With time, history has a way of fading

I'm good on dates. Every Nov. 11, I'm tempted to write a column about what was once the momentous date in the young history of the 20th century: the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. World War I, which exterminated the male youth of several European countries, had finally ended.

Of course, I remember Nov. 22, the day John Kennedy was assassinated, and I carry some odd chronological baggage as well: Aug. 22, the date of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and April 22, Vladimir Lenin's birthday. (Quite near Adolf Hitler's and William Shakespeare's, as we date types know .)

In 1941, Franklin Roosevelt told both houses of Congress that Dec. 7 was a ``date which will live in infamy." It lived in infamy for several decades, and not much longer. The jazzed-up, 2001 movie ``Pearl Harbor," with youthquake actors Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale, didn't fare very well at the malls. Reviewer Roger Ebert wrote that ``the filmmakers seem to have aimed the film at an audience that may not have heard of Pearl Harbor, or perhaps even of World War Two."

A final example: In 1883, 500,000 New Yorkers jammed the streets of Manhattan for the 100th anniversary of Evacuation Day, Nov. 25. That was the day that the hated British redcoats abandoned the city, ending our Revolutionary War. Let's go to New York now and find one person who remembers what Nov. 25 is all about.

Today is a terrible day for most of us, and unimaginably worse for families who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks. The date will resonate for months and years to come. I think the Republican Party will try, and probably succeed, in winning at least one more election on the strength of our remembrance. Eventually, they will try this strategy, and they will lose. Stripped of its political and rhetorical utility, the date will become less important.

Shakespeare crafted a beautiful, rousing speech for his fictional Henry V, in the hopes that no Englishman would ever forget St. Crispin's Day, Oct. 25, 1415, the day of victory at Agincourt over the French. But Shakespeare knew that, in time, Henry's warriors would die off, and other wars would follow ``All shall be forgot," Shakespeare's Henry tells his men. And it was.

It seems unimaginable, but in less time than it took two generations to forget Pearl Harbor Day, this day, too, will be forgotten. The ``war on terror" will continue to be pursued, with varying degrees of success and conviction, by the next administration or two. But different concerns will arise. The pessimists can legitimately worry about global warming, or an energy shortage, or about the ever-increasing likelihood of a regional nuclear war. The optimists -- and I'm sure there are some -- might look to the transformation of Europe, from Agincourt to the euro, as a model for future political collaboration among nations.

Sadder things than Sept. 11 will come, and happier ones, too.

In 1992, I wrote a column about visiting a playground with two children and tripping across a memorial to a 20-year-old girl who died in the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. ``It is impossible to tell the boys why anyone would blow up a plane in midair," I wrote. ``Then and now, it is impossible to imagine how the parents can ever be compensated for the loss of their daughter."

Of course, that is true. But who would have thought that Libya, the ultimate rogue state accused of the bombing, would have cooperated with the Lockerbie investigation and eventually paid $8 million to each of the families of the approximately 250 American victims? Or that you could now visit Libya, which would have been out of the question 20 years ago?

No, it's not peace on earth, and, no, the lions won't be lying down with any lambs in our lifetimes. The only certain future is change, and let's hope for enough of it to bury Sept. 11. This is a date we can look forward to forgetting.

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.