Today is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. On Twitter, you can relive the event, live—or at least from the perspective of a 1940s Seattle newlywed.
Since Oct. 1, the account Rosalind Sinclair (@RosiesWWII) has been live-tweeting the events of her fictional life and its intersection with the very real events of World War II. “All tweets today’s date in 1941,” the account’s bio reads. “Seattle newlywed, Mrs. Robert Sinclair!”
Sinclair is actually part of a trifecta of real-time World War II accounts. Alwyn Collinson, an Oxford University history graduate, has run the estimable @RealTimeWWII since August. That account live-tweets the war from a decidedly objective, almost newspaper-like perspective. In his Twitter realm, the Pearl Harbor attack is still two years away. Likewise, a similar account, @WWIIToday, follows the war live from a British perspective.
Sinclair’s feed adds a first-person twist to the concept, however. Because it develops characters and narrative over time, its closer to historical fiction. Following @RosieWWII makes the war more personal—albeit in an weirdly and enjoyably anachronistic way, thanks to Twitter’s uniquely 21st century form of storytelling. Sinclair even responds, in character, to other Twitter users.
The below Storify compiles Sinclair Tweets about Pearl Harbor. The story continues, of course, at @RosiesWWII.
Photo by Library of Congress