“The Most Painful Thing I’ve Ever Witnessed”: 30 Historical Events Witnessed By These Folks
Interview With Author
We often tend to think of historical events as a little bit abstract, we have perhaps seen them a hundred times in various depictions, from different angles, with a multitude of sources and perspectives. But, as with so many things in life, seeing things with your own eyes is a very unique experience.
Someone asked “What is the most historically significant event you witnessed IN PERSON?” and people shared what they saw. So get comfortable as you scroll through and be sure to upvote your favorite posts and if you have witnessed a bit of history with your own eyes, share it in the comments. We also got in touch with FictionVent to learn more.
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Not exactly. I was in class with the daughter of one of the pilots on 9/11 when she found out that her father had died.
We all knew about the attacks already, and we knew her father was a pilot, so when her mother came in with the principal we all knew why. It was without a doubt the most painful thing I've ever witnessed.
Bored Panda got in touch with FictionVent who posted the original question and they were kind enough to answer some of our questions. Firstly, we wanted to know why they decided to pose this question to the internet. "Recently I was thinking about my own life experiences, and if I had witnessed anything historic in my 38 years on this planet. But also, some of my favorite comments on Reddit are when someone tells a personal story about seeing something historic. Posing the question in an Ask Reddit post seemed to be a great way to curate a lot of those experiences in one place. I even got to ask some follow-up questions to people who had first-hand accounts of some very historic moments. What a great resource!
We also wanted to know why they though the post went so viral. "The most popular Ask Reddit posts are usually ones that make users think about themselves, but also pique the reader’s interest in hearing what other users have to say. The responses were fascinating, as I got comments from people young and old, all over the world. It was fun and insightful to read, and I was not surprised that the post hit the front page of Ask Reddit," they shared with Bored Panda.
I was working in New York City ICUs in April 2020. Would not recommend.
I sat on the roof of our house and watched Mt. St. Helens erupt less than 100 miles away.
"I myself haven’t witnessed anything TOO historic. I saw Obama speak on the campaign trail in Philadelphia in 2008. I attended what turned out to be the final Beastie Boys concert (even though we didn’t know it at the time.) I live in Maui now, so I was around for the missile alert scare, and recently, I was in Lahaina on the day of the big fire. My takeaway was that most of the time, seeing history in the making just comes down to being in the right (or wrong) place at the right time. It’s not something you can force, and so those experiences end up being rare and in a sense, quite valuable."
Written depictions of history suffer a certain paradox, where, on the one hand, eyewitness records are vital to know what happened, while on the other, research suggests that individual accounts are often incorrect and misleading. The truth is, that our memories are not always accurate, particularly when we are scared, excited, or distracted.
After all, most of us don’t know we are part of a historical event until the significance sinks in later. Research into eyewitness accounts used in criminal cases shows that people constantly get details wrong, misremember, or end up influenced by later events. On a regular day, we don’t necessarily remember what clothes every person on the subway was wearing, for example.
I was standing on my front porch watching the launch of the Challenger.
October 17th, 1989. I watched the 880 Nimitz freeway collapse during the San Francisco earthquake. The Honda in front of me had the upper deck crush her front-end engine compartment. The mother and her daughter were shaken up but completely fine.
I was driving a convertible Triumph Spitfire, which was scratched up slightly from debris. However, I walked away unscathed. Aside from the fact I pissed my pants, which I didn't notice until much later.
I remember seeing this on TV then I was a kid in Colorado and even drawing it afterward. I was so traumatized just seeing it on TV that I was TERRIFIED to move to California that same year and I didn't know I had bridge driving anxiety 30 years later until I clammed up and had anxiety crossing the golden gate. I still will cry if I get stuck on the Bay Bridge. I can't really imagine being on the raised highways and bridges in a massive earthquake even though the images scarred me. Now I'm extremely comfortable with most earthquakes but still picker every time I cross a Bay Area bridge or raised highway 😳
It doesn’t help that the events that we might think of as historical tend to be extraordinary, often dangerous or monumental in some way. Excitement, fear, and confusion all have their own way of disrupting what we remember. For example, if a weapon is present in a situation, people tend to focus on it, while ignoring all other details.
