Have you ever given any real thought to ‘time’ and our travel through it?
Lately I was thinking about my great-grandmother, my ‘Nan’ the woman who largely raised me and taught me all the important values and morals I trust to this day.
Nan
was born just after the end of the 1800s and died just before 1980.
Think about what my Nan experienced during her lifetime…
She saw:
- The introduction of flight…
- The introduction of the Model-T Ford…
- The death of a King (this was back in Australia, a country still part of the Commonwealth)…
- The crowning of a King…
- The discovery of Machu Picchu
- The first man to reach the south pole…
- The invention of the parachute (well, think about it… there wasn’t a lot of need for parachutes before we could fly!)
- The sinking of the Titanic…
- The opening of the Panama Canal…
- The “war to end all wars”…
- King Tut’s tomb discovered…
- Talking movies invented…
- First Winter Olympics…
- Lindbergh flies solo across the Atlantic…
- Bubble-gum was invented…
- Walt Disney released Mickey Mouse…
- The Great Depression…
- St Valentine’s Day Massacre…
- Air-conditioning was invented…
- Amelia Earhart is the First Woman to fly solo across the Atlantic…
- Lindbergh’s baby is kidnapped…
- The great US Dust-Bowl (and apparently very few Americans have even heard of this! Seriously, you should check it out… Amazing!)
- Nazi Olympics in Berlin
- The death of another King…
- The abdication of a King before he was crowned…
- The crowning of another King…
- Amelia Earhart vanishes
- Golden Gate Bridge Opened
- The Hindenberg Disaster
- Japan invades China
- Broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” causes panic
- Helicopter invented
- Yet another world war…
- Japanese Attack Pearl Harbor
- First Computer Built (ENIAC)
- Germans Surrender
- Hitler Commits Suicide
- Microwave Oven Invented
- Slinky Toy Hits Shelves
- United Nations Founded
- U.S. Drops Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- Chuck Yeager Breaks the Sound Barrier
- Color TV introduced
- Korean war
- The death of another King…
- The coronation of a Queen…
- Discovery of DNA
- Disneyland opened
- T.V. Remote Control Invented
- Velcro Introduced
- NASA Founded
- Bay of Pigs Invasion
- JFK’s “Man on the Moon” Speech
- JFK assassination
- Martin Luther King Jr. Makes His “I Have a Dream” Speech
- U.S. Sends Troops to Vietnam
- Very first Super Bowl
- Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated
- Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated
- Neil Armstrong Becomes the First Man on the Moon
- Woodstock
- VCRs introduced
- Watergate scandal
- Terrorist attacks on Munich Olympics
- Roe vs Wade
- U.S. Pulls Out of Vietnam
- Patty Hearst Kidnapped
- Terracotta Army Discovered in China
- U.S. President Nixon Resigns
- Microsoft founded
- Elvis found dead
- First test-tube bay
What will our descendants list as milestone events that occurred during our lifetime?
Somehow I don’t think it will be as varied as the changes my Nan experienced. Even though we feel the world is moving faster and faster, imagine starting your life right at the time men first take to the sky and ending it after they have already explored the moon!
I want to say “thank you” to all the people who have gone before us… It’s thanks to each and every one of them that we have the freedoms and benefits we enjoy today.
So, when you next think of time-travel, may you give a thought to your own travel through time and the legacies you will leave behind…
Until next time…
