Time Capsules

I think most teenage girls keep diaries of some description. During my early years at college (high school) I had several Winnie the Pooh spiral bound notebooks in which I would over-analyse petty dramas. How fun was puberty?! I don't know how old I'll have to be before I can look back through those pages without groaning and cringing.

In 2004 I copied a couple of other friends, and replaced those notebooks with page-a-day printed diaries, up until 2008. It's something I think I'll resume next year, because while there are still many embarrassing entries, they're more of a scrapbook of each year. There's the occasional wordy rant, but mostly the pages are covered with photos, tickets, and letters. A school friend's damaged print from photography class, prompts from a first year charades game, an article on Heath Ledger's death.

History? Clear All.

Last week I'm sure most of you saw the compilation of Tweets from people who were unaware the sinking of the Titanic was a real event. Along with those I shared it with on Facebook, I was appalled by the writers' ignorance.

But today I began questioning why I was so stunned. I distinctly remember reading a watered-down (no pun intended) account of the disaster at primary school, prior to the original release of James Cameron's film, but I'm unsure whether the majority of my peers did the same. If not for the film, would we early-20-somethings have known about the 1912 event itself? I guess that is impossible to say for certain.

Regardless, this isn't a post written to defend these poor Tweeters. I could speculate for hours about modern education, and the amount of time one could spend focusing on information about events happening around the world right at this very moment, let alone last century.

But I'm thinking more selfishly, and wondering - if these people can go through life being unaware of this iconic tragedy, what am I missing out on?

I feel like almost every day a historical event is referred to in a news report or article, and I learn a whole lot of information about something I'd never heard of before. In the past week alone I have learned, for the first time, about Budd Dwyer's suicide, the Lockerbie bombing, and Unit 731 - the latter of which caused the most disappointment in myself. I knew bad things happened during World War II, but I didn't know details of this Unit, I didn't know who was involved, I didn't know any specifics of the atrocious acts which were carried out there. And to me that event seems far more significant than an engineering feat-come-maritime disaster.

So I'm curious - what are some historical events you think are significant, and that everyone (me) should be aware of?

Then

After Caitlin posted about genealogy, I clicked over to ancestry.com and signed up for the two week trial (if you do the same, and don't want to pay for a subscription, ensure you cancel in time!)

I think it would be easy to turn crazy obsessive about researching my family history, so I just stuck to following existing information on the site (from other people's research) and cancelled my subscription on the same day to avoid forgetting about it. And also avoid getting obsessed. It was fun. It was pretty easy to get back to my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather on Dad's side who was born around 1690, but that's as far as the 'hint' prompts took me.

I also found this cute picture which is apparently of my great grandparents on Dad's side, Minnie and Norman, on their wedding day in 1908. So awkward-looking, but awesome.