What's the first big news story you can remember being concerned about.

[S John]

I'm another one for the first gulf war.  

[KingintheNorth4]

On July 6, 2016 at 11:35 PM, Let's Get Kraken said:

Probably the 9/11 attacks. I was eleven years old when it happened. I remember a teacher making me drag everything out of my locker to make sure I organized it all, and we were went into an empty classroom to sort through everything. Another teacher was in there listening to a small radio and I remember her looking really unsettled, but I didn't know why. Then my mom picked me up from school and told me what happened and I still didn't really get it. When she told me there was an attack I think my first reaction was "cool, what's for dinner."

It was later that night watching the TV with both my parents that it really started to hit me just what had happened. Then of course over the we all remember how the whole country turned on its head over the next few months.

That's pretty similar to my experience that day. I was ten years old at the time. My teacher brought our class into the auditorium where our principal had the tv on with news and footage of the WTC attacks. After assuring us that he would keep the school safe, we returned to our classroom where our teacher turned on the radio and heard the news of the Pentagon attack and the plane going down in Pennsylvania. After that, me and my classmates started talking about the possibility of someone crashing a plane into our school. It was one of those days that you NEVER forget.

[All-for-Joffrey]

First I remember: Monica Lewinksy 

First I cared about: 9/11 

[Fragile Bird]

On ‎07‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 10:20 AM, Quoth said:

I enjoy coming to this board and forgetting how ancient I am. Truly, you folks have kept me young (or at least younger) through the many, many years I've spent here. Then every once in a while a thread like this comes along... *deep sigh*

The JFK assassination. Was in kindergarten at the time. Spent the entire weekend watching the news following the horrific story and aftermath.

If it makes you feel any better, I remember the excitement over Kennedy being elected.  It was all the buzz with us Catholics, my parents were sure 'they won't elect a Catholic as president' and were so pleased when he won.  But there's no doubt his assassination made a bigger impact, the 'you'll always remember what you were doing at the time' kind.  I was 9 years old, in Grade 4 (it was an accelerated class, we all actually thought we were in Grade 3) when Sister Charlotte, the principal, announced that President Kennedy had been shot and asked that we all stop what we were doing and pray for him.  Then just a few minutes later she came back on the PA and announced that he had died, and we said the rosary for his soul. 

Like you, Quoth, my next days were filled with news stories and the televised funeral.  I'll always remember the solemnity of the riderless horse with the boots in the stirrups facing backwards, and the image of John John saluting.  I've just finished Philip Shenon's book about the Warren Commission and you know, people were mocking Jackie Kennedy over her grief literally within a day of the assassination, and especially mocked the funeral.  I was shocked to read that.

And a small aside here, what events do you remember so clearly you know what you were doing when you heard the news?  I remember chatting with my brother in his bedroom, and he had the big local prog rock station on his radio, when the announcer came on and said that someone had tried to assassinate John Lennon.  Dec. 8, 1980, so long ago.  I actually laughed, I thought it was ludicrous, it must be a joke, who would want to assassinate John Lennon?  And just like with JFK, the announcement came a few moments later that Lennon was dead.

The third event is 9/11, of course.  Sitting in a greasy spoon with a supplier talking business over breakfast, a tv up high over the grill for the patrons, and my friend said 'They're showing a plane has hit one of the twin towers, it must be one of those tourist planes', and I immediately said, 'No, that's a terrorist act'.  We went back to my office, both our days were cancelled and my employer was broadcasting the live feed over our computers.  We sat and watched for hours.

[Jo498]

9/11 is the only one I clearly remember where I was. I was in my late 20s on a hiking trip in the mountains between Italy and France. We were an "international" bunch and usually spoke English (although only one was British it was the common language). On the first or second night around dinner the landlord of the mountain cabin where we were staying asked if we were Americans and told us about the attacks. Neither of us was American but one had been at a scientific conference in New York shortly before and friends and colleagues were still there. It felt rather unreal and for a few days we had very little information being so isolated from the media, so one was reminded of those movies where the world perishes in some nuclear disaster but for a few tourists on some distant island. Only about 3 days later did we get hold of a French newspaper with more information. Therefore I only saw the famous pictures of the plane hitting much later when they were repeated on "end-of-the-year" shows on TV.

For the Fall of the Wall I was just at home, 17 yo in 12th grade and saw it on TV, I guess. Friends from Eastern Germany got into their Wartburg and basically drove all night to visit us a day later (maybe I am misremembering and it was a few days later). But overall this was the most amazing political/historical event by far. Only in June 1989 I had gone on a school trip to Berlin (it was almost obligatory for older students to go there, one even got a little money from the government, and one had to attend a few seminars on history and politics) and it was the usual strict controls at the borders (Checkpoint Charlie), forced money changing for a day in East Berlin. Nothing to buy with that money but maths books and musical scores.

