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.
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.
Challenger is my first, followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union
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.
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.
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.
9-11 coverage and the second plane live on TV in elementary school
and then a few months later:
86 was a big year
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
Princess Diana’s death, for sure. I remember my mother being absolutely distraught, and I didn’t understand why. We’re not British and I’d literally never hear of her (from my mother or otherwise) before her passing and funeral were news. The funeral took place in the middle of the night and I remember her being up super early to watch (and I eventually woke up and joined her).
I’m surprised it was 1997, I would have figured it was '95ish. Can’t believe that’s the first news story I can remember. But we definitely were NOT a news household. Nobody reading the newspaper, no local news on at night or cable TV news on TV all day.
Mine was Desert Storm, but somehow this post unlocked a core memory for me. I remember exactly what I was doing when it was announced she died - I was playing Quake, E2M1 near the start of the level when my mum tapped me on the shoulder.
I wish I could remember other things this easily, lol
A lot of American women really admired her, my wife included. She was heartbroken at her death. We stayed up all night watching it.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Desert Storm, in small part because my dad was in the AF and deployed to Saudi Arabia. It was pretty much all the news for the short amount of time that actual hostilities were occurring.
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
I don’t think I have a single clear memory of any news story ever. I have vague half-remembered snippets.
The best I can do is 9/11 but I was well into my teens at that point, and even then my memory of the news itself isn’t clear.
I remember what my local news anchor looked like. That’s absolute it.
Middle East wars (which doesn’t really pin down a timeframe)
ERA (which does)
Probably the Iranian Revolution.
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.
I dislike that my brain went with Milli Vanilli and not something like the berlin wall…
Can you believe they lip synched on live TV!? What fraudsters!
The first moon landing
