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This week marks the eight-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. In commemoration of the many lives lost and the larger number of lives affected, I’ve put together a timeline consisting of 20 of the most important events in U.S. history and American cinema’s best tributes to each.

1607
Historical Event: Jamestown Settlement
Jamestown is founded as the first colony of the New World under London Company exclusivity.

Best Cinematic Tribute: The New World (2005)
This quiveringly gorgeous period epic interweaves documented history with romantic legend as well as—if not better than—any other cinematic venture of all time.

1775
Historical Event: Start of the American Revolution
The U.S. Continental Army battles the British for rule of the Thirteen Colonies.

Best Cinematic Tribute: The Patriot (2000)
Unlike The New World, Roland Emmerich’s typically overrated battle-heavy war drama The Patriot is probably more famous for its flimsy mixture of historical accuracy and folklore as it is for its overall quality. That said, it’s not terrible. And it’s surprisingly the best film set on the very basis of the American Revolutionary War.

1776
Historical Event: Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson’s declaration for independent colonies is endorsed by American Congress.

Best Cinematic Tribute: John Adams (2008)
This expansive, Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning biographical HBO miniseries depicts the final drafting of the famous Declaration in the second of its seven parts, each of which accurately details portions of both John Adams’ life and the progression of America before and after the Constitution.

1861
Historical Event: Civil War
…Ends slavery, restores the Union, stabilizes the government.

Best Cinematic Tribute: Glory (1989)
Usually mentioned among the best war films of the 20th century, Glory manages to capture the essence of community and camaraderie in the midst of the deadliest war in American history, which claimed over 600,000 soldiers’ lives.

1898
Historical Event: Spanish-American War
The U.S. consequently acquires Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and annexes Hawaii.

Best Cinematic Tribute: Stars and Stripes Forever (1952)
Stars and Stripes Forever, a biopic about American composer John Philip Sousa, whose masterwork (which supplied this film its title) became America’s National March, beats around the Spanish-American War as Sousa himself was unable to serve in it due to illness, but it’s a load of fun and incorporates bits and pieces from Sousa’s autobiography, aptly titled “Marching Along”.

1917
Historical Event: WWI
The United States intervenes in World War I.

Best Cinematic Tributes: The Big Parade (1925), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Paths of Glory (1957)
All three of these tremendous cinematic portrayals of the times and individuals of the first World War have been selected into the National Film Registry, and each ranks amongst the most effective, necessary war films ever made. The Big Parade is often considered a landmark film of silent era genre movies, All Quite on the Western Front was the third motion picture to win the Best Picture Academy Award (it also placed on AFI’s original 100 Years…100 Movies list), and Paths of Glory affirmed both director Stanley Kubrick as an up-and-coming filmmaker of rare talent and star Kirk Douglas as an ageless icon of movie legend.

1920
Historical Event: 19th Amendment
The U.S. Constitution ratifies its Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote.

Best Cinematic Tribute: Iron Jawed Angels (2004)
Set in the midst of the women’s suffrage lobbying of the early 1910s, this flawed HBO production starring Hilary Swank and Anjelica Huston packs a visceral punch and truly honors the time leading up to and following the passing of the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, even if it takes historical liberties in favor of dramatic tension.

1929
Historical Event: Great Depression
The stock market crashes on “Black” Tuesday, October 29, plummeting America—and, subsequently, the entire world—into its most brutal economic depression.

Best Cinematic Tributes: Golddiggers of 1933 (1933), There Will be Blood (2007)
One is a personal favorite of mine from the musical genre; the other is the second of two features in all of world cinema I believe to embody absolute perfection (the other being The Godfather, Part II). But both depict the trying economic times of the Depression in polar ways (the former being a giddy choreographic satire, the latter being a thriller of grave tension and unprecedented universal symbolism), and each is arguably the best at ever doing so.

1941
Historical Event: Pearl Harbor
The Japanese unleash an aerial assault on a U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, resulting in America’s entrance in WWII.

Best Cinematic Tributes: From Here to Eternity (1953), Pearl Harbor (2001)
Before you smash your monitor, gouge your eyes, or simply post something nasty on the comment board, hear me out: While Michael Bay’s agonizing cluster of boy fights and sloppy melodrama in 2001’s Pearl Harbor is shamed by the contrarily timeless visual and representative images of Fred Zinnemann’s essential From Here to Eternity, Bay’s blockbuster does produce movie history’s pinnacle reenactment of the actual attacks on the port’s naval base, at which it’s actually acceptable to marvel.

1944
Historical Event: D-Day
U.S. troops and other Allied forces invade the beaches of Normandy in Nazi-occupied France.

Best Cinematic Tribute: Saving Private Ryan (1998)
If you need an explanation, you’ve wandered to the wrong place. Of each single item in the pantheon of premier war exhibitions in movies, Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan is arguably the most globally recognizable. And there’s a reason: It may be the best of all.

1945
Historical Event: A-Bomb/Start of Cold War
America drops two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, influencing the surrender of Japan.

