Thirteen years after the horrific events of September 11, 2001, that date is still burned into our collective consciousness. Most people can recall exactly where they were, what they were doing and who they were with when they first saw those unimaginable images of commercial airliners crashing into the World Trade Center towers.
Now, years on, as commemorations continue on the anniversary of “911”, we wonder - is it now time to give that date, which is synonymous with terrorism, a new association? Centuries of human activity can’t compress into an annual calendar; each day is layered with a litany of events that are worth remembering. Some silly, some somber, but each relegated to the background when a more newsworthy event occurs.
Perhaps it’s time to respectfully place that dark day into the history books and take a moment to remind oursleves of other events, sad and joyous, minor and momentous, that share the date.
Did you know, for instance, that on the same day in 1965, Syrian President Bashar Assad was born? Or that on September 11, 1792, the Hope Diamond was stolen from King Louis XVI during the French Revolution?
With this in mind, can we disempower the tragic associations of 9/11 and free it as a day not belonging solely to terror, but to the rest of larger world history as well?
Here’s a selection of other events that once made headlines on September 11 throughout the years.
