AS divided as the US public may seem, there are still some things on which most people agree. No matter age, party or gender, Americans overwhelmingly believe that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, played a dominant role in shaping the history of the country, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center with A+E Networks’s History.
When asked to name the events in their lifetimes that had the greatest impact on the nation, 76 percent of people surveyed listed the attacks, far surpassing any other event, according to Pew, which conducted the survey of about 2,000 people, in part, to better understand the events that drive public discourse.
“We don’t think so much about history, but we know that’s one of the things that impacts the way people feel about any modern debate we’re having,” said Claudia Deane, vice president of research at Pew and lead author of a report on the study. September 11 came to mind most often, by a long-shot. President Barack Obama’s election followed distantly, with 40 percent including it on their list. The tech revolution was next, followed closely by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and then the Vietnam War.
The survey found that Americans were primarily united by their age.
“Like people, generations have distinctive identities that are linked, in part, to singular events that occurred during their members’ formative years,” Deane wrote with coauthors and Pew colleagues, Rich Morin and Maeve Duggan. While September 11 dominated each generation’s list, the other entries varied by age.
The “silent” and “greatest” generations, identified as Americans 71 and older, were united by the import they placed on World War II. For baby boomers—adults 52 to 70—it was the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War that unified them. Millennials and members of Generation X, the groups including those 18 to 51, were united in the importance they placed on Obama’s election. Views on history differed by race, too.
Black people were the only demographic group for which September 11’s primacy was challenged. About 3 in 5 blacks identified the attacks as having had an impact on the country, about the same share that cited Obama’s election. For whites and Hispanics, September 11 was first, by far, followed by Obama’s election.