NationStates Jolt Archive

my question is quite easy, what do you think have been the darkest periods or events of the last 106 years. here a few to beign with

September 11 2001-terrorist attacks in the USA
June 28 1914- assination of Arch duke Ferdinand- leads to first world war
1931-1945 - the genocide of the jews in europe
November 22 1963- dallas texas, assination of JFK

my question is quite easy, what do you think have been the darkest periods or events of the last 106 years. here a few to beign with


First World War;
Age of the Dictators, throughout the century - Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Franco, Mao etc. right up to Saddam and Mugabe, lately. The Genocides that they perpetuated.
The Second World War.
The Cold War.
The growth of terrorism and guerilla warfare - Balkans, Ireland, Middle East, Far East, parts of Africa, Chechnya, America. Lately, the curtailing of reasonable freedoms to 'combat' this.

What a depressing thread this would be!

1984, the year I was born in :p

the Tsunamis should be on here .

October 24, 1929 - "Black Thursday"

Hmmm I would go with the two World Wars, Rawanda, the Killing Fields, The armenians, and probably Dafur and Iraq.......

Oh, what fun. Why don't you take it a step further and chronicle all the bad things that've ever happened?

That ought to keep some Pavlovian schmuck busy for the next few hours, anyway.

March 10, 2000. Someone's got to know why this one was important...

March 10, 2000. Someone's got to know why this one was important...

is that when BUsh was sworn in?

St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Although Al Capone was a great man, I have to say that was probably the worst thing during the whole American Mafia stage.

Although, Al Pacino's birth makes the century a Fantastic time, a time for celebration!

Clearly the end of WWII for Germany was one of the "darkest times". The last few weeks were probably as close to (local) Armageddon as the world has ever come.

is that when BUsh was sworn in?

Nope, that's when the NASDAQ peaked and it was all downhill from there for the next three years. $7 trillion dollars in stock wealth annihilated...

The darkest times for me where in the eclipse in 1994 in Mexico City and when the electricity failed in Toronto in August 2003. Those were pretty neat though.

For humanity, darkest period the last 106 years, that would have to be the Great Depression, WW2 and the last 40 years in Africa up to now and counting. The Cold War was pretty bleak too. At times it seemed that the US and the Soviets were really going to have a go at it and take the rest of us with them.

Natural disasters are pretty bad in the terms of body count (don't forget the earthquake in Tokyo in the 60s and those two in China that killed around 1 million people in the 70s), but I don't think they can count as a "dark" period since they're random acts of nature.

And, with all due respect, September 11 is not even close to that, not in deaths, hopelesness, or other such measures to qualify as a dark period. It was an impactful event, and certainly not happy times, but not to that extreme.

Well, I see the period between 1989 and 2001 as twelve years of prosperity. In 1989 you had german wall that broke down and in 2001 the whole 9/11 thing happened. But still, the darkest time is probably 1933-1945 (the whole german thingy) Although the cold war is also pretty bad :(

Jan. 7th, 1989

The day I was supposed to be swallowed :D

St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Although Al Capone was a great man, I have to say that was probably the worst thing during the whole American Mafia stage.


He was a vicious brutal murder.

September 11 2001-terrorist attacks in the USA

On the contrary, I'd like to submit that the few weeks following 9/11 were our finest hour. It's gone downhill from there.

Anyway ...

Rwanda pretty much sucked.
Nazi Germany was no picnic.
Watts riots.
Kent State shooting.
JFK assassination and subsequent "investigation".
Watergate.
Vietnam "War".
The "New Wave" of the British Invasion of the mid-1980s. (*shudder* Eurythmics)
Reaganomics.
"War" on Terror.
Election 2000.

Plenty of ugliness in the last 106 years. I doubt I could name it all. However, from most of the rubble, heroes arose, so it ain't all bad.

I'd say it's a tie between what happened to the Jews in WW2, 9/11, and Darfur.


Although I'm guessing there are even uglier times ahead. A war is coming. Can you feel it?

I'd say it's a tie between what happened to the Jews in WW2, 9/11, and Darfur.


Although I'm guessing there are even uglier times ahead. A war is coming. Can you feel it?

how do you compare millions to thousands? how can they stand together?

everytime someone says rwanda, i immediately think of the unbelievably long and bad movie, Hotel Rwanda.
if you've seen it, get on the damn bus!!!its nice saving others but you are more important

how do you compare millions to thousands? how can they stand together?

everytime someone says rwanda, i immediately think of the unbelievably long and bad movie, Hotel Rwanda.
if you've seen it, get on the damn bus!!!its nice saving others but you are more important
How can you compare things based soley on numbers? More people have died of old age than did in WW2. Does that make growing old worse than being gassed or put in an oven?