Terry Fox running during his marathon of hope.
I was working in downtown Toronto at that time, and one day, taking a walk after lunch, I passed by the City Hall square, and there were a whole lot of people gathering around. I asked someone what's going on and he said "Some guy's running across Canada for some reason, and he's collecting money." I hung around and there were volunteers passing around buckets and baskets to collect cash. I put in three dollars, all I had with me, and went back to work. After I got home that evening, watching the news, I saw myself in the news donating to someone named Fox. Not a big deal, really, until he got farther west, and more newsworthy.
I was on the freeway in CA in the 90s when a white ford bronco passed us, and then a whole lotta police cars! I was like 10
The tumbling of the Wall in Germany… along with people selling bits and pieces of it on tables in lobby in front of commissary and px in the following weeks and months. I had picked up a chunk about the size of an oreo and kept it… has blue spray paint on the flat side. Wonder if anyone is buying them now?
As a kid I was on one of the Monday Marches (The original ones, not that sh** happening right now in Germany. Those marches were the start to what happened in Berlin later that year.) with my parents. We walked through the streets of Leipzig with candles, past armed military and police. Later found out they were cleared to fire into the crowd.
This is referred to as “weapons focus,” where the presence of danger, caused by a weapon, draws our attention so that we can better protect ourselves. This comes at the cost of missing most background details, which is fantastic for bank robbers, as an example, but not so much for future historians.
Halley's comet, on my way to school in 1986.
I remember seeing Hale Bopp Comet when I was in elementary school.
The Three Mile Island nuclear accident. I was a young newspaper reporter (21 years old) standing outside the plant the morning of the accident when the workers evacuated. They refused to say what if anything was wrong. I was the first reporter on the scene, as I had been writing about (the many) previous problems at the plant. The morning started off as a local news story. By lunchtime, it was international news. There obviously were no cell phones. There was a single pay phone in front of the plant’s observation center where we all had to take turns phoning in our stories.
Not historically significant overall, but for me it was pretty crazy - the Hawaii ‘incoming ballistic missile’ broadcast that later turned out to be accidental. As an Australian tourist on the island it was pretty whack to suddenly get the emergency message to ‘take cover, this is not a drill’ pushed to my phone, and to hear every phone around me getting the same ping.
As bleak as it sounds, the number one cause of wrongful convictions is eyewitnesses getting something wrong. Fortunately, in a manner of speaking, criminal cases tend to have just a handful of witnesses, while historic events have many. By consulting multiple people who were there, historians can actually build a more accurate picture and weed out the details that were, perhaps, added incorrectly.
1964 Good Friday Earthquake 9.2 Richter. Was a boy in Cordova, Alaska at the time.
I would have to say the LA riots. I lived about two blocks from where it started. I was on my way home from school and saw someone throw a brick through a window. I didn’t even wait. I just started running the whole way home.
I was driving down the 110 to get to my father’s wedding reception and witnessed the fires and smoke in downtown LA.
Passage of the human rights bill on the Minnesota Senate floor in 1993. One of the first states to codify LGBT equal protection.
But setting all that aside, it is no doubt a very special feeling to know that you saw something unique and widely discussed with your own eyes. Most things that happen don’t immediately seem as important as they might be in the moment. But some people do recall a distinct feeling in the back of their brains, that what they just saw is special, even as the event is unfolding in front of them.
I was at The who concert in Cincinnati where all the people were trampled dead. I was within 6 ft of the pile of people that died
Took part in Hands Across America with my parents and my sister.
I would have liked to participate. I can't remember why I didn't.
I was at the Women's March on Washington with half a million of my closest friends on January 21, 2017.
Also my husband applied for a job in the World Trade Center in June 2001, and we're forever grateful that he did not get the position.