Best Cinematic Tribute: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
If this feature’s title should tell you anything, it’s that: a) it’s a satire; and b) it’s about anxiety and, specifically, bombs. I suppose then that the previous statement makes Dr. Strangelove a farfetched candidate for all-time contending war film venture. Not so. It may not follow history’s recorded statistics exactly (or remotely), but its narrative is a well-researched, precise irony against those very statistics, making its depiction of history respectably linear in subtext. It’s also a film of peak hilarity and desert absurdity.

1954-1968
Historical Event: African-American Civil Rights Movement/Act
Organized campaign against racial segregation commences with Brown vs. Board of Education, and later includes the historic March on Washington (whereupon MLK, Jr. gave his famed speech) and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race.

Best Cinematic Tribute: Malcolm X (1992)
America’s primary Civil Rights Movement, the Act that ultimately rewarded it, and the key figures that stood at its forefront embodied revolution and commanded attention. So it’s only fair that this biographical account of Malcolm X be directed by an authoritative artist and star an authoritative actor in one of his most authoritative roles and performances. Ahhh, how sweet it is when what is fair actually becomes.

1963, 1968
Historical Event: JFK and MLK, Jr. Assassinations
The third and second most admired people of the 20th Century (according to The Gallup Poll 1999) become victims of two of the most globally grieved assassinations in world history.

Best Cinematic Tribute: JFK (1991)
Perhaps director Oliver Stone’s finest career achievement, JFK garnered eight Oscar nominations in 1992 (it won two) and has since become a “classic” in the eyes and minds of many, particularly those infatuated by the assassination controversy and any number of its alleged conspiracies.

1969
Historical Event: Man Sets Foot on Moon
American Neil Armstrong becomes first person to step foot on the Moon, fulfilling JFK’s initiative to reach the Moon prior to the ’70s.

Best Cinematic Tribute: In the Shadow of the Moon (2007)
A great cinematic achievement, this documentary resonates with gorgeous visuals and stimulates through candid interviews with the only people in the world that have ever actually been to where we all have dreamt of going. And though we probably won’t ever get to go ourselves, In the Shadow of the Moon gets us incredibly close.

1969-1974
Historical Event: U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War (“Vietnamization”)
Over 58,000 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen die or go missing while on duty in Vietnam.

Best Cinematic Tributes: Apocalypse Now (1979), Platoon (1986), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Forrest Gump (1994)
Vietnam was an ugly war, which America became involved in at an ugly time in her political history; and all of these four movies focus on that history—the first two establish its most horrific and tragic aspects and the last two bid humor to its events in a respectful but unconventional way—and do it very memorably.

1972-1974
Historical Event: Watergate Scandal
…Ultimately forces Richard Nixon to announce his resignation from office, the only such action ever taken by an American President.

Best Cinematic Tribute: All the President’s Men (1976)
One of American filmmaking’s most effective, pristine book-to-screen adaptations, Alan Pakula’s All the President’s Men (based on the non-fiction book of the same title) used fact and theory to its most advantageous journalistic degree. The result was eight Academy Award nominations and idolized status in the film-producing and –viewing world.

1991
Historical Event: Persian Gulf War/Desert Storm
American armed forces represent the majority of troops fighting against Iraq, following its invasion of Kuwait.

Best Cinematic Tribute: Three Kings (1999)
Although Spike Jonze’s virtuoso Gulf War caper is focused more on a clan of greedy American soldiers than it is on their service assignment, it is fully set in the midst of Desert Storm and includes enough (a bunch, actually) poignant frames of the war’s effects to stay with its watchers until their final day. It’s been a decade since Three Kings’ release, and it’s only grown in essence since.

2001
Historical Event: 9/11 Terrorist Attacks
Supposed members of Al-Qaeda hijack four United Airlines planes with intent to strike the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon, and, allegedly, the White House. Three of the four planes reach their hijackers’ destinations. Nearly 3,000 civilian lives are claimed (including the unidentified “Falling Man”, photographed by AP journalist Richard Drew).

Best Cinematic Tribute: United 93 (2006)
As much a “tribute” to one particular event in world history as any other motion picture ever made, Paul Greengrass’ paradoxically heart-shattering and spirit-encouraging docu-drama United 93 didn’t make a wrong move and is appropriately respectful and intense, for anything less than the former would be scornful, and anything less than the latter would disallow the former.

2005
Historical Event: Hurricane Katrina
The sixth strongest recorded Atlantic hurricane to ever hit America, and the most expensive hurricane in our nation’s history strikes the Louisiana coast, eventually leaves over 80% of New Orleans underwater, and reallocates over one million people across the country.

Best Cinematic Tribute: When the Levees Broke (2006)
This enormous film by prolific and inspired point-maker Spike Lee is readily emotionally murderous. As was planned. In order to drive his argument so deep into the earth that its removal is impossible to dig up, Lee mends stirring personal accounts of survivors and victims with equally disquieting images of Katrina’s aftermath and economic and statistical fact. Trust me when I affirm this work as one of the most significant and crucial of its genre’s lifespan, and consider my words when I suggest that it may be one of the most significant and crucial of international cinema’s lifespan.

Welp, that’s the bell. Our next class will be in two weeks. Until then…read a book, watch football, or make history.