5 October 1974: Guildford pub bombings: IRA bombs exploded in two pubs frequented by off-duty British military personnel. Four soldiers and a civilian were killed and 44 injured.
Challenger and Chernobyl, as they happened within a few months.The shape of the Challenger cloud will be forever seered into my brain. And after Chernobyl we had to seek cover immediately when it started to rain and weren’t allowed to play on grass, I’ll always remember that sense of unease. We also had two young kids from the Ukraine in our home for a while. Thinking back on that I feel so bad for them. They were so far from home and communication only worked through a paper dictionary. They didn’t shower for a while because they were told water was very expensive. Somehow their hovercraft was full of eels.
OJ
Probably the Iranian Revolution.
For myself that would be 9/11. I remember being confused when the teacher put it on the tv. Thought we were watching an action movie.
I remember being upset that all of the other classes got to watch it. We heard from friends in other classes that an attack had happened and they were all watching TV now. My teacher refused to put it on, and kept teaching as usual until parents started showing up to pull their kids out of school early.
Thinking back, it’s probably good that we didn’t watch it; We were only 8 years old, after all. All my friends in the other classes watched the second plane hit and saw towers fall live, while I only got the recap.
I’m trying to remember something big before 9/11. I was 9 years old and I feel like I should remember at least one news story before then, but I guess that’s basically the first thing that got enough attention to really leave an impression. Not to mention literally everything changing after that
We wanted to watch our daily dose of Pokémon at a friend’s house but there was only a stupid movie of planes flying in skyscrapers on TV. When we wanted to complain about this to his grandfather he was watching the same movie and told us to go. So we decided the TV must be broken and played on his N64 instead. It wasn’t until next day in school I learned that the “movie” was real
Michael Jackson’s hair catching fire.
2004 Tsunami in Thailand
9/11. I was in school and my teacher wheeled the TV cart in. She was an absolute wreck doing so because her husband left that morning for an interview in tower 1. Due to the phone traffic being so busy she couldnt reach him. Luckily he was running late because of traffic and had to drive far enough away before he could call her.
Where did you grow up? I was in 4th grade in Fairfield county and we had soooo many stories like that, both tragic and miraculous. Missed trains, traffic, sick kids, but also people that otherwise wouldn’t have been there but for a thing that day, interview, meeting. Thankfully our elementary school did an amazing job with a media blackout, teachers that couldn’t remain composed were swapped for those that could, we were all given a sheet to bring home explaining that we hadn’t been told anything yet. But it really quickly became obvious that something terrible had happened, kids getting picked up for no reason, every fire truck in town screaming down the highway, the fucking jets flying over. Apparently the highschool didn’t do a good job containing things and tons of kids just left, some to try to get to the city where their parents worked. Didn’t learn about that until years later. I remember standing on the beach the next day watching the smoke rise over Long Island Sound
I think for me, it would be the Fukushima catastrophe. I was 8 at the time and I remember my school doing a donation event for it.
I remember seeing a story about a bombing in Lisbon (Portugal) and being concerned because I had an Aunt in Lisbon (Ohio)
The picture is Walter Cronkite, but I couldn’t tell you what he’s reporting on here. Best guess is JFK assassination, just because that’s probably the most famous thing.
I think Wałęsa winning presidential elections. But I just kind of remember it happening and people talking about it, not actually seeing it on TV. It’s really hard to say what was the first live broadcast I remember. Fire in shipyard in Gdańsk happened in 1994, so when I was 10, but there was a song about it so maybe I remember it from the music video and not news from the day?
Elvis Presley’s death.
Middle East wars (which doesn’t really pin down a timeframe)
ERA (which does)
I remember seeing Yasser Arafat on TV.
