I was 18 when the attacks on the World Trade Center took place in 2001.

People of my generation sometimes think of that day as the day when we lost our innocence.

And in many ways that's exactly what happened.

But I like to remind myself that it wasn't as if everything before that was perfect. There were awful tragedies that happened

before the horrific attacks on September 11th. The massacre at Columbine High School was one of those

tragedies. I was in high school at the time when it happened, and the whole thing seems surreal,

just a moment of unspeakable evil.

But like 9-11, it is a moment worth remembering, especially the people that we lost that day.

One of our sister podcasts on the Parthenon Network, eyewitness history, has just released an episode.

In it, host Josh Cohen interviews the former

principal of Columbine High, Frank DeAngelis, to talk about that terrible day. Here is a short

sample of that episode. Let's jump right into it, Frank. Walk me through, please, then April 20th,

1999. Where were you and how did you find out that there was something wrong?

Yeah.

Well, on April 20th, a beautiful, beautiful Colorado Spring Day, you know, we have snow,

but we have sunshine about 300 days out of the year, and it was one of those beautiful days.

But I didn't start out at Columbine.

I actually started out at our students for

future business leaders of America were receiving awards. So they invited me to be there to

congratulate them. So I'm late getting back to Columbine. And when I got back, I was looking for

a teacher, Kiki-Laba, who student taught at Columbine.

He was on a one-year contract.

...