At the end of 1992, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed that year would not be one she would look back on “with undiluted pleasure.” In fact, she proclaimed, “In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis.”
For anyone unschooled in Latin, which is most of us nowadays, “annus horribilis” means “horrible year.” And it’s easy to understand why the queen was having a less than idyllic year in 1992: two of her sons separated from their spouses; her daughter divorced her husband; her nephew committed suicide; she was pelted by eggs when making a state visit to Germany; and Windsor Castle caught fire.
For all too many of us, 2020 will not be a year we will look back on with undiluted pleasure, and it will go down as an “annus horribilis” for all the people in this region and around the world who lost loved ones or their livelihoods due to COVID-19, and those who were infected and survived, but will have to live with long-term damage to their bodies. For those lucky enough to hang onto their jobs and evade the virus, 2020 was a year nonetheless packed with anxiety and, occasionally, foreboding.
Still, as much as we would like to forget 2020, we are unlikely to do so.
At the same time a pandemic was raging across the land in 2020, Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of motorist George Floyd by Minneapolis police brought systemic racism in many aspects of American life into sharp relief. It sparked protests unlike any this country has seen since the 1960s and a reckoning with how Black Americans have been treated in a country that has long idealized the notion that all citizens within it are treated justly and equally. Statues of long-dead Confederate soldiers being ripped from their pedestals across the American South will be among the enduring images of this year.
And then there was a presidential election, one of the most contentious in decades. It has remained contentious even in the weeks after Joe Biden was declared the winner, with President Trump insisting he was denied an election victory due to voter fraud, though he and his allies have not produced any convincing evidence that was the case.
Lest we forget, Trump also stood trial in the U.S. Senate at the beginning of the year after he was impeached by the U.S. House one year ago. Ultimately acquitted, he is only the third commander in chief to be impeached.
No question, 2020 will be one of those years that will be endlessly dissected by historians who are now in their cribs or not yet born.
Two years ago, there was an exhibit at the Senator John Heinz History Center marking the 50th anniversary of 1968 and all the tumult in that year, which included the Tet Offensive, the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, riots outside the Democratic convention in Chicago and Soviet tanks crushing a liberation movement in Czechoslovakia.
We should expect 2020 to receive similar treatment when 2070 rolls around.
Observer-Reporter
December 28, 2020 at 02:00PM
https://www.heraldstandard.com/opinion/editorials/2020-is-bound-to-be-a-year-we-wont-forget/article_9a1dd15e-8c48-569f-8bd4-b0cbd36e38f6.html
2020 is bound to be a year we won't forget - Uniontown Herald Standard
https://news.google.com/search?q=forget&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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