Where does Bin Laden's death place in historic events in your lifetime?

[Renew Deal]

My list is:

1. 9/11
2. Berlin Wall
3. Bin Laden
4. Soviet Union Collapses
5. Obama elected
6. Challenger
7. Iraq invades Kuwait and aftermath

I bet I forgot a few. What about you?

[frazzled]

1. My lifetime, alas, extends a lot further back

I'd say the assassination of President Kennedy, and five years later, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, were much bigger deals for me.

For my parents' generation, World War II has to have been of far greater import than any of these things.

[Renew Deal]

3. I wasn't around for that and Vietnam

I can't imagine what it was like losing the Kennedy's, and MLK.

[Art_from_Ark]

78. June 6, 1968

Summer vacation had just started and I went over to a friend's house like I usually did. His sisters were all sitting on the sofa, crying their eyes out. When I asked what was wrong, they said "Bobby Kennedy's been killed". It was a really terrible day. I still get all choked up thinking about that day.

[leftstreet]

2. More people will remember where they were when they heard Princess Diana died

:hide:

[Renew Deal]

4. I remember where I was.

And that probably belongs on the list.

I was sitting at a bar on St. Marks in NYC waiting for friends. The Knicks were playing a playoff game and I don't think they were doing well. Never forget how sad I was that night.

[texastoast]

10. I remember where I was for all of them

JFK - Third grade classroom

MLK - Home watching Walter Cronkite announce it with my racist dad saying something like, "All he did was stir up the n***s."

RFK - Band camp eating lunch

Challenger - At work

Princess Di - At my sister-in-law's house who couldn't be bothered by royalty, even a hounded, loving mother who used her celebrity to raise consciousness about land mines.

OBL - Logging on to DU

[Renew Deal]

17. I got a call last night saying I need to turn on the TV because Obama was going to speak

This was at 10:30 EDT. I assumed something bad happened. I was relieved when I heard the news.

[csziggy]

49. I woke my husband up to tell him something was going on

He suspected we'd invaded Syria. He was very relieved to hear it was just bin Laden.

[NYC_SKP]

5. JFK, MLK, RFK, John Lennon, 9/11, Obama wins, Osama loses. (eom)

[Renew Deal]

6. No Berlin wall?

I was a kid, but that was a major turning point in our history. It was sort of an end to WW2 which soon preceded the Soviet Union Collapse.

[NYC_SKP]

13. I was somehow less connected to world events during those years...

...a few years earlier I had watched the Oliver North Iran Contra hearings in disgust and I think I became disconnected.

But no doubt, that was a significant change in the political and social world for many, absolutely life changing.

:thumbsup:

[oldhippydude]

45. the moon landing

was a huge deal... along with apollo 13, and a number of events of the early space age..

[Duer 157099]

7. I don't think it makes my top 20 list

because I'm not sure it's going to really change anything.

[cliffordu]

8. My last hangover.

The clap.

[Capitalocracy]

69. TMI. nt

;)

[JI7]

9. not sure about your 7 but i would put 4,5, and 6 before Bin Laden's death

[Renew Deal]

15. Maybe 4 and 5, but not 6.

But I didn't really grow up with the Soviets being the enemy that older people did. Gorbachez was the first leader of the Soviets that I really knew about, and then it was over. Also, I am a NYer, so seeing Bin Laden go is a major milestone.

[JI7]

41. i think it might take a while to see also

like what happens as a result of his dying. right now it's all new. also i think people think bin laden when we think 9/11 also. so it's kind of hard to see it as different things.

but just like 9/11 was a huge change , there could be another huge change with bin laden's death.

a few other things are the revolutions in northafrica/middle east.

[nevergiveup]

11. My list

1. 9/11
2. Kennedy Assassination
3. MLK Assassination
4. Moon Landing
5. Obama election
6. Bin Laden
7. Berlin Wall
8. U.S. invading Iraq
9. Bobby Kennedy Assassination

[1620rock]

12. MOON LANDING

[csziggy]

48. How could I forget that! I was thinking of bad events, I guess. n/t

[SoCalDem]

14. the older you are , the longer the list

Berlin wall BUILT.. we were sure the Russians were up to no good

Cuban Missile Crisis..locked down on base, watching planes take off day & night for exercises, as we waited to be blown to bits.. we were a prime target..Panama Canal

JFK...stairwell between classes.. 7th grade

MLK...eagerly awaiting the show that night on campus (KU). Bill Cosby (the show did not happen, for obvious reasons)

RFK.... hanging out with friends


so many more

take a glance at all that's noteworthy in the 20th century

http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/20th.html

[Renew Deal]

16. You were alive when the Panama Canal was built?

Wait, I think I get it now.

