Witnessing History

Every so often something will happen in your life time that in years to come the next generation will ask a whole host of cliques questions about such as "Where were you?", "How did it feel?" and "Did you know you were witnessing history?" The answer to the first one of course will always be "In front of the telly, where else would I be?"
Anyway seriously today's events was one of those moments in our lives, whether you watched it or didn't even know it was happening because Obama was sworn in as American President today. For the first time in their history, America will not have a white man in charge. Now this has made me look back at my life and think about the times I have witnessed history happen, these are the events that will be taught as turning points in the classrooms in about 15 years time, these are, in my opinion, our generations fell of the Berlin wall or end of the Second World War.

Obama's sworn in as President

Well I might as well start with the one that happened today. America has come along way since Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech" and today they have an African-American president for the first time in their history. Today, for one of the first times in about 8 years, we can look across the Atlantic and say well done on doing the right thing. While watching this on television, it was clear to see that the American people are caught up in a wave of excitement and hope, this can be witnessed by the fact so many people turned out to witness the event.
That all said though, lets hope this doesn't just become an historical event because of his race and it is the start of a new era in American and world politics in these "dark" times.

9/11

From one of the brightest days in America's history to one of it's darkest. Probably the defining moment in the last 10 years, it was the start of the events (in the general public's eyes) that led us into Iraq and Afghanistan and all the troubles that plague the world today. It was also the start of the War on Terror and everything that means or doesn't mean.
It is also an the first event in my memory that deserved wall to wall coverage from all the channels ( we had similar coverage for the death of Princess Diana) and I can clearly remember getting home from school and just sitting down in front of the television and watching what had happened over in New York thinking how can this happen? and Why?
The imagines that were shown that day won't be forgotten by anybody who saw from or has seen them since.

7/7 Aftermath

I could say similar things about the imagines that came from the attack on London but instead I'm going to talk about the aftermath and in particular the fact that the people who carried out the attacks were British and whats more, they were from my city.
These weren't the same type of terrorist that flew the planes into the side of World Trade Center Towers, they were from another country, no these were kids that were born and raised in our own country. It opened up alot of questions for us and many still haven't been answered. It also showed that our country isn't as forward in ethnic integration as many thought we were, sure in recent years we had seen the rise of the BNP but they were only small gains and in working class towns like Burnley. How could a city, that has many different nationalities and integration rise a group of terrorist?
For me it was a shock, I know the part of the city they came from is mainly muslim but there was never anything to suggest that they were radicals, plotting terrible deeds hiding in this part of the city. Leeds is a city that has changed alot in my life time, from a stereotypical northern city to one of the fastest growing and forward thinking cities in the U.K outside of London and in just a few weeks that was all swept aside and we became the home of British based muslim radicalism. It woke many of us up to the problems we have internally and not just externally. Hopefully it will have proved to be a watershed, where we start turning things around for a brighter future, who knows, some day there could be 2 million people on the streets of London to greet a muslim Prime Minister.


How have things changed in how we witness history?

Now for a general look at how we witness history has changed due to the new technologies available. The fact that many people in the street now have mobile phones that are equipped with cameras (both still and video) means that we are exposed to more angles of events than we have ever had access to before. Even just comparing to the 9/11 attacks to the 7/7 ones show how much accessible technology has advanced, with 9/11 we had a few shots of the planes crashing into the towers and I think only one of the first plane hitting (and that was due to a French film maker, making a film of about firefighters at the time) where as with 7/7 we had many amateur videos and photos from the tunnels and streets of London. All this new material is great for the historians of the future, as primary sources will be first hand, on the spot accounts (well photos and videos) instead of mainly diaries and newspaper reports sometimes written days after the events.
We also have instant news, if something happens in any developed country, it will be on the internet or if it is really big, on the t.v within minutes. We can be overwhelmed with news sometimes, the news reporters don't always have to time to report the facts after the smoke has settled so to speak. Instead we get portions of news on the telly instead of reports in the newspapers the next morning, meaning misinformation often happens and not because of government censorship but because they don't have the time to process all the information available to them.
As this technology spreads, historic world events are going to be seen by more people than ever live, offer more viewpoints, give us more information, and surely this can only be a good thing.