Nobody then had any clue what would happen less than half a year later. I attended a fairly conservative school and despite that fact I remember a lesson in the mid-1980s when a geography teacher (who was anything but a leftist) commented the map of divided Germany and also the Eastern parts (that were still marked as "temporarily under Polish administration) that we should not kid ourselves that this was only a temporary state, it was final for all practical purposes. (So much for the later myth of some conservatives that they had kept hoping (or even working) for re-unification whereas the social democrats had accepted the status quo. Everybody had accepted the status quo and several years of Gorbatchev's glasnost and perestroika had not changed that stance.)

I was slightly too young for some of the time but because the "Day after" scare has been mentioned, in my recollection the 1980s were a strange time. On the one hand it was still "cold war mode", especially the first half of the decade and there were other scares like environmental destruction, acid rain, Chernobyl and even still a little of the terrorist scare of the late 1970s. On the other hand and I do not think that this was only because I was a kid (later teenager) in a fairly carefree situation, it seemed a naively happy time of moderate consumerism and technological optimism (Lego space shuttles and all that neon-digital stuff with "2000" in the name). Kids were "free range", (some) adults smoked everywhere, 3-5 TV channels were enough. Noone cared what clothes or shoes you wore (at least not until 13 or so) and there were no must-have electronic gadgets.

[Horza]

5yo Horza was anxious about the hole in the ozone layer and global warming (so glad we fixed both of them), but thought the Gulf War was pretty cool. Didn't remember the Berlin Wall at the time, but did remember the big red country on the top of the map changing colour to green some time in kindergarten.

[DunderMifflin]

Man I completely forgot about the ozone  hole panic. 

I got curious to what's up with it today.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ozone-hole-was-super-scary-what-happened-it-180957775/

Seems it should be completely healed by 2050. Thank you , science!

 

 

[Horza]

It was a huge deal in Australia when I was growing up, because we would have been under it if it got much bigger. As a kid I couldn't so much as open the front door without three dozen concerned relatives and teachers emerging from all directions waving bottles of sunblock. Even though the hole shrunk, I'm still probably too cavalier about going outside without it given the overall UV risk.

[mcbigski]

The US bicentennial.

[Whitestripe]

One of my earliest memories is seeing all the cars and people lined up around Graceland when Elvis died in 1977. We lived in West Memphis (right across the river from Memphis) and my mom would drive into Memphis a few times a week for shopping, etc. I also remember where I was when the Challenger exploded (we were watching it on TV in Mr McNeill's science class since a teacher was onboard.)

[Whitestripe]

 

15 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

The US bicentennial.

 Oh geez! My mom made matching Betsey Ross dresses for me and my sister, and we marched in our town's parade holding a replica of the first flag. Right behind the drum and bugle corps. I'm sure there's a picture somewhere of a 5-year-old baby me with the flag.

[Leofric]

The first news event I remember was Apollo 11 landing on the moon, I watched it in the basement rec room  with my family when I was 4.  But it was exciting, not a concern.

The first i event i cared about would be the breakup of the Beatles a year later, as I had been listening to them my whole life due to my older brothers and sisters being fans.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

The first War in Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom(?). I remember setting on the couch with my Dad and him telling me, "The world has changed son, when we can watch bombs being dropped and ride along with Hummers in Iraq." And not really knowing what he meant by that. Dad(really my Grandfather) fought in Korea, and later pointed back to that moment when all of the war crimes started coming out in the next Iraq war. He thinks shit happens in war, none of it good. It's not a place for civilians, media or otherwise and we shouldn't be able to watch it on our TV.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Berlin Wall coming down and the Gulf War were things that I remember. But didn't really care about .  The OJ Simpson  trials, however, were larger than life for me.  I wrote a play about it for my seventh grade social studies class where Cato Caylynn (sp?), Rosa Lopez, and Al Cowlings were the main characters.  

 

9/11 was the "world has changed" moment for me. It was my second week of college and I could see the Pentagon smoking from my floor of the dorm, which was st 1900 F street , about a quarter mile from the white house.  My room number was 911 and I'm not superstitious busonetbas something you dont forget.

[Elder Sister]

I am going to show my age here, but John Lennon's death hurt my heart.  

Also, I remember hearing that pop rocks and cola would make my stomach explode and that totally freaked me out.  I was in second grade, and even then, was chasing the hard news stories.

[Sir Thursday]

For me I think it was probably the Rwandan genocide. I remember seeing it on the news alongside something about the Balkans and thinking it was weird that Bosnia and Rwanda were so far apart given that they both had wars going on (I wasn't very old at the time, I guess). 

The first news event that I ever really talked about at school was the Clinton impeachment proceedings...somehow I managed to come out of that with no idea what a 'blowjob' was - I guess the teacher did a good job of covering our ears :P.

ST

[Teng Ai Hui]

For me, it was the Reagan-Mondale election of 1984. I'm ashamed to remember that 10 y/o me found it hilarious that those evil Democrats carried only D.C. and Minnesota.