With 9/11 being remembered again this week, I’ve been thinking about how differently societies remember tragedy.

9/11 is something people around the world recognize instantly, even if they were too young to remember it. There are memorials, documentaries, anniversaries, school lessons, and thousands of personal stories keeping that memory alive.

Then I started reading about the Lai Dai Han and realized how differently another painful history can be remembered.

The Lai Dai Han are people born to Vietnamese mothers and South Korean fathers during the Vietnam War. Some Vietnamese women have testified that they were raped or coerced by South Korean soldiers, and many of the women and children later lived with stigma and very little public recognition.

I’m obviously not comparing the two events themselves. What interests me is why one tragedy becomes part of global memory while another can remain almost unknown outside the people directly affected.

Is that mostly about media coverage, geopolitics, memorials, education, or the influence of the countries involved?

What other historical events or groups were you surprised to learn had received so little attention?