Growing up my mom would tell me about times she remembered. She remembered when Kennedy was killed in 1963. She remembered Tiananmen Square in 1989. She remembered when the Berlin Wall came down in 1990. I was with her when September 11th happened. I was with her in 2005 when Pope John Paul II died. She would tell me when the wall came down you were just a baby, but I wanted to go to Germany, to be a part of it. To get a piece of that wall. Or I remember after the Pope died my mom said she was thinking of going to his funeral. Just dropping everything and going. She always remembers, always realizes the importance of such great events. At the Holocaust museum in New York, she cried. She felt guilty, her ancestors are German. She feels the past. She knows  histories turning points, feels their importance, knows that these are the events that shape the world. I remember when Barack Obama was elected president, first African American President in the history of our nation. I also felt this feeling my mother gave to me to inherit. Our emotions are shared. She gave me this gift. I am a history major, I am very aware of the importance of such events. 

     Today I was watching Mad Men, a series on AMC about a admen in the 60s. I just watched the episode in the third season when President Kennedy died. I could sense a sinking feeling in my chest, my vision grew blurry from tears. I felt why everyone of my parents generation knows where they were when he was shot that day in Dallas. It was horrifying, it was world changing, the President of the United States was killed, and then all of the sudden we had a new President who no one had elected,a man named Johnson. The world was on its head. This is history, this is why it is important, this is what shaped the world we live in. From the defeat of the Athenians at Aegospotami, to the landing of those ships on D-day to the crashing of two commercial airliners into the World Trade Center on September 11, this is what shapes our world. I hope history is never ignored, the future is far to important to not remember and head the wisdom that can be gathered from our past.