JFK must have been so horrible.

[SoCalDem]

20. we were stationed at Albrook AFB.. a few miles away from the canal

and were kept out of school.. we had no tv, and we all just knew that the Canal would be nuked:scared:

[Renew Deal]

22. I didn't know the canal was a target.

Could they have pulled it off?

[SoCalDem]

39. an ICBM could have done the trick, but lucky for us all they never did

nor did we..

The PC has always been a target.. without it, ships have to round South America...not something they want to go back to:)

[msongs]

18. barely rates a mention at the very end, if that nt

[Renew Deal]

19. Are you over 150 years old?

1. Civil War
2. WW2
3. WW1
4. Lincoln

:shrug:

[Luminous Animal]

34. I agree.

[demosincebirth]

21. Mine are the defeat of Nazi Germany and the surrender of Japan.

[Renew Deal]

23. Those are pretty freaking significant.

I can't imagine what it was like when WW2 ended. It must have been quite a relief.

[Stinky The Clown]

24. These lists are complicated. Four events are on mine

The deaths of Kennedy, King and Kennedy I see as cataclysmic changes from which we have yet to recover.

As a young man, the Cuban Missile Crisis scared the shit out of me.


Many other events could make such a list. Most have already been mentioned. But for me, personally, those four are it.

[whatchamacallit]

25. It's pretty big

I'll remember it as the day the oil mob tied off the biggest loose end.

[bettyellen]

26. John Lennon's death. It suprised me a great deal the wide range of people who loved and deeply

respected him.

[Renew Deal]

32. Was the attempt on Reagan as depressing as the assasinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, Lennon?

Did it fall in that same mold? Were people relieved that someone survived?

[csziggy]

54. No, because he survived and they played down the seriousness

Of his injuries for a long time after he recovered. It was almost like a movie lead injury - "Just a flesh wound." - at least as far as the news released at the time was concerned. There had already been the two attempts on Jerry Ford's life with no injury and the Reagan incident seemed only slightly more serious at the time.

[bettyellen]

70. the Reagan shooting was a scary blip, not nearly as bad as Lennon. John touched people I think

because he appealed to their higher selves in a way. It was sad and senseless because he was a lamb who's angry young man days were largely over and he had transformed into someone who had an obvious and deep love of humanity. His idealism and forthright nature really struck a nerve with people of all ages I guess because the antiwar message was so much more widely accepted and even admired by the time of his death.
With Reagan I believe he was out of the woods by the end of the day, and it was freaky or scary rarther than truly sad. I do think you have to go back to Bobby and MLK to find the same kind of sense of national mourning that John Lennon did.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

27. Civil Rights Movement, Cuban Missle Crisis, Vietnam, for me.

Those were the Main Events. Still are.

[Renew Deal]

35. You're the only to mention Vietnam.

I don't understand why.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. The death of another asshole

sorry... yes it is important, but the jury is still out as to how critical in this war on terror.

[Renew Deal]

31. Saddam?

Hitler? :shrug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Sadam even less significant

hitler, was... but not for the reasons you think.

Nor was Sadamn even comparable to Adolph's heels. And if we are to compare mass murderers, (and yes my father survived the holocaust). Stalin was even worst of a mother fucker and died in his sleep at home.

[Renew Deal]

36. I didn't want to age you.

;)

[Paradoxical]

29. 1. 2008 presidential election 2. 9/11 3. Katrina 4. Columbia Shuttle disaster

5. Operation Shock and Awe

Granted, I've only been alive for 21 years plus 7 months. So my experience is somewhat limited.

[Renew Deal]

38. 9/11 and Bin Laden must be weird for you.

I'm some years older than you. I think your Berlin Wall is Bin Laden.

[Paradoxical]

44. 9/11 is the single most influential event in my life. It has pervaded my consciousness.

It is so heavily engrained in my being that I think of it without even recognizing thought.

