“The Most Painful Thing I've Ever Witnessed”: 30 Historical Events Witnessed By These Folks

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 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. 

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.

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. 

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. 

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.