At which times in your country's history would you have been most proud/scared?

Civil Rights! I wasn’t around, but my mum was alive. My dad went to some of those huge rallies in DC, also.

proud – the revolutionary war
scared – the civil war

Most scared – the McCarthy era.

Being the rebel I was in my early years, I wouldn’t have made it through the 1800’s through the 1930’s. I’m sure I would have been hung. I also would have been scared to be part of the ‘Great Depression’
I like being part of the Information Age. Also, I think I would have faired well during the Romantic Age

Maybe when we landed on the moon. As it stands, I’ve never been prouder to be an American than I was when Obama got elected.

Proud:
Every little step we’ve made toward greater equality: the Emancipation Proclamation, Women’s suffrage, The CIvil Rights Act, the recognition of same-sex marriage (in progress), the election of a black President.

Scared:
The Cuban missile crisis.

@thorninmud – as for “proud” all that you said.

Scared? The period in US history between 1645–1964. I probably would’ve been lynched for sure with my big mouth, never mind my being a mixed-race female. My maternal grandfather was a sharecropper in Alabama in the late 20s-early 30s as a boy, and he fled in the wake of the Scotsboro Boys trial. Every black teenage boy in the South was in grave danger of being lynched if they didn’t act like Stepin Fetchit in front of a white person.

@thorninmud I was reading through the answers and saw yours. I understand what you are saying, but just for discussion, in your opinion, what was the Emancipation Proclamation? I mean, what did it do?

@bkcunningham My intent was just to make it understandable. If I’d said “the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th ammendments” (which was really what mattered), it would have been more accurate, but less accessible.

Scariest: the forced relocation of the Choctaw people, now known as the Trail Of Tears. 12,500 people were forced to move, and 2,500 of them died along the way.

Proudest: The non-violent transition from one President to the next.

@thorninmud it is just that so many people mistakenly believe the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves.

I was most pround when our government apologised to our first people, the Indigenous peoples of Australia.

I was and am most shamed by our consistent uncompassionate and ignorant attitudes (both politically and societally) to asylum seekers.

I read the question wrong initiaaly so I’ve had to edit.
The Declaration of Independence of course. Also, The Great Riverdance is just fantastic
Scared/Mortified? Having this shower of eejits run the country into the ground.

I wish that I was a crew member (navigator) on a B-24 Liberator Bomber during WWII. The great generation is where I belong. I was born one generation too late.

Proud-Liberation of Paris, Post World Warll Germany, 1869 completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, completion of the Panama Canal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_canal
I realize that some terrible things were done in the name of these accomplishments, but you can’t take away the fact that they were enormous accomplishments and what event in history does not have its heroes and villains?

Scared-Pearl Harbor, Cuban Missile Crisis, September 11, 2001
I was in New York city that day and we were listening to the radio as the buildings collapsed. It still gives me shivers to think of it. For months my entire core sense of security was upended. I thought to myself, it will never be the same. I realized how lucky we have been to not be invaded after all these years.

@gondwanalon my Dad, who is still living was part of Ted’s Flying Circus, the 93rd Bombardment Group. God bless him and those he served with. There aren’t many of them left.

@bkcunningham My Uncle was Staff Sergeant Malcolm C. Dalton (everyone affectionately called him Bill) was a left wing gunner on a B-24 that he nicknamed “Ole Kickapoo” and lost his life in Operation Title Wave in which over one hundred B-24’s bombed the oil refineries in Ploesti Rumania on August 1, 1943. A day that soon became known as “Black Sunday” as 43 aircraft were lost and 532 airmen were killed. Bill was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (posthumous) and Bill’s pilot the Medal of Honor (posthumous). They were in their early 20’s and they gave up everything for us.