Easy, JFK’s assassination. I was 4, came in from the yard and found my mom and a neighbor were sitting at the kitchen table, crying. I asked what was wrong, and she said someone had shot the president.
After that, I remember being irritated that all my favorite TV shows were blocked by news coverage for days.
and then a few months later:
86 was a big year
The Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The Collapse. All the news agencies were calling it the “Resentment” for some reason. They were arguing about if some of the lower order dimensions would survive or not when all the aerovets went dark.
I looked out to see it approaching our crecheworld.
Space collapsing in fifteen dimensions is terrifyingly beautiful in its own way.
It was a weird childhood, I was 8 when Obama was installed as president. I remember people talking about George Bush Jr and the wars he started in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda. Big gap in between Obama’s presidency and then 2012 shooting of Sandy Hook. And abt every school shooting of the 2010s after that sadly. Also I really want to vote for Mitt Romney but I was 12 and brainwashed by my parents. Now that I’m on a form of obamacare I don’t remember any issues with him. I would re-elect for a third term
Watched the Challenger explosion live in kindergarten.
Core memory for a whole generation
Wild choice for a rocket launchpad.
yup. we were going to watch the teacher (McCaullif?) and they wheeled the TVs in for the launch. Then they didn’t know what to do until the principal went from class to class telling the teachers to unplug and we all got free time!
Sack of Rome by Alaric and the Visigoths. All over the news.
9-11 coverage and the second plane live on TV in elementary school
The destruction of the Berlin wall, and uniting of west- and east Germany.
the “wir sind das volk” chants still sending chills down my spine. what a great moment for humanity.
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.
The husband’s delay in calling in might also have been caused by Verizon’s telephone network being temporarily overloaded. I remember trying to call my family that morning and only getting a message saying “all circuits are busy now”.
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
Challenger exploding, closely followed by Chernobyl exploding. I’m sure inbetween there were parts of London exploding. And after that, Pan Am 103 exploding. The 80s were a wild time.
Challenger is my first, followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union
l also had Chernobyl in mind at first. It was a big thing, as it affected life as a kid in Europe directly.
But then I remembered all the news stories surrounding the Anti-Pershing protests.
These were in 1983, the year in which humanity perhaps was closest to complete annihilation ever.Yes, the 80s were wild.
Oh, right the protests against nuclear rearmament in Europe. I was actually part of the “human chain” demo, somewhere between Ulm and Neu-Ulm. Together with my teddy, which got us photographed for the regional newspaper.
Wow, that is actually really cool!
So maybe I’ve seen you on TV 40 years ago, as I totally remember the human chain!
I think it was the first time I heard of “Neu-Ulm”, and since then the name has always been somehow connected with the helicopter images of the protests for me.
1986 was wild. Chernobyl, Challenger, Olaf Palme assassination and Jakomäki Bank Robbery/Mikkeli hostage crisis that ended up in big car explosion seen on tv.
I only remember it because they wheeled out the TV’s in the middle of school to watch it. Why did they do that?
Because teacher Christa McAuliffe was onboard. I believe they previously broadcast earlier shuttle launches, but by 1986 they were no longer novel; putting a teacher onboard who was planning to teach some lessons in space made educators more interested and so many schools pulled out the TVs to show the launch live. Turned out to be a different kind of education than they expected.
JFK assassination.
User name checks out. Greetings old friend!
I actually remember seeing Haley’s Comet. I want to live long enough to blah blah blah, but really I just wanna see that stupid thing again before I go. Feels like a decent bookend, ya know?
Mount St. Helens.
Having a hard time with this question, but yeah, that’s an early memory. I just thought it was exciting that a volcano blew up in America! Had no concept of the devastation, but I do remember ash raining down hundreds of miles away. Was bummed we didn’t get any in Tulsa. :)
When the Berlin Wall came down
