Why one historian uses social media to remember D-Day in real time

Article excerpt

Historian Alex Kershaw has devised an unconventional approach to commemorating D-Day: posting on social media in real time, mirroring the events that unfolded on June 6, 1944. Working from the National World War II Memorial, Kershaw timestamps his posts to align with the actual moments soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy, a tactic that collapses the 82-year gap between then and now. The method allows younger audiences, who might otherwise skip a museum visit, to experience the invasion's timeline moment by moment across their feeds. By translating history into the language of social media, Kershaw attempts to make a distant, overwhelming event feel immediate and personal.