National trauma

A national trauma is a crisis or a tragic experience which affects the spirit of a nation or an ethnicity, sometimes for generations to come. Large-scale disasters like war or genocide inevitably have this effect, but in an otherwise stable and prosperous country even a minor event (like an assassination of the leader or a transport disaster) can be traumatic.

Examples of national traumas

 * Armenia: Armenian Genocide
 * Denmark: Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
 * Germany: Versailles Treaty, defeat in World War II, Berlin Wall
 * Israel: Holocaust
 * Japan: Black Ships, Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
 * Netherlands: Assassinations of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh
 * Sweden: Assassination of Olof Palme, M/S Estonia shipwreck, Gothenburg riots, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
 * United States: Attack on Pearl Harbor, September 11, 2001 attacks