I can think of two in France, November 13th (2016), which is the day of the terrorist attack in Paris, and April 21st (2002), which is the day a far-right candidate got to the second round of the presidential election for the first time.

20 comments

  1. The major events I can think of are all spoken by the name of the event. I don’t even know their dates. 1995 is an exception using the year. Everyone knows if you mention the year, you mean Finland winning ice hockey world championships. But the date I have no idea about on that occasion either.

  2. Probably the 2005 terrorist attacks in London – as it was on 7th July it’s often known as 7/7.

    I can’t think of any dates similar for Wales.

    We tend have have place names that are known for disasters eg Aberfan (primary school buried by a coal spoil tip landslide), or Glanrhyd (railway bridge collapsed into a river as a passenger train passed over it).

  3. 1-O is the referendum for the… attempted? independence of Catalonia (October 1st 2017).

    11-M is the terrorist train bombing in Madrid (March 11th 2004).

    15-M massive protests for political change. It started as a protest against an IP law (Ley Sinde) but many other people joined in, leading to like a month of protests mainly against the two-party system but also for reforming electoral law, education, healthcare… (May 15th 2011).

    23-F is an attempted military coup (February 23 1981).

    BTW, the Twin Towers attack on September 11th is also named in this fashion, 11-S.

  4. There are 2 dates that perhaps everybody knows what they were doing that day.

    1991-01-13 for older people, the day when Lithuanian civilians stood up against the Soviet military aggression. An acquaintance of my friend’s mother was killed in Vilnius by the Soviets, and father of my classmate lost his hearing as he stood next to the shooting tank.

    My parents left Vilnius a day ago as things appeared to be calmed a bit only to be woken up by civil defense sirens in the night and they went do defend the LRT branch in Kaunas.

    For our generation, it will be 2022-02-24. Up until that day I did not believe that Russia would do an all-in attack. I was woken up at 6 in the morning to see the surreal sight on TV.

    A bit later, when I was in university, for the first time in contemporary Lithuanian history a presidential Emergency Decree was issued. That day and probably enitre week, perhaps, most of free time I was obsessed with the news from the war. The horror atmosphere here faded only in later months when Ukraine successfully repulsed Russians from their conquered lands.

  5. First thing to come to mind to me as a German would be the 9th of November, though for multiple historical events:

    1848 Execution of Robert Blum,

    1918 Novemberrevolution to depose of the Kaiserreich,

    1923 Hitler-Ludendorff Putsch/Beer Hall Putsch,

    1938 Reichspogromnacht/”Kristallnacht”(in English),

    1989 “Mauerfall”/Fall of the Berlin Wall

    Someone who is German and atleast somewhat interested in history will associate the date without calling out the year with all these very significant historical events, while someone that isn’t will at the very least connect the fall of the Berlin Wall with it, which I’d call recent still. 😀

  6. I think most recent events are referred to by a name, rather than date, like:

    – “executive order 13” – a highly corrupt executive order that spawned massive protests in 2017
    – “colectiv” – a tragic fire at the Colectiv club, in 2015
    – “the revolution”, or ” ’89”- anti communist revolution
    – “the eclipse” – a solar eclipse in ~~2001~~ 1999, that was total in a few cities.

    But i can think of a couple of dates as well (the romanian format is “day month”) :

    – 23-august – during WWII (1944), the date of a royal coup where we switched allegiance from the axis to the allies
    – actually i can’t think of other local ones

    – for international events, we definitely recognize 11-september as the terrorist attack.
    – and, though it might be too early to tell, 24-february as the start of the invasion of Ukraine.

  7. Many events in 20th century history are as you say, not least because some have become official anniversaries: going backwards:
    * 2 June (1946): referendum between monarchy and republic that saw the victory of the latter.
    * 25 April (1945): the general uprising in Genoa, Milan and Turin, and the subsequent surrender of Nazi-fascist forces in Italy.
    * 8 September (1943): Italy’s armistice with the Allied forces (and the beginning of the hardest phase of the war, at home).
    * ~~4 November (1918): the capitulation of Austria-Hungary at Villa Giusti.~~
    * ~~24 May (1915): the declaration of war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire.~~
    * 5 May (1821): the death of Napoleon, mainly due to the poem of the same name by Alessandro Manzoni.

    I do not know if I have been exhaustive enough (I will surely have forgotten some important dates.

    However, 11 September is also remembered as such here.

  8. Most such events in Latvian history would be referred to by the name, not the date. I have two dates that come to mind where people will immediately remember what it was like.

    4th of May – this is 1990. The Supreme Council of the Latvian SSR announces that the independent Republic of Latvia is being restored and the Soviet government from 1940 to this date was an illegitimate one imposed by military force.

    13th of January – this is in 1991, Soviet forces attacked Vilnius in an attempt to suppress independence. Latvians responded by building and manning barricades, mainly in Riga, to defend against a potential Soviet attack like the one in Lithuania. It’s more common to speak of “the Barricades” as a name for the entire two-week period that followed though.