The 1953 testing of the Salk polio vaccine ... I was volunteered for the event by my parents.
Second most: 1968 Democratic Convention Riots
My biology teacher used to brag about his wife being a polio pioneer. He'd say for a biology teacher that's like marrying a rockstar
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing. It's mostly forgotten now that the towers are gone, but it was a big deal back then. I remember riding across the Manhattan bridge and looking towards the bay and thinking 'well, it looks okay from here...'
Seven rows back ringside when Tyson chomped Holyfield’s ear off
Boston Marathon bombing. I was there and then part of the medical team - the tents at the finish line.
Ive worked in the medical tents for a decade now. The year it was super hot the news came to do a piece about us and used me with a patient as their backdrop - my phone erupted as soon as they aired it!
I was in a checkout lane where I saw Rolling Stone magazine featuring on the cover a portrait of the surviving bomber (the younger brother), like he was a rock star or something. "Oh, for f**k's sake! What next?" I wondered. "People magazine featuring him as the 'Sexiest Man Alive'... ?!"
I was the Command Post Controller that called the Pentagon to inform them of Kim Jong Un's first missile launch (and 6 subsequent launches over the next 5 years).
I was at Post Malone's opening of his personalized Raising Caines restaurant.
I was sitting at the airport gate across the way from the gate boarding MH370 (the Malaysian Airlines that went down), so I watched them board.
I was in Tokyo during the Tohoku Earthquake and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster in 2011.
I was in the SF Bay Area in 1989 when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. Fortunately, I was in a park with my mom, so we both just got knocked to the ground and sat down and rode it out, so we weren't in any danger and it wasn't super scary.
I'm still traumatized by news coverage as a kid living in a no-earthquake state. Now I see Loma Prietta outside my backyard and earthquakes rarely bother me after living on fault zones in Northern CA and now the Bay Area. But I still cannot drive across the Bay Bridge (of most Bay area bridges) without having earthquake anxiety.
Elon Musk has his spaceport in our backyard. We saw the launch of the world's tallest and most powerful rocket... and then it blew up.
Space Shuttle Columbia first launch in April 1981
My school wouldn't give us the day off for this (big deal because the ending of the Apollo program did a number on the local economy). Said anyone who skipped would get an F for the day. I think there were between 1300 to 1400 students and the name of the school itself was space industry-inspired. It turned out 18 showed up. They allowed them to check out and go home
I was a young barely high school student when Marcos was overthrown in the Philippines. I was part of the People’s Power along with my Dad, Mom and brothers. We didn’t feel unsafe but that night after Marcos left the Philippines we learned that the military was close to using force on the people. My Dad was alarmed and was glad we’re finally home safe; not sure why we went as a family but at the time my parents felt being there was important enough. My parents are dead and I know they’re probably turning in their graves when Marcos’ son was recently elected as President of the Philippines.
The b-52 crash that led to changing what large military aircraft are allowed to do for airshows. I didn't see the plane, but immediately saw the fireball. It was just a perfect, bright red turning to black mushroom cloud. Fairchild is a nuclear air base and there were a few minutes there where I was sure the world was about to end. A few years before a KC-135 doing the same thing crashed near the school while we were in class.
Chernobyl. When we were small, we used to spend time on farms that my father worked on. When Chernobyl happened, there were so many dead animals and deformed baby calves and sheep that my Dad stopped taking us out to farms. Our own cow was in a calf, and my mother rubbed iodine all over the cow twice a day in the hopes of protecting the unborn calf. It worked, and the calf survived. (She still is really proud of her efforts)
The fall of the Berlin Wall. The show on TV stopped, and the station went live to the Berlin Wall falling. I didn't really understand much about it, but it was the beginning of the end of the iron curtain. I remember we had a teacher bring in a piece of the Berlin Wall. It had googly eyes on it and was in a small plastic display case.
