I know at some point I’ve asked my parents where they were when Kennedy was shot (November 22, 1963), when Americans landed on the moon (December 14, 1972), and when Woodstock happened (August 15-18, 1969).
I sometimes wonder what I’ll be asked about. The fall of the Berlin Wall (November 1989)? (I don’t remember, but I remember seeing an actual piece of the wall in school later.) The fall of the USSR (December 1991)? (I don’t remember, but I remember noticing when maps started showing “Russia” instead.) The fall of the twin towers (September 2001)? (I was asleep, then glued to the television and the phone the rest of the day.)
We don’t affect the moment in history whatsoever, but we affect the history itself, the remembrance, the definition of what happened and what it meant. Very quickly, it becomes nearly impossible to separate the various experiences of an historical moment from the actual reality of that moment. Or maybe it was never possible, even at the moment itself, since the observers lack objectivity (due to their being… human). There’s no observer effect listed on Wikipedia for that, but I’m pretty sure it’s real. Maybe it goes by a different name; maybe it’s just built into the definition of “history.”
🙂