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MembersWhat six decades of history have taught me

From Vietnam and the Six-Day War to the fall of the Berlin Wall and October 7: A personal look at six decades of upheaval – and at what remains.

People celebrate on November 10, 1989, on the Berlin Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate the opening of the border between East and West Germany. Photo: EPA/STR

I was born in 1965. The United States had just sent their first ground troops to Vietnam, the Rolling Stones were singing “Satisfaction.” The world was divided by the Cold War, the fear of nuclear war, and the battle of ideologies. No one could have imagined then what dramatic upheavals my generation would experience.

Over the course of my life, I have learned that there is one thing people consistently overestimate: their ability to predict the future. Empires that seemed invincible have disappeared. Walls built for eternity have fallen. Revolutions have changed the world. And yet history continues to surprise us time and again.

When I was two years old, the Six-Day War reshaped the map of the Middle East. Two years later, Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon. At the age of eight, I watched the Yom Kippur War shake Israel and lead to a global oil crisis in 1973.

In 1979, when I was 14 years old, the Islamic Revolution transformed Iran and...

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About the author

Patrick Callahan

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