I have lived most of my "conscious" life in a post 9/11 world. In fact, I have a difficult time remembering the world before 9/11. I was only 11 years old when it happened.

I only put the 2008 election ahead of it because I was far more mature and aware when it occurred.


Bin Laden's death is important. But it does not make my list of top 5. And I don't think I've experienced enough to make a list of my top 10. It would be a jumble of things like the OJ Simpson trial and Michael Jacksons death. Shit that doesn't really matter.

[csziggy]

57. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the same for me

We were sure that we were going to die in a nuclear holocaust. It changed my entire view of the world. Many of us during that period thought we would not live to adulthood, much less get old. Or if we did survive it would be in a Mad Max, post-apocalyptic world.

Here is the difference - we then got hit with losing John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, John Lennon. And all the public figures who burned themselves out on drugs. The crooked election of Richard Nixon, Watergate, the hearings and the resignation. The end of the Vietnam War, which should have been a good thing but the way we bailed out was a clusterfuck.

Damn - looking back at that, it's a wonder more of my generation survived. And no wonder many of us tuned out politics.

At least we had the Moon landing.

[Luminous Animal]

58. My daughter is 21. Shock and Awe would be on her list. She protested

for months and was one of thousands who shut down downtown San Francisco for three days. She cried at my knees when we watched that perverse footage of that illegal operation.

[Luminous Animal]

30. It is a bit disturbing that most people put death high up on their list of historic events...

These are the most important historic events during my lifetime, in no particular order...

Roe v Wade
The Freedom Riders
Nixon's resignation
King's March on Washington
The free speech movement and student uprisings


And on the negative side...

The U.S. citizenry's puling capitulation to the authoritarian state starting with the war on drugs to the war on terror.

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. Partly that is how we teach history

<------- as a historian I will take some of that blame when I manage to get a job...

But I will put one event, recent event, even higher than those...

The Keppler mission. We are finding Super Earths, some in life zones, like there is no tomorrow. Finding out we are NOT alone will be up there with the discovery of fire and writing.

[Luminous Animal]

51. That is why I used "The People's History" to teach my homeschooled daughter

U.S. History. Movement history is living history.

[Renew Deal]

40. Wouldn't the death of your "idols" make a big impression?

Especially "how" they were killed?

[Luminous Animal]

50. Sure, the fact and how they were killed can make a big personal impression but I think

that is a limited view of history. To me, the concessions that labor was able to wrest from capital is far more historic than the deaths of the strikers and agitators... this does not mean that I do not think that their deaths were not important.

It's like this, MLK's murder was tragic; his movement was historic.

[nadinbrzezinski]

60. May Day is a PUURRRFECT example

Americans for the most part DO NOT know what Mayday celebrates (nor do most marchers around the world) but it should be an AMERICAN holiday. After all it commemorates the Martyrs of Haymarket.

[Luminous Animal]

63. We (collectively) used to know, though. It really is sad that that knowledge has all

but disappeared.

[Truth2Tell]

42. It doesn't make the top 100

not even close.

[JackRiddler]

43. Not even comparable to the Arab Spring or Wikileaks, and those are still happening.

[Luminous Animal]

53. I definitely could add Wikileaks to my list. I don't think the Arab Spring

has had time to realize its potential and I am very concerned that it never will.

[JackRiddler]

79. The Egyptian revolution alone is arguably the biggest thing to happen since the Soviets fell.

It also signals the end of US empire. But you're right, the story will likely go on for years.

Anyway, discrete events are not usually "it." The Internet, the hegemony of the banksters, the destruction of the ecological basis for human life and civilization, the depletion of easy oil reserves... I guess the financial crash can be viewed as arguably the biggest discrete event, and I didn't see anyone even mentioning it.

[JackRiddler]

82. Lets just look at the last 10 years...

Rough chronology of events from a very US-centered perspective:

(The 2000 election coup is now older than 10 years; the Bush tax cuts with their enormous impact on economy and society are about 10 years old.)

September 11th, anthrax, and the transformation of US government and society into a quasi-psychotic "homeland" in the aftermath.

The resulting global terror war and the invasion of Afghanistan.

Enron and the other corporate crashes that revealed the true, routine nature of plunder capitalism, with little consequence (instead they found a new bubble to inflate).