    The 9/11 attacks in the US are known as “September 11th attacks” in Latvia so that’s a date people would associate with an event. I also suspect that the 24th of February will be remembered as the date Russia launched its full-scale attack on Ukraine, but it’s too recent to tell.

  9. I can only think of two, maybe three, at least that come to my mind.

    April 9th (1940), the invasion from Germany during WW2.

    May 5th (1945), surrender of the Germans in Demark.

    December 3rd (1999), the strongest and most damaging storm in recent years hit the country, killed a few people and damaged a lot of buildings and forests. But I also think that people born much later than the early nineties probably don’t know or care about this one, so it’s not something that works universally.

  10. Terrorist attacks seem to stick out, I can think of two dates that are automatically understood by most Norwegians.

    April 9th – German invasion of Norway 1940
    July 22nd – Anders Behring Breivk terrorist attack 2011.

  11. 28 February 1986 – Assassination of Prime Minister [Olof Palme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Olof_Palme). Shot by a unknown gunman while walking home from the cinema in central Stockholm.

    28th September 1994 – Sinking of the passenger ferry [M/S Estonia](https://youtu.be/Vat4YhfWrrs) in the Baltic Sea. 852 dead of which a majority were Swedes.

    10th September 2003 – Assassination of Foreign Minister [Anna Lind](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordet_p%C3%A5_Anna_Lindh). Stabbed to death by a Serbian lunatic inside a central Stockholm department store.

    26th December 2004 – [Indian Ocean Tsunami](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami) – 500+ dead Swedes and 1500 injured.

    7th April 2017 – [Terror attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Stockholm_truck_attack) by a Uzbek IS-supporter in central Stockholm. 19 people run over by a truck in a busy shopping street, 5 dead.

  12. Bloody January is probably the most recent thing. It refers to January 2022 protests against the government as a result of discontent with the current regime. President Tokayev ordered to shoot protesters without warning and later called for CSTO forces.

  13. Slightly the opposite, in the sense that the year is all that needs to be mentioned. You don’t need to mention the event or the date.

    Easter Rising, 1916 is normally referred to simply as ‘nineteen sixteen’ and is of absolutely huge consequence in modern Irish history as it set in motion a series of events that led to independence by 1922.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising

    1798 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebellion_of_1798

    Also quite likely ‘Black ‘47’ which was the worst year of the famine.

    https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/irelands-famine-black-47-irish-history

    There are also specific days, notably ‘Bloody Sunday’ that don’t even need dates or years.

  14. 1066 is the obvious one in English history(battle of Hastings / Norman invasion) , as is the 5th of November(remember remember, the gunpowder plot) 7/7 (London tube bombing) being more modern.

    Apart from that we would normally refer to things by name, not date.

    I feel like your second example is a bit over the top though, a far right person making the second round is not particularly a big deal. Nobody is saying oh remember remember the 21st of April.

  15. November 11th (1918) and May 3rd (1791). The first one is connected to the Versailles Treaty and Polish independence, so it’s quite straightforward. The second one is the day when the first Polish constitution was signed. It was basically the last attempt to save the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and it got heavily mythologised since then.

    Both are major national holidays though, I suspect these dates would be far less recognisable if people didn’t get a day off on them.

  16. 06 may 2002; murder of Pim Fortuyn, populist politician looking to win large amounts of seats in parliament.

    02 November 2004; murder of Theo Van Gogh, filmmaker murder by Islamist extremist.

    17 July 2014; MH17 plane with 298 people, most of them Dutch, shot out of the sky above Ukraine by Russian terrorists.

    1 januari 2001; New Year’s Eve fire in Volendam cafe kills 14.

    4 October 1992; El Al plane crashes in Amsterdam Bijlmer neighborhood killing 43 people.

    I’m not sure if lot of people still remember the dates, but these are certainly events that made a big national impact and are often still remembered on these days.

  17. 1996 – Dutroux

    The country changed completely.

    He is nothing less than a monster. He abducted, molested and murdered children. What caused the turnaround was that the justice system at the time let him slip through the net a number of times. He was even able to escape once arrested, though only briefly.

    This caused a national outcry. Policing and the justice system was completely reformed.

  19. There’s November 10th (1989) when the communist regime “fell”.

    And before that, September 9th (1944) when it came to power.

    Both dates are used as watersheds, like “before 09.09” and “after 10.11”. There was even a joke along the lines of “9th is dead, long live 10th”. (09.09 was the most celebrated holiday under communist rule while 10.11.1989 is not officially celebrated)

    Less so, but March 3rd (1878) is the foremost national holiday as it marks the restoration of Bulgaria as a state, and to a lesser extent September 6th (1885) and September 22nd (1908) which are remembered as the days marking the unification and formal declaration of independence, respectively. Everyone knows the year but the it is almost always quoted as well.

    I don’t think there’s anything more recent that is remembered this way.

  20. UK, 7/7 (2005) Islamic terrorists did several suicide bombings on public transport. Blowing up one bus, almost directly outside the headquarters of the British Medical Association and a stones throw from the world famous, Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. As well as on board three underground trains. Which took much of our subway out, for several months.

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