This is the 13th anniversary of 9/11 — the tragedy terrorist destruction of people and buildings when planes hit the two World Trade Centers in NYC, the Pentagon in Washington, DC and brought another plane down over Pennsylvania. Altogether, with the police and firemen who tried to save the victims, just under 3,000 died that day. Everyone knows where they were that day and what they were doing when they heard the news.
It is those remembrances that should be recorded for future generations. Start with yourself, just enough memoirs so other will know your reactions and feelings of this event. Talk to others in the family, get their reactions, especially now with the passage of time and make a record of it. Start some dialog.
This September 11th event of 2001 does not stand alone. Other events on that date that can really tie-in to your own family history include: The Scots defeat the England in 1297 in the Battle of Sterling Bridge led by William Wallace; Henry Hudson of England arrives what would later be Manhattan Island in New York in 1609; the British celebrate a victory at the Battle of Brandywine in 1777 during the American Revolution;
the fame French jewel, the Hope Diamond was stolen in 1792; the British during the War of 1812 arrive at George Washington’s Mount Vernon home by 1813; in Christiana, PA, escaped slaves stood against their former owner in armed resistance in 1851 creating a rallying cry for the abolitionist movement;
Halley’s Comet was rediscovered by Max Wolf in 1909 and ground was broken to begin construction of the Pentagon in 1941.
If you get a response from family members of their remembrances of 9/11; select other historic events and do the same thing. A few suggestions: Dec. 7, 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor; the death in April 1945 of President Franklin Roosevelt; the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis; the Nov. 29, 1963 assassination of President Kennedy; the July 1969 landing of a man on the moon; the ‘flower power – hippie’ culture of the 1960s and 1970s and in August 1974 when President Nixon resigned.
Photos: NYC Sept. 11, 2001; Scots defeat British; Battle of Brandywine; and the resistance in Christiana, PA.
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