Why we should remember

Historians write on why and how pivotal events in history should be remembered today

circa 1923: A Remembrance Day poster issued by the British Legion after World War One, reminding people to wear a Flanders poppy on November 11th. (Photo by Bob Thomas/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)

Why we should remember...When the paper poppy became a symbol of remembrance.

Scene of the 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' at the Disney World in Orlando, Florida, 1971

Why we should remember...The day Walt Disney World Resort in Florida welcomed its first guests

Why we should remember...The pioneering use of ether.

Why we should remember…the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent

A 1773 allegorical engraving of the three powers partitioning Poland

Why we should remember…the first Partition of Poland.

National Woman’s Party activists sew a star onto their ‘ratification flag'

Why we should remember…The 19th amendment.

Police disperse a mob attacking a Hindu temple in Calcutta (now Kolkata) during the violence of Direct Action Day, 1946

Why we should remember…Direct Action Day

Youths throw stones at the Royal Ulster Constabulary in the Catholic Bogside area

Why we should remember…The battle of the Bogside

Rosalind Franklin as seen in a 1956 photo

Why we should remember…Rosalind Franklin’s pioneering scientific career.

Count von Stauffenberg

Why we should remember…The plot to assassinate Hitler and install a new German government.

Newspaper front page with headline 'Gen. Ramey Empties Roswell Saucer'

Why we should rememberThe Roswell Incident.

Woman wearing a bikini

Why we should rememberThe launch of the swimsuit that scandalised the world

The Spanish flee Tenochtitlan under fierce fire during La Noche Triste.

Why we should remember…When Spanish conquistadors were forced to flee the Aztec capital.

New Yorkers outside the Stonewall Inn in June 1969.

Why we should remember…The 1969 raid on the Stonewall Inn.

A policeman searches an African-American man, 1970s

Why we should remember…Richard Nixon's war on drugs.

Why we should remember…Charles Babbage's Difference Engine

Coco Chanel in Paris, 1929

Why we should remember…How Chanel No 5 revolutionised the beauty business.

Dr DA Henderson examines children’s smallpox vaccination scars in Ethiopia

Why we should remember…Target Zero Day.

A group of formerly enslaved African-Americans around the time of the US Civil War

Why we should remember…The Amnesty Act of 1872

Anne Frank writing at her desk, c1942

Why we should remember…the translation of Anne Frank’s diary.

British army soldiers face off against a group of Irish civilians

Why we should remember…Bloody Sunday