What major historical events do you remember?

I CANNOT TELL A LIE

Of course I can!  I’ve been doing it since long before I started blogging.  Despite previous claims, I’m not really older than dirt, and didn’t know any T-Rex by their first names.

I was born at the end of 1944.  I don’t remember any of WW II, but I do remember the rationing that lasted for several years past the end of it.  It’s why we discovered margarine and powdered skim-milk, which we switched to.

I kinda, sorta, remember the Korean War.  An older cousin joined the Canadian Air Force, and was trained to fly the first jet planes.  He was the first pilot in Canada to crash because of G-force unconsciousness.  The Korean War is still ongoing.  There was a cease-fire – an armistice – but 70 years later, it is still valid and unresolved.

I remember the space race, where the US started out behind, but came on, to put a man on the moon first.  Modern society benefitted greatly from discoveries and developments, like miniaturization of computers, microwaves, and food-drying techniques, but when the political-manufacturing combine couldn’t easily wring more money out of it, they set it on a shelf, waiting for some crazed genius like Elon Musk to come along.

I remember the Cuban revolution, where a corrupt, repressive Banana Republic, capitalist government was replaced with a corrupt, repressive, Communist one.  Americans took their dolls and went home – except for Guantanamo Bay – leaving more room on the beaches for Canadians.

I remember the Cuban missile crisis, where Russia attempted to put nuclear weapons on America’s back door.  The heroic, King of Camelot, president, John F. Kennedy stood firm and prevented it.  The Russians, as a culture, are very insecure, and worried that other peoples regard them as unsophisticated peasants.  They didn’t even have an alphabet or written language until about AD 400, when St Cyril wrote one on a mirror for them.  Russian president, Nikita Khrushchev, took off one of his shoes, and pounded on the lectern at the United Nations.  Nothing shows the level of sophistication better than that.

Suddenly, it was a time for famous Americans to die before their time.  John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  His younger brother Robert F. Kennedy was shot dead, civil-rights activist Martin Luther King was gunned down, and even-younger Kennedy brother, Ted, accidently drowned Mary-Jo Kopechne, while trying to baptize her by driving off a bridge after a party.

The day that JFK was assassinated, I was writing a grade 11 history exam.  Our history teacher, who also taught us English, burst into the examination room and announced, “While you’re writing about history, history was being made.  President Kennedy was shot.”  He stood there for at least 15 seconds, in front of 30 gape-jawed, but silent faces, and finally asked, “What??!”  The keener girl said, “Is he dead?”  “Of course he’s dead.  I just told you that.”  “No sir, you said he’d BEEN SHOT!”  Not very good communication or English usage from an English teacher.

I watched the Berlin wall go up, and experienced the Berlin Blockade, when Russia tried to strangle West Berlin by closing East German highways to supply trucks.  I cheered as thousands of cargo planes flew over the blockade in the Berlin Airlift.  I watched as The Wall was pulled down, years later, and the SSRs splintered like flakes in a snow globe.

Somewhere along the line, Billy Joel wrote and performed the song, We Didn’t Start The Fire, about 50 years of this history.  Fundamentalist Christian Buy-Bull thumpers are forever insisting that we are in The Last Days, but we are always living in Interesting Times.