Driving over the San Francisco Bay Bridge at 1 p.m. on April 20 there was something different. Having driven over this bridge many times in the past, I’ve never received a history lesson out of it.

“Armenian Genocide 1915” was plastered right before the tunnel leading to the original half of the bridge, going southbound toward San Francisco. First thought: Why, when, what, where and who?

The only time I remember learning about the Armenian Genocide was in high school, maybe spending a brief period talking about the fact that it happened, and that the Turkish [the culprits] did not, and still have not, owned up to the accusations of killing over 1.5 million Armenians.

World War I is extensively covered in the U.S., being a section that history teachers are required to teach. Although one huge part left out, or not taught enough to the point that it is drilled into students’ heads, is the Armenian Genocide that occurred from 1915-1923.

During this time, the Ottoman Turkish Government, who called themselves the “Young Turks,” forcibly hauled Christian-Armenians out of their homeland because they wanted to form a new Turkish State, and the one obstacle was the vast Armenian population. Their solution was to have mass killings: death marches, burning, drowning, sexual slavery, forced labor, torture, crucifixions, starvation and enslavement of children.

Up until this point, Armenians were the first people to adopt Christianity as a national religion.

April 24, 1915 is when the Young Turks gathered several hundred Armenian community leaders, arrested them and then sent them east to be put to death. To this day, the Turkish Government denies the genocide ever happened; teaching children in schools a different version of history, blaming the Armenians, to justify what the Turkish government did to millions of people.

This is why it is so important for Armenians around the world to have memorials and to be remembered. However, the next question that comes to mind is, “How can anybody get closure form something so terrible when the culprits won’t even admit to their crime?”

That has been the struggle for the past 100 years, this year being the 100th anniversary of the terrible day of the first arrests on April 24, 1915. They didn’t just disappear and they were not forgotten– what the Young Turks hoped would happen– because if not they would be faced with the world knowing the cold hard truth.

While President Barack Obama was running for election, he said he would be the first president since Ronald Reagan to recognize the Armenian Genocide, which he has not lived up to. On April 21, Obama released information that he chose not to recognize the Armenian Genocide in his statement on April 24.

The Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of America is a coalition of organizations that represent American-Armenians. They will be hosting events in Washington D.C. to commemorate the lives that were lost, but this is still only the beginning.

It is up to the people putting up signs for commuters to see on their way to work and ask, “Why?”; It is time for people to stop ignoring history and atrocities just because they are not directly affected by them; To know that terrible things have happened to innocent people because of people in power who wanted an ideal world, an ideal empire with only one type of race and religion.

More importantly, even though atrocities are happening right now, it is important to be thankful to live in a country that embraces diversity and doesn’t kill people because of their religious views, and to have the First Amendment and the right to freedom of speech.