Napoleon and the World at 20

Napoleon Bonaparte has been quoted as saying “To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.”  I came across the quote while reading an introduction to Herman Melville's Moby Dick and the author was referring to the world of Melville around the time he shipped out to sea on a whaler and experienced what he would later write about in Moby Dick.

It made me think of my own experiences of the world when I was 20 years old. I had turned 20 in December of 1971 which meant that 1972 was my year of being 20. Personally I spent most of that year at sea. First in the Caribbean Sea and then later on a six month cruise across the Atlantic Ocean and into the Mediterranean Sea. It was an eventful year for me and I saw a lot of the world.

The world was a crazy place in 1972. There were terrorist incidents all over the world including the attack on the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, IRA bombings and the Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland. The Vietnam War continued. At the Vatican some guy attacked Michelangelo's Pieta with a hammer claiming he was Jesus Christ. Lots of deadly fires, hurricanes and floods. Watergate happened and there was a presidential election. Did I mention Richard Nixon was president and Jane Fonda toured North Vietnam. There was a race riot aboard the USS Kitty Hawk with 50 sailors getting injured. Apollo 17 landed on the moon. 

My family was still trying to live without my father who died in 1970. It was a tough time for us. Two of my sisters were married by 1972 and starting to have kids which gave hope to my mother.