and wrong changed. That much of what motivated people in the past will seem as incomprehensible as witch burnings, slavery, and the divine right of kings seems to us. Just a few examples: regarding homosexuality as mental illness or perversion; the supremecy of the white anglo ethnic group; belief in some form of Christianity as the moral foundation of society; women as inferior to and subservient to men; premarital sex, birth control and abortion considered immoral; the death penalty. ---
**Author:** ![oreally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ab992/32.png) [@oreally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oreally)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/36 "2012-07-03T23:15:36Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > Maybe I’m just being present-centric, but I think we don’t remember what happened 100 years ago because there really wasn’t a whole lot going on, at least on the national level. There were all sorts of important trends and movements dealing with industrialization and immigration, but very little in the way of “events” you can really hang your hat on from the end of the Civil War through the 1910’s. Part of it is that national politics had virtually stalled-- both parties’ platforms were virtually identical and it was a whole lot of politics for politics’ sake and bickering over spoils. The period is extremely interesting for economic historians and social historians, but for the typical “great men, great events” that get taught in school, there really wasn’t much going on. > > I think that the 1990’s after the fall of the Soviet Union will be viewed as similar, and maybe even up to the present. I don’t think we’re ever going to forget 9/11 per se, but it is my suspicion that as time goes on future generations are not going to regard it as the huge turning point in history that we all assumed it would be. I think on the history textbook level, it got us involved in two relatively minor wars (albeit long and expensive ones) and that’s it-- the “war on terror” didn’t really materialize as the next major phase of history after the Cold War as some people thought it would. As far as I’m concerned, we’re still in the turgid post-Cold War historical dull period. Just like the last third of the 19th century, there’s some incredibly important things going on, but they’re more in the form of long-term trends like globalization than big watershed events. Excellent post. > [@catncamo](#): > > 9/11 WTC and first black president. Only half black. Sorry. 😉 I think the “first” this or thats fade away as little more than a footnote because people (_finally_) realize it’s how good they were or weren’t that matters. When JFK is talked about, how often is being the first Catholic president given a second thought? Hardly ever, but it was an issue at the time. How about the first female or first black General? Few now can even tell you who they were. And so on. ---
**Author:** ![oreally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ab992/32.png) [@oreally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oreally)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/37 "2012-07-03T23:23:01Z")
> [@denquixote](#): > > As for terrorists before 9/11, does Dachau, Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen count? Or the Trail of tears here in the U.S.? Nope. > [@Ludovic](#): > > In 50 years, old farts like me will still be making Yakov Smirnoff jokes and they will have long passed from the current dead-horse stage into moderately amusing drollery because no one will understand them. ? That’s already true. Catch up. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/38 "2012-07-04T02:59:48Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > maybe the establishment of the Euro? That’s a good one. I’d include it as one aspect of the political unification of Euopre over the last fifty years. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/39 "2012-07-04T04:34:53Z")
IMHO 9/11 won’t be all that well remembered. I don’t think the attack fundamentally shifted the course of history. The long term effects from the attack are relatively minor, and the wars it spawned less significant than the Korean War or Vietnam. It will have the same level of importance as the Franz Ferdinand’s assassination. Known and taught in school, but not a cultural marker like Pearl Harbor was. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009/40 "2012-07-04T06:51:54Z")
> [@Shade](#): > > For comparison, how many events can you remember between 1860 and 1910? I suspect most people’s lists goes something like: > > - American Civil War > - Abraham Lincoln is assassinated > - Uh… > > OK, not that bad, but I looked on wikipedia, and there were things that I knew happened, but could have told you whether it was before or after 1850, so I didn’t think I could count them. > > I think “cold war” and “first people in space/on the moon” are way up there. MLK seems to have a reasonable chance, as he’s already a byword even by people who don’t know anything else about the period. > > I’m not sure even 9/11 will be that obvious: can you name the worst terrorist atrocity \before\ 9/11? Will 2060 really be that different, even if you attribute all of the current wars, wars on terror, and anti-Islam sentiment to 9/11? Well, to be fair, I’ve just had a couple of history classes. But I’d be surprised if people didn’t remember the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Panama Canal, the Spanish-American war (TR’s Rough Riders) in 1898, the Pan American Exposition of 1901 (McKinley assassination), the acquisition of Alaska and the Yukon Gold Rush, the post-Civil War completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, numerous inventions: the Model T, the telegraph, the light bulb, the Wright brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk, Battle of Little Bighorn (Custer), OK Corral gunfight (for us older people who watched a lot of westerns growing up), and the Massacre at Wounded Knee. Are these not significant? For the last 50 years, I’d guess for sure 9/11 attack for its enormous loss of life as the result of the first successful foreign terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and for that matter, the Oklahoma bombing, Hurricane Katrina destroying New Orleans, the 2011 earthquake/tsunami/meltdown in Japan, 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the Great Recession of 2008 and its accompanying failures of the banking and the housing industries, Nixon resigning, ongoing crisis in the Middle East from the 1970s through today, the Bay of Pigs, Cold War and nuclear proliferation, the fall of USSR and the Berlin wall, Kennedy assassination, the assassination of Martin Luther King, the moon landing, the space shuttle program and the \*Challenger \*and \*Columbia \*disasters, Vietnam (because of the draft and accompanying social unrest), Iraq/Afghanistan wars that broke the U.S. economy, the election of the first African-American President in 2008, the invention of the personal computer and birth of the internet, “test tube babies”, the OJ Simpson trial (the first one), Watts riots in mid-60s and South Central L.A. riots in the 90s. That’s all I got for now. I haven’t read the thread fully, but I’d expect most of these have already been covered. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-of-the-past-50-years-will-be-remembered-in-100-years/627009.md?page=3)