- Caro wrote:
- I can't see how to make this historical unless I relate it to the Beatles reception here in the 1960s. I was an avid pop fan in those days and used to keep a book of every song I heard. Unfortunately it got lost.
This could be said to be the very essence of history itself. It’s about how we relate to the past. Paul Ryckier touched on this with his thread
Time perception difference between young and old.
How we appreciate the past and at what age we are when we do this is truly fascinating. It’s said that it is at about the age of 7 years when many people begin to register or record public affairs in their minds. What this means is that although some people have memories which go back way before 7 years of age, those memories tend to be about life in the home or at school etc. What happens after the age of 7 is that people begin to appreciate the world and its events (i.e. beyond home and school) and register these as chronological memories. For instance someone might remember a news report picked on the radio or on the television or in a newspaper or online or even an overheard conversation of strangers, ranging from, say, a major sporting or cultural event such as an Olympic Games or a World Cup Final or Eurovision Song Contest or else a public affairs story (often relating to political strife or a war) or the release of a film or a pop song or a memorable climatic event such as a severe storm or a flood or a drought etc. Crucially, this information will likely be received independently of parents or teachers as such.
At the other end of the human life experience is the concept of living memory. This relates to human longevity with the upper limit being around 120 years of age. The oldest ever verifiable age recorded was that of Jeanne Calment of France who lived to 122. The oldest person currently living is 117 and when one factors in the 7-year starting age for historical memory, then human living memory is around 110 years ago – i.e. 1914. In other words, the oldest person alive today should remember the outbreak of the First World War as a public historical memory although they may well have other older memories of private home life before that.
On the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War in August 2014, Taylor Swift released the single
Shake It Off from her album
1989. The album title relates to the year of Swift’s birth which was momentous in terms of human history seeing the fall of the Berlin Wall, although Taylor Swift wouldn’t have remembered that event as it occurred a month before she was born. What she might remember, however, were events from when she was 7 years old in 1996-1997. These would include such items as the re-election of William Clinton as U.S. president, the passage by Earth of the comet Hale-Bopp and even the singing of the
Star-Spangled Banner by 8-year-old Christina Skleros (only 1 year older than Swift herself) at the final game of the 1996 baseball World series. Another event widely reported in the news media at that time would have been reports on the death of Jeanne Calment.
Home 