The failed US-backed coup in Venezuela and the Argentinean uprising against the IMF, key moments in the South American spring along with the election of Lula in Brazil.

The invasion of Iraq, then the insurgency and the decision to foment a sectarian massacre as the means of "winning."

The US-engineered coup to oust Aristide.

The "reelection" of the Bush regime.

The 2004 tsunami.

Recent IEA acknowledgement that extraction of the easy oil reserves peaked already in 2005 (and no one noticed).

Katrina and the aftermath in New Orleans.

The 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

The crash of the capitalist system in 2007-2009, the 2008 banksters' coup.

The election of Obama, the new administration's decision not to reverse the Bush "achievements," the right wing reaction (and absence of the left from protest), the escalation in Afghanistan.

The various uprisings against the neoliberal system since 2009, and sure to continue. The Iceland referendums against the IMF.

The Haiti earthquake.

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf (itself about equivalent to the Niger Delta spills), which should have been considered as big as Pearl Harbor as a reason to mobilize national resources to confront the threat (in this case, of the way we extract and consume energy).

The big Wikileaks releases starting last year.

The Arab spring and the Egyptian revolution.

The Japanese earthquake and tsunami and the Fukushima disaster. Another "Pearl Harbor" level event that should have mobilized an immediate world mobilization to begin a complete conversion in the way energy is made and used over the next 20 to 30 years.

The NATO intervention in Libya.

EDIT: And talk about my American provincialism! What about the Congo war, the most costly of all? South Sudan and Darfur, all the African crises, the opening of the Three Rivers Dam?

In a hundred years, all they'll be talking about will be our utter blindness to ecological disasters, the failure of the US-led system to rein in warfare and predatory capitalism, and presumably the end of the US empire and the rise of other nations such as China. Also, the technological and media changes, above all the Internet. Do you really think a Space Shuttle crash means anything to a historian, compared to that?

Compared to the big history, the announced killing of OBL (even if it all happened as described) is in the same league of other feel-good propaganda operations like the Jessica Lynch "rescue," the phony Saddam statue toppling or the fake finding of Saddam in the "spider hole." In three months, most of you will barely remember it.

If it were actually a blow against "terrorism" however defined it would mean something, but it's just the cathartic destruction of a hated symbol, with very little effect on anything else that will happen.

Just to go with the same set of 24-48 hours, the Canadian election is likely to turn out to be several hundred times more significant.

In fact, the OBL event is only about 10 or 20 times more important as a historic event than the UK royal wedding.

.

[Lucian]

46. Meh.

It wasn't that important. I found the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton more fascinating.

In no particular order:

9/11
Obama's election
2000 (s)election
Death of Princess Diana
Berlin wall collapse
Challenger explosion
Exxon Valdez
Chernobyl
Hell, even Gulf Oil Spill ranks higher than OBL's death

[csziggy]

47. Bin Laden - pffffft. Not in my top ten list of historic events

1. Cuban Missile Crisis
2. John F. Kennedy
3. 9/11
4. Nixon's resignation
5. Martin Luther King
6. End of the War in Vietnam
7. Challenger
8. Columbia
9. Bobby Kennedy
10. Iran Hostage Crisis

Your list is pretty good - aside from Bin Laden - for the last twenty five years.

[Rowdyboy]

52. I'm 57 and would put it midway in the top 20 events of my lifetime though I'm sure I'm forgetting ..

many things (Katrina belongs in here somewhere, I'm just not sure where)

1. Kennedy assassination
2. Moon landing
3. Obama elected
4. Berlin Wall
5. Challenger
6. Nixon resignation
7. 9/11
8. Soviet Union collapse
9. Assassinations of MLK and RFK
10. Theft of election of 2000
11. Tel-star launched
12. Bin Laden*****************************************************************
13. Carter election
14. Clinton election
15. LBJ withdraws
16. Agnew resigns
17. failed Clinton impeachment
18. Health care reform
19. Iraq war
20. Reagan assassination attempt

[snot]

55. It doesn't seem v. impt. to me.

I'm not clear that it changes anything much.

The best effect I can hope for is that it makes the pointlessness of our wars plainer.