The fall of communism and the lines for bread in Moscow followed by the huge queue when McDonalds first opened in Moscow. Tens of thousands of people queued in the freezing cold in Moscow to get their first taste of McDonalds. It was so extremely interesting because we knew absolutely nothing about Moscow before that there were so many stories and so much we didn't have a clue about.
The IRA ceasefire marked the beginning of peace in Northern Ireland. Our teacher brought in a radio into the classroom as the IRA ceasefire was announced. It was truly amazing after 30 years of constant violence.
A couple of years later, I was on my bike cycling to work when I saw General de Chastelain's convoy pass me. It was super early in the morning, and they were on their way back from visiting an IRA weapons dump. I obviously didn't know who he was, but it was really, really unusual to see such high-end cars down an isolated country road. They were in a convoy of very fancy cars, like Mercedes and rolls Royce, etc, and I ended up pulling into a gate where one of the neighbours explained who they were.
I see a lot of 9/11, but I was working when it happened, and we only had access to a radio. I didn't actually know what the World Trade Centre was, I vaguely heard of a Bombing that occurred in that building in the 90s, but I thought it was just 1 building. We didn't really have access to the Internet and we had to wait until after work and go to the pub to actually see it on the news because we lived in student accommodation and no one had a TV. There was a communal TV, but we didn't have access to it.
Y2K. I remember where I worked. All the checkouts got upgraded, and we closed the supermarket early for IT upgrades!
Obviously, Covid.
I accidentally got caught in that Taxpayer March on Washington on September 12 2009. First time I went to the capital. I just wanted to see Washington D.C. since I moved to New Jersey a few months prior
i hate the people who think the join or die slogan/symbol flag is from the revolution.👏 IT👏 IS👏NOT👏!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's from the french and indian war, when the colonies were told by ben franklin and many others to band together to beat the french [ftr they did but the colonies didn't really unite that much] [edited to say i was NOT talking about the gadsden flag but rather the join or die flag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Join,_or_Die%5D
It's probably mostly forgotten these days, even in Canberra itself, but I was there to witness the disastrous demolition of the old Canberra Hospital. It was supposed to be a nice safe implosion, to the point that people were encouraged to come and watch, but something went horribly wrong and it exploded instead, throwing shrapnel clear across the lake where we were all standing. I was one of two little girls named Katie to be present that day, and I was the Katie who made it home. The other was struck in the head and killed. There's a memorial to her by the lakeshore to this day. I was born in that hospital, and it still strikes me as bizarre that the same damn building could easily have taken me out again.
I watched the Towers fall. I went to school in Newark and you could see them from the top of our parking garage. A bunch of us where up there and saw it happen. I'll never forget that.
My grandma was in Ukraine when Chernobyl happened. She noticed there was an unusual amount of street cleaning going on, but no one had any idea why (authorities tried to keep the accident a secret for as long as possible... the bastards!). As for me - I witnessed the fall of the communist regime in my country, but memories are vague (I was only 4-5 years old at the time).
It's probably mostly forgotten these days, even in Canberra itself, but I was there to witness the disastrous demolition of the old Canberra Hospital. It was supposed to be a nice safe implosion, to the point that people were encouraged to come and watch, but something went horribly wrong and it exploded instead, throwing shrapnel clear across the lake where we were all standing. I was one of two little girls named Katie to be present that day, and I was the Katie who made it home. The other was struck in the head and killed. There's a memorial to her by the lakeshore to this day. I was born in that hospital, and it still strikes me as bizarre that the same damn building could easily have taken me out again.
I watched the Towers fall. I went to school in Newark and you could see them from the top of our parking garage. A bunch of us where up there and saw it happen. I'll never forget that.
My grandma was in Ukraine when Chernobyl happened. She noticed there was an unusual amount of street cleaning going on, but no one had any idea why (authorities tried to keep the accident a secret for as long as possible... the bastards!). As for me - I witnessed the fall of the communist regime in my country, but memories are vague (I was only 4-5 years old at the time).