How can you compare things based soley on numbers? More people have died of old age than did in WW2. Does that make growing old worse than being gassed or put in an oven?
Except that being crashed in a plane, or crushed in a tower, or falling out of a tower is still far preferrable to being chopped to bits while still alive, as happened in Rwanda.

Even on a qualitative level, 9/11 completely pales in comparison to some of the other things that happened in the past 106 years.

The same goes for the emotional level. Americans after 9/11 might've been in shock, but what really came out for it was a collective cry for revenge. Which pretty obviously meant that it can't have been much of a shock afterall.
It is in no way comparable to the emotional impact of genocides, or the losses for France and Germany in the wars.

There have been dark days, and bright one but definitely the Genocides have been terrible. Every single one. Even if there were darker days, these ones definitely shouldn't be forgotten.
One that really stings is the APRIL/MAY 1994 Rwanda genocide. 800,000 brutally murdered while the international community just sat back and watched.
And sometimes, Genocide goes beyond murder. There are still many other crimes committed, like rape for example. In many genocide-ravaged countries, rape victims are treated like garbage with no hope for a near-'normal' life at all.
Finally: Let's not turn this into an argument of which events were worse, but a chance to look back and try not to let them repeat themselves.

how do you compare millions to thousands? how can they stand together?

Numbers don't matter. If only 1 Jew died at the hands of Nazis simply for being a Jew, it would have been equally an atrocity. Same with Rwanda.

How can you compare things based soley on numbers? More people have died of old age than did in WW2. Does that make growing old worse than being gassed or put in an oven?

I officially declare War on Ageing! Death to Death!!!

Although I'm guessing there are even uglier times ahead. A war is coming. Can you feel it?


More than one war. The Resource Wars are coming - and I don't know if our civilization, or even Humanity as a whole, will survive them.

Darkest time since 1900..? Probably 1939-1940. The Bastions of civilization were besieged by the barbarians, and unless someone did something, would have inevitably fallen...

Thank goodness for Hitler's stupidity!

I would say for the west, the beginning of the depression up to the end of world war 2.

Nothing listed so far beats the reign of Mao - the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, encouragement of overbreeding, "permanent revolution", and other atrocities can be laid directly at the feet of Mao. Mao's policies resulted in a death toll surpassing either that of Hitler or Stalin (and possibly as great as, or even greater than, both combined) and an enormous cultural devestation.

my question is quite easy, what do you think have been the darkest periods or events of the last 106 years. here a few to beign with

September 11 2001-terrorist attacks in the USA
June 28 1914- assination of Arch duke Ferdinand- leads to first world war
1931-1945 - the genocide of the jews in europe
November 22 1963- dallas texas, assination of JFK

November 2nd, 2004-My fiance turned on me.

December 17th-My family split apart.

:(

Except that being crashed in a plane, or crushed in a tower, or falling out of a tower is still far preferrable to being chopped to bits while still alive, as happened in Rwanda.

Even on a qualitative level, 9/11 completely pales in comparison to some of the other things that happened in the past 106 years.

The same goes for the emotional level. Americans after 9/11 might've been in shock, but what really came out for it was a collective cry for revenge. Which pretty obviously meant that it can't have been much of a shock afterall.
It is in no way comparable to the emotional impact of genocides, or the losses for France and Germany in the wars.

9/11 shook us because we had grown lax in our duties to maintain our alertness and military.

4 1/2 years later we don't have that problem.

The influenza pandemic of 1918 (http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/).

I would say that any time between 20 to 40 million people die, that's a pretty dark time.

the day wham! broke up.

November 2nd, 2004-My fiance turned on me.
:(

Damn.. that's terrible.. you'd think people could learn to accomodate differing opinions, assuming it had something to do with Election Day..

Nov. 2nd '04 was probably the most enjoyable day I've had in the last 5 years, what with the liberals gloating over their exit polls in the morning, and the wrecking ball finally smashing them in the face with reality in the afternoon.. ah, memories.. :) Just the looks on the news anchors' faces was worth all the stress.. especially Colbert welling up with tears on the Daily Show.. damn, that's gonna be hard to top.. *drools..*


Anyway.. hrm.. I'd say that, as bad as terrorism is, events like 9/11 and Oklahoma City never shook our confidence in the government as a whole, even if the carnage was pretty bad.. WWII is probably the only event this century where our country's future was really at stake, aside from the Cuban Missile Crisis, if it had gone to hell.. the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the dark cloud of the Carter Administration don't really compare..

Any attempt at ethnic cleansing should be on this list.

For just Americans I am compelled to put Pearl Harbor, Oklahoma City and Sept 11th on.

