What's With 9/11? This Year, It's Dams Collapsing in Libya.

The worst 9/11 ever may not be America’s claim anymore.

On September 11, 2023—only a few days ago—two dams collapsed in Libya and washed much of the coastal city of Derna into the Mediterranean. The death toll is over 13,000. You can read about it in my article A Dam Shame: Engineer’s Warning Goes Unheeded and Eleven Thousand Die.

Is it only in America that we name events after the dates they occur? We usually say July 4 instead of Independence Day. We have Cinco de Mayo (5^th of May), Juneteenth (June 19) to celebrate the end of slavery in Texas.

The U.K. sometimes calls the terrorist bombing of July 7, 2005 “7/7” but not often enough to have it branded it into the
national psyche.

Europe has May Day. The world has April Fools Day. I suppose they could count as events named after a day.

Comments

[RobiNZ]

The date related name seems more common in the US. Can't think of any in NZ, most of our events are related to location or event name rather than the date. There is a weakness with date reference. It may seem odd, but I don't remember anything about 11 September 2001, I do vividly remember September 12th.