[MiniMe]

56. I have to include JFK's assination in that

Along with MLK and RFK

[LibDemAlways]

59. Sorry, not in my top 10.

1. JFK assassination
2. 1st moon landing
3. Assassinations of MLK and RFK
4. Stolen 2000 election
5. 9/11
6. Collapse of Soviet Union
7. Cuban Missile Crisis
8. Vietnam War
9. Watergate
10. death of John Lennon

I'm not sure it would make the top 50.

[pfitz59]

61. Would've preferred to bring him in alive; however,

1. JFK 2. MLK 3. RFK 4. Moon landing 5. Kent State 6. Watergate 7. John Lennon shot 8. Desert Sheild 9. Clinton wins 10. 9/11 11. Iraq invasion 11. Obama wins 12. OBL

[cherokeeprogressive]

62. Wow you must be young...

The Fall of Saigon
Jon Bonham
John Lennon
MLK Jr.
RFK
Assassination attempts on US Presidents
One Small Step for a Man
Mars Expeditions
Achille Lauro
1972 Olympic Terror

The above is certainly not in order by importance, but I could go on and on.

Bin Hidin's death? Man that's way low on my list of important events during my lifetime.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

64. All I know is that my list is topped by the cancellation of 'The Facts of Life'

after which life was never the same

[alarimer]

65. It's a Pyrrhic victory at best

Nothing much is going to change. We have been our own worst enemies. The worst damage to this country was not by Bin Laden or the terrorists but by US. By cowering in fear and allowing the neo-cons to engage in unlawful wars and destruction of our civil rights, we handed him victory on a silver platter.

So no I doubt I will remember this day any more than any other.

[Moral_Imagination]

66. Here are mine

1. Dissolution of Soviet Union
2. US defeat in Vietnam
3. Nixon to China
4. Deng Xiaoping/Chinese Economic reforms
5. 9/11
6. US Invasion/Occupation of Iraq
7. 1973 Arab-Israeli war
8. Camp David Accords
9. Mubarak Leaves office
10. USSR Afghanistan Occupation
11. Iranian Revolution
12. Iran-Iraq War
13. End of Aparteid in South Africa
14. Angolan/Cuban forces defeat South Afican army in Angola
15. Israel Occupation of Lebanon 1982-2000
16. Hezbollah - Israel War 2006
17. Financial Collapse of 2008
18. Obamacare
19. Roe v Wade
20. Citizens United

[howard112211]

67. Huh, you place "Bin Laden killed" over "Soviet Union collapses"?

Strange priorities.

[JackRiddler]

80. Illustrates the farcical nature of the pretend-Cold War (GWOT) compared to the real one...

which was also largely pretend, but involved, oh, everyone on the planet, as opposed to a big Hollywood production around a handful of the renegade former CIA assets.

[pipi_k]

68. The extinction of the dinosaurs hit me pretty hard... n/t

[Name removed]

71. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kip Humphrey]

72. taking out the trash, OBL killed.

[marmar]

73. I just don't see his death having that much importance in the grand scheme of things.

Terrorism will persist, as will foolish wars of choice.

[mmonk]

74. I don't know.

9/11 marked the end of the country I knew. I guess it all depends on where we go from here.

[sarge43]

75. Mine

1. JFK
2. Vietnam
3. MLK Jr
4. Cold War
5. Moon Landing
6. Sputnik
7. Katrina
8. OK City
9. 9/11

[Art_from_Ark]

76. In my life, on a national/international level

1. Assassination of RFK
2. Assassination of JFK
3. 2011 great earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster in Japan
4. The Great Society
5. Vietnam War
6. The Space Race
7. End of the draft
8. Resignation of Richard Nixon
9. Fall of the Berlin Wall and Soviet Bloc
10. End of the Great Society with the election of Ronald Reagan
11. Assassination of Martin Luther King

Bin Laden's death is waaaay down there.

[hobbit709]

77. Not even the top 50.

[jpljr77]

81. 1. 9/11 2. Obama elected 3. Fall of USSR 4. Berlin Wall 5. 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake/tsunami

1. 9/11
2. Obama elected
3. Fall of USSR
4. Berlin Wall
5. 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake/tsunami
6. Katrina
7. Challenger
8. Netscape IPO ("Netscape moment")
9. US invasion of Afghanistan
10. "Shock and Awe"

Something like that. Bin Laden does not register.