I would also say that Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be there, not only for Japan, but for the world because of the advent of the nuclear age.

I think assassinations don't belong on the list at all. Killing one person doesn't qualify as "darkest times". Even the assassination that triggered WWI, since Europe was a powderkeg ready to blow anyway.

And Bush's election is plain old stupid. Even as a joke, it has ceased to be funny.

the Tsunamis should be on here .
you got it before me...I would say the earthquakes and hurricanes of this year as well...the earthquake in Asia killed close to as many as the tsunami and the world seems to have forgotten to care. And the hurricanes, well, this year was particularly hard for the Caribbean region as a whole.

Rwanda, Serbia, Germany, Russia, Iraq, Cambodia, China...I can't think of the other genocides, but I'm sure there were more

WWI was probably the worst war-wise, as it contributed to the Russian revolution, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold war

Watergate, as it led to incredible distrust and cynicism about American politics, which can still be seen today

I'm gonna include the 1890's, and throw in the US actions in Hawaii

triangle shirt waist company fire

The dead of Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones,Jim Morrison,Janis Joplin and Freddy Mercury....

The murder of John Lennon

any war in this period (even the cold one)

St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Although Al Capone was a great man, I have to say that was probably the worst thing during the whole American Mafia stage.

Although, Al Pacino's birth makes the century a Fantastic time, a time for celebration!
um...how exactly was Capone a "great" man? Hell, I'll make it easier...how was he even a "good" man? I think extortion, murder, bootlegging, laundering, bribery, blackmail, and other such organized high crimes qualify you as a pretty bad person.

Hmm....My answer would be the Stock Market Crash leading to the depression in the 30s.

Damn.. that's terrible.. you'd think people could learn to accomodate differing opinions, assuming it had something to do with Election Day..

Nov. 2nd '04 was probably the most enjoyable day I've had in the last 5 years, what with the liberals gloating over their exit polls in the morning, and the wrecking ball finally smashing them in the face with reality in the afternoon.. ah, memories.. :) Just the looks on the news anchors' faces was worth all the stress.. especially Colbert welling up with tears on the Daily Show.. damn, that's gonna be hard to top.. *drools..*


Anyway.. hrm.. I'd say that, as bad as terrorism is, events like 9/11 and Oklahoma City never shook our confidence in the government as a whole, even if the carnage was pretty bad.. WWII is probably the only event this century where our country's future was really at stake, aside from the Cuban Missile Crisis, if it had gone to hell.. the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the dark cloud of the Carter Administration don't really compare..


I meant Nov 2005. It wasn't politically related, I think she either had a mental breakdown and snapped (She was born IN Costa rica and went through some horrible abuse as a child, her mother tried to murder her as a child by holding her head under the bathtub) or she picked up bi-polar disorder.


Nov 2004 was great, I was at the polling station in Pensacola and I worked as a volunteer making phone calls at the Escambia Country republican HQ. Met lots of nice, hot, conservative girls. MMmmm great.

I meant Nov 2005. It wasn't politically related, I think she either had a mental breakdown and snapped (She was born IN Costa rica and went through some horrible abuse as a child, her mother tried to murder her as a child by holding her head under the bathtub) or she picked up bi-polar disorder.



Wow, that's much worse than splitting over politics.. that must be difficult.. sorry to hear it. I didn't think it was too likely that someone would break off a relationship due to politics, bit I've seen pettier reasons (e.g. baseball) for breakups, so I wouldn't be too surprised either way..

I think the Great Depression cause it was worldwide, affected a whole generation and political thinking and was the catylyst for WWII.

I'd say it's a tie between what happened to the Jews in WW2, 9/11, and Darfur.


Although I'm guessing there are even uglier times ahead. A war is coming. Can you feel it?
I'm just shocked. I can't belive you just wrote that.

- Murder of Jean Jaurés in 1914, which ended up with the french (and even european) anti-war left beheaded, and unable to oppose WW1

- The whole WW1, especially the repression of soldiers who were fed up with the bloodbath

- The Versaille treaty (1919) which, by being so harsh to Germany, opened the way to WW2

- The Franco coup in Spain, and the lack of help to the Republican from other "democratic" european states

- The Nazi crimes (Jew and Tsigan genocide)

- The whole WW2, including allies war crimes (nuclear bombs, razing Dresden to the ground, ...)

- The colonial wars, including the two Vietnam Wars and Algeria War

- The terror policies of CIA in South America duing the 70s, including the support to the coup against elected president Salavador Allende

- The creation of WTO, a non-democratic supernational organisation which applies, at the same time, the executive, legislative and judicidal power, and which leaded to increase of world poverty, both in poor and rich countries (and an increase of profits for the wealthiest)

- The "war against terror" fiasco of 2001-2006 which leaded in increased terror and world unstability, a strong reduction of freedom in western countries, and two wars (Afghanistan and Irak)

my question is quite easy, what do you think have been the darkest periods or events of the last 106 years. here a few to beign with

September 11 2001-terrorist attacks in the USA
June 28 1914- assination of Arch duke Ferdinand- leads to first world war
1931-1945 - the genocide of the jews in europe
November 22 1963- dallas texas, assination of JFK

Wow. Putting the assasination of JFK and the Holocaust on one level, that's pretty... erm, culturally centered.

I'd name the reign of Pol Pot and the Red Khmer, the separation of India and Pakistan, the entire history of the state of Israel, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the Cold War and the military regimes in Middle and South America (too numerous to list them all, really) in addition to those already mentioned.

On a personal side note, the day my mother met my father.

December 7th, 1941 As FDR put it "A date which will live in infamy"
The Japanese Suprise Attack on Pearl Harbor.

December 7th, 1941 As FDR put it "A date which will live in infamy"
The Japanese Suprise Attack on Pearl Harbor.
Is that a "dark" day though?
The same could be said about most other times mentioned so far: Is it really a time at which people just lost all hope, all reason to look forward in their lives, like a big blanket just kept out the sun?

Which is why I mentioned the end of the war in Germany and Japan. For the populations there, those last few weeks were like that - it was the end of the world, the end of society, the end of everything. Marauding groups marched through the streets and executed people at random, all communication was lost, the cities were only fields of rubble, and enemy troops were approaching.

I can only imagine what that could have been like - but if ever there was a "dark" time in history, that would have been it.

Is that a "dark" day though?
The same could be said about most other times mentioned so far: Is it really a time at which people just lost all hope, all reason to look forward in their lives, like a big blanket just kept out the sun?

Which is why I mentioned the end of the war in Germany and Japan. For the populations there, those last few weeks were like that - it was the end of the world, the end of society, the end of everything. Marauding groups marched through the streets and executed people at random, all communication was lost, the cities were only fields of rubble, and enemy troops were approaching.

I can only imagine what that could have been like - but if ever there was a "dark" time in history, that would have been it.

It was definately a Dark Day for the US Navy which suffered from a Huge loss not only in ships but also in Sailors.

It was definately a Dark Day for the US Navy which suffered from a Huge loss not only in ships but also in Sailors.
I'll grant you that - but I wouldn't think it was actually enough to make anyone dispair.

And although it sounds harsh, 2400 and a bit is not really what I would call "huge", compared to what was happening around the world at the time.

I'll grant you that - but I wouldn't think it was actually enough to make anyone dispair.

And although it sounds harsh, 2400 and a bit is not really what I would call "huge", compared to what was happening around the world at the time.

True but at that point the US did not want to be in the war at all this kind of forced them into the war. Which would cost them a lot more than that and as a result Germany declared war on them as well.

okay....for the western world..
probably pre-stalingrad/el allemain WWII. the seemingly unstoppable German Blitzkreig steamrolling France and most of Russia, with no reprive in sight. it was only after the Russians fianlly got organized that the war was turned in favor for the allies.

also the depression was a terrible time for the west. Significant impacts been felt across the middle-to-lower classes.

for all those in the middle of the genocides, their darkest days were pretty obvious. It was bad for the west, but not dark in the same way that WWII was, quite simply because the majorly deveolped nations were not directly affected.

assasinations :sniper: , 9/11, oklahoma, pearl harbour...come on, ZOMG WE GOT BOMBED!!!! its not a terribly dark time for hte world, even hte 1st-world nations, just a little depressing for your country, even with pearl harbour, the brits would have been overjoyed..finally, something forcing the americans to start fighting.

im sorry, but to all who mentioned these as possibilties, you are just reinforcing the ignorant american steryotype. :headbang: :headbang:

also...speaking of which
9/11 shook us because we had grown lax in our duties to maintain our alertness and military.

4 1/2 years later we don't have that problem.

yes, courtesy of a combination involving:
-attacking two arabic nations which involved killing thousands civillians,
-occupying one of those countries,
-paranioa in border security/defences

9/11 shook the seemingly invincible america, but all it really did was take a notch out of american pride and give america yet another excuse to show how many pretty guns and bombs they have.

my question is quite easy, what do you think have been the darkest periods or events of the last 106 years. here a few to beign with

Darkest period would be the Cuban Missile Crisis

While death, disease, violence, aggression, greed, apathy and mistrust have charactarized many of the events of the last 100+ years, in my mind there was no darker time than the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the world waited with it's breath held at the prospect of nuclear